When making a game purely from scratch, could something in 2D (with about the graphical equivalent of, for example the 2D Zelda games for Gameboy) be made entirely with C++, or do all games like that require something else, because I really don't understand Direct X and I'd really prefer not to mess with something like that when it comes to just making games for pure amusement and not for serious business. Sorry about this probably being a really stupid and easy question, but I'm just confused by all of the talk about Direct X and such...I'm thinking that's mainly for 3D though, which I don't need or care about really.

Going back to the 2D game though, would it run relatively quickly, and be fairly playable and at least nice looking for 2D using only the C++?