Since Koji Kondo has done so many Zelda soundtracks, it’s easy to assume he also wrote the music for Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. However, it was composed by Akito Nakatsuka, who also wrote the music for Excitebike, Ice Climber, and Clu Clu Land. Once again, the title theme shines with the extra audio channel.

Listening Party – Zelda II: The Adventure of Link Title Theme

[Bryan] One thing I thought was cool about that is that you see those notes that are just like a little checkered pattern. Is that a common trick, Thomas?

“Yeah, absolutely. There are two ways to do it. You either put the notes right next to each other like that or you can also bake it directly into the instrument, like, tell the program you’re writing in to say, ‘This is going to have this heavy vibrato.’”
— Thomas 

“I’m jealous of everybody that got to hear that. You notice on the FDS channel on the far right there, they’re having a delay for that little intro lick. It’s literally the same thing, you see two notes. It starts single note and then they’re using a delay. I love that. One’s a little bit quieter. It’s an absolute trick. You have to put a lot of effort into managing to make these instruments sound like real-life things. With all of the restrictions it’s the most impressive part. If I think it sounds like a whistle or a bell, they’re doing something right. They pulled it off. It’s really hard.”
— Thomas