This game is good, but Zelda belongs on the original format.
You are Link, a hero who saved the kingdom of Hyrule from the evil Ganon in your previous adventure. However, now you are sixteen years old, and by this time, many of Ganon's followers were able to respawn. Now Princess Zelda is cursed and will sleep forever unless if you finds a way to break the curse. On top of that, many monsters are after your blood, because that is the key to reviving Ganon. That is why whenever you die, on the Game Over screen, it says, "Return of Ganon." Trust me, you'll see this screen a lot in this game. Anyways, now you are on a quest to find the different temples and defeat the monsters there to help you break the curse. The story is still pretty simplistic, but a little bit more interesting than in Zelda 1. Also, another good difference from Zelda 1 is that you will run into many villages with a bunch of characters whom you converse with. This was another good step up the ladder for Zelda.
The way this game works is completely different. You go sidescrolling in temples, villages, battles. Then you do move around on the world map, just like any RPG. There is like a main road on the map, and if you stay on it, enemies won't attack you. However, if you take so much as one step of the road, then enemies will come chasing after you. On the map, they look like little black blobs. If you hit them, you go onto the sidescrolling battle screen, where enemies attack you. To get out of it, just go out from either side, killing any enemies in your path. Fighting is pretty simple. You just stab enemies with your sword, and if you have full health, you can shoot beams. Your health, unlike all the other Zelda games, is a red bar, and same with your magic, which is white. In battle, you can also cast spells which you need to find. Whenever you kill enemies, you get experience (kind of like points in Super Mario Bros). When you get enough points, you level up, increasing one of your stats. However, if you die, you lose all your experience. As for the save system, it's not that convenient. In order to save you must die. However, if you're like me, than the save system won't be much of a problem.
Ah yes, the one aspect of this game that turned many fans around. The difficulty. It is just simply extremely hard. This is by far the hardest Zelda game. Death is something that can happen frequently for many of us. Some of the enemies are weak, but even if there's a bunch of them, they do gang up on you, and some are hard to hit. There are also lots of strong enemies. There aren't really any puzzles in this game, however it's annoying when you fight your way hard to a place, only to turn around and go in the other direction because you need a key. I can almost guarantee you that they won't be making future Zelda games this hard, ever.
Some other good improvements from the original Zelda are graphics and sound. It is certainly much more detailed and more colorful in this game than in the previous Zelda. It just all simply looks much better. The graphics still aren't top class, even for it's time, but they are an improvement. As for the sounds, there is more music, and it's all quite memorable. I still can perfectly remember the temple music. Again, just like the graphics, they are not sensational, but are much better from the predecessor.
This game does have an average length. Six temples, and they do take a bit of time to do. Though it's not an extremely long game at all. Another step down from the original Legend of Zelda is that this game is more linear. Ofcourse, not as linear as many other games for hte NES, but much more linear than it's NES older brother. There may be a few options for gamers for more of a challenge (this does not apply to me or many others), like not get some spells for example. However, the quality in this department does not match the Legend of Zelda. It is not a very bad thing, though you can't deny that i's a step down the ladder.
Overall, this is a very different Zelda game, with a few improvements, and a few disimprovements. The whole system was changed. Not a real bad thing, but I'm sure many people would prefer the original Zelda format. Which is just some good old platforming. The system itself was good, with just a few minor flaws. A lot of people thought that the difficulty level was raised a little too high. Some good improvements were with the graphics and sound. They also took out the non-linear gameplay aspect out, which is a definite pitfall from the prequel. In the end, this is a good game, but we'd all love for Zelda to stay with what it began.
The Good: graphic and sound improvements; more characters and towns; still a pretty fun Zelda game.
The Bad: strays away too much from the series' original format; save system could be better; a little too challenging for many gamers; making the game more linear is no-good, especially with how non-linear the Legend of Zelda was