Overview
- Quotes republished this week from old interviews show Shigeru Miyamoto calling Zelda II “sort of a failure” and saying A Link to the Past is the true follow-up to the original.
- He said Zelda II began as his idea but was developed by another team at Nintendo.
- Miyamoto added that his games normally improve during development, yet Zelda II did not change much, which shaped his view of its quality.
- A 1994 Q&A also recalls that Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda were built at the same time, with Mario programmers drafted in to help finish Zelda.
- He explained that the first Zelda used Japan’s Famicom Disk System to add save files, better sound, and player name entry, which allowed a larger, more exploratory design focused on controller-driven play rather than dialogue-heavy RPG mechanics.