I never really played the Zelda series much as a kid growing up

For collecting the Link Dolls, i know that once you collect them they will disapear an cannot collect it again. After i collect one, will my 1 Up count reman increased? IE will i start all the future seesion wth 4 lives insead of 3?

The extra life is just for the current game; new games always start with 3 lives. I usually try to save a few dolls and collect them right before going to the final palace.

I agree with Cutman, save those extra lives, getting to the final temple and fighting through it is really rough.

Like these guys, I've always saved em for the end.

ok, so basically don't collect them until the final palace?

Also, will the dolls be "saved" if I save my game by using the save shortcut, by holding UP and A on the second controller? I use this a lot, instead of just dying off to save my current game progress.

Yes, save ALL 1-ups until you're ready to take on the Great Palace. And here's another tip that most don't know/realize...after you defeat each boss, do NOT plug the crystal in. You see each crystal plug in gives you an automatic bid for the next upgrade and you don't want to waste them on low levels of experience points. Wait until you're six upgrades or less from having all 8's on your sword/heart/magic levels and THEN go back and plug in the crystals. Really does make things a LOT easier but I bet not one Nintendo Power or other strategery guide of the day (or even most text guides now!) ever mentioned it. Sort of like in Castlevania 2 where hardly anyone mentions how it's useless to get the Thorn Whip for 100 hearts when the Chain Whip (150 hearts, 2x Thorn Whip, 4x Leather Whip) is not much further away.

Nope.  Once you save after collecting any of the 1-Ups, it's just like the old playground saying...black black, no trades back!

Come to think of it, those Link dolls are an enormous tease of a brighter future within the game, aren't they?

I'll never forget when a friend of mine's Zelda II glitched out during a save and corrupted the sword strength data to a zero. This caused the sword to kill everything in one hit, including the final bosses.

aren't there only like 5 of those things in the game?

I think there's only 4 -- in the swamp, by the graveyard, over by the sea and in the Great Palace itself.

There are 6 - 2 in each continent, 1 in palace 6, and 1 in the Great Palace. Although if you're stocking up for the run to the Great Palace, you should probably only get three - the one in the eastern swamp is hard to get without dying.

I had forgotten about the one in the 3 Rock Palace. I'm not entirely sure I've ever gotten the one in the eastern swamp.

Jesus, I never thought to do this. I beat the game like a true champ.