Before the pandemic we had a small group of Nintendo fans at work who would gather each lunch to play through various NES games together and discuss what made them work or not. As a game developer who grew up with SNES it was a very nice way to experience the generation I missed.
It was a lot of fun and I hope to get back to it once we aren't all remote anymore.
Unsurprisingly, the one I liked the most was the original Zelda. Its sequel, Zelda II: Adventure of Link, is fascinatingly weird.
As soon as you mentioned Zelda II, I figured an overstatement about how either great or terrible it is was coming. "Fascinatingly weird" is probably the best description I've heard of this rough-around-the-edges game that I love :)
I still think the original Zelda is one of the best Zeldas. Yeah, it was the game that got me obsessed with video games as a kid (so heavy nostalgia factor there), but it's still pretty expansive as far as simple games go and the artwork is pleasing while leaving plenty of room to use your imagination.
The way we chose which to play was mainly through civil discussion about what we have been wanting to try or revisit as well as which games inspired or were inspired by what we played last.
As for who holds the controller: we usually took turns, switching to whomever was most eager whenever we died.
It was a lot of fun and I hope to get back to it once we aren't all remote anymore.
Unsurprisingly, the one I liked the most was the original Zelda. Its sequel, Zelda II: Adventure of Link, is fascinatingly weird.