Its referred to as the "Dark Sheep?" Never heard it called that before.

It was mostly hated by fans because it took away from The Legend Of Zelda (the first game) so quickly. It kept the overhead view but it had no hearts, heart pieces, and you had to level up which sort of threw off people. It wasn't a typical style of Zelda the people knew, even though there was only one game out before, they were totally thrown off by the level up/side scrolling fighting part of Adventure Of Link.

It sort of takes from Super Mario Bros. with the side scrolling and Final Fantasy with the leveling up.

I sort of liked it. After you got past the leveling up it had a good storyline. A wizard puts a princess asleep because he can't get the Triforce Of Wisdom to revive Ganon (or something like that) and a hero comes to save the land unknowingly.