Finished
After the first one that was cute, but uninspired and a bit empty beside the great dungeons, it's good to see a follow up that improves so much. It keeps the nice dungeons and make them less linear and a bit more like pre-1998 Zelda (when a lot of them really started to be a long corridor - which is not always a problem, but made some games like TP a bit dull) forcing you to look around for the way to go, but with the slight downside of making bosses easier and mechanically a bit more limited. They did put at least two of them per dungeon, at least? The item list is much larger, too, even if it's all really Zelda, including an instrument to play different songs... and one of them even calls your horse (or pig, if you so choose). Bit on the nose.
The real winner is the game world which is far more interesting, with tons of hidden chests, cave puzzles, and even mini dungeons of a few rooms each... even the map chunks are better and more linked together with frequent secrets hidden if you look around. And it's not only for heart/magic pieces too, the game has multiple collection side quests rewarding melee skills or the magic medallions like the original handed over too easily for little work.
They also thankfully changed the potion system that now works like empty bottles in Zelda (although you still have too many for the game to be really challenging) instead of a stackable consumable... no more finishing the game with 50 potions of "I win". It also means there's tons of materials to pick up on the ground or from enemies to make said potions, but also to complete little side quests, and it does help a bit when you go from "get 20 of the 1 kill item that drops on everything in the area" to "get different seashells, one of them is only on beaches", little changes that help recontextualize and add much needed variety. They also added fishing, and... yeah that one is a bit annoying (and weirdly story relevant), but it's not in the way.
Really enjoyable Zelda clone, one of the really good ones on Steam. If you're not looking for more than a pure Zelda
clone, because it sure isn't trying to be anything else...