I'd never even seen this game before! Zelda 2 is my very favorite Zelda game to re-play, and I saw this mentioned in a list of games similar to it.
The game bounces back and forth between a Zelda style top down action exploration game and an auto scrolling shoot 'em up. Both are great and a lot of fun. The music is good, the graphics are great, the game is hard but fair (so far), the main character is flippin awesome, a cyborg who transforms into a spaceship. There's tons of weapons and rooms to explore.
The biggest drawback is the password system is atrocious, but hey, we have save states nowadays.
Did anyone here play this a lot growing up? Can you beat it?
Well, the Game Boy is my favorite, so I was really excited to get Battle of Olympus, probably the most Zelda II game for Game Boy. Just reading the instruction manual I was like, this is Zelda! It appears to be a direct port of the NES game.
But if you just want more Zelda II, I recommend loading up some of the incredible rom hacks, some of which are entirely new games!
https://www.romhacking.net/?page=hacks&category=&platform=&game=753&perpage=20&order=&title=&dir=&hacksearch=Go