One of the guys on here writes Zelda type games. JDarling.

Check out his PGD2007 entry for an example: http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/v4/PGD07/index.php

The Jumpstart engine might be the way to go, I've not used it personally. I couldn't tell you if it's easy to pick up or not.. but he's put a lot of work into it so it should be fairly complete.

I don't know where where your skills lie, Art, Coding, AI.. or what level you're at..

The other guys have already given some good advice if you're just starting out and if that's the case, I'd heartily suggest that you start small as they say.

The reason is, we've All done it, started over ambitious projects only to have our hearts broken by seeing them fail. it really is soul destroying.

If you've got some skill though, then I'd pick up an existing engine and make your game if you can.

If you're an advanced programmer who doesn't mind doing everything from scratch in a way which best suits your game's requirements (assuming that they're different from all other 2D games and cannot be accommodated by any of the existing engines), then you should design and build your game engine and your game should work perfectly... after a few months, maybe a year.

Be prepared for a long slog. You'll spend most of your time getting your engine working properly and you may run out of steam for developing your game.

My next game will probably be a 3D, 3rd person adventure, platform, flight sim (I'm really taking this genre mixing to heart :lol but I'll be damned if I'm writing my own engine for it.. Nooo sir! I'm using pre-fab all the way. ready made physics, engine and libs.. I'll design it, write the story, make the graphics, sort out the sound and music and script the game, but I'm getting too old and too tired to tackle the entire code base. In the end, I want to write a game, not just another engine.

Best of luck to you, I'm sure we'll see more of you on here and don't be afraid to ask questions. Help is here if you want it.
But it is true, there are lots of people who want to write games and have absolutely no clue how to do it, they think it must be easy because games are easy to play or they look simple and they want to make a MMORPG as their first game.
Absolutely impossible.

My advice:

Write a design document first. Detail all aspects of your game.
Write down all of the concepts you'll need to fully understand before you even start. Don't underestimate the importance of design.
The only way I could complete my PGD game Crashblock on time was because I had a design which I stuck to (mostly) and refrained from adding additional features. (unless the gameplay demanded it)

I can seriously recommend this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Gameplay-desig...8378856&sr=8-1