And it's pretty rad so far! I wanted to give it a shot after Jeff and Brad had some stuff to say about it, and I'm glad I did. After a good long bit of wandering about and reading only the most barebones of outlines of the progression(getting magic in each town after doing a quest, level progression being saved, etc.) I finally got to what I assumed was the first "palace" and started going through it. Even though I wanted a pretty pure experience I did use a bit of "save scumming" since the Virtual Console gives that opportunity.

The palace was pretty basic in its challenges, though I did get pretty blown away by the sword and shield enemies that surprised me by blocking high and low and then slashing high and low. It was a reflex challenge I wasn't expecting from a NES game. Actually super impressive.

After finishing the dungeon and going back to wandering, I looked up the location of the first spell and where to get the Candle. Turns out it was in the palace I'd already gone to, which I couldn't know since I didn't see its name anywhere and I'm pretty sure an NPC told me that place was in another direction. Anyway, now I've got magic, can see in caves, and the entire world is in front of me.

Zelda 2 is pretty cool, you guys.

Yeah I want to play it on the 3ds but I'm waiting for a sale. In the meantime I'm trying my hand at Golvellius. Pretty strange playing such an old game that has multiple perspectives.

Zelda II gets a lot of shit, but I love it. Probably my 2nd most played Zelda game next to Link to the Past.

Cool, I like it too. Here's a couple of tips: Whenever you place a crystal in the statue after the boss you level up. Saving some of those statues to return to a bit later in the game can be helpful. The bosses won't respawn or anything. I usually grind a bit in the first dungeon, that's just me though.

Also remember to use the magic you get when you can. Shield, for instance, effectively doubles your health for a room and is among the cheapest spells. A good thing to recall when you run up against a room full of tough enemies.

There are a couple of things that are going to be hard to figure out on your own, especially later in the game. For some of it though the manual might help. Since you're playing it on Virtual Console that should be easy enough to eye through.