What is, in your opinion, the best Zelda? I obviously put LttP right up there at the top, but I don’t understand all the hype over OOT, much less MM. Skyward Sword was pretty dope but people hate it.
pic related
zelda games r 4 nerds XDDD
0wn3d
Wind Waker. I find it incredibly difficult to get into playing OoT and MM, but I always enjoy playing Wind Waker.
In this order:
Wind Waker
Minish Cap
A Link Between Worlds
Oracle of Seasons
Oracle of Ages
Link's Awakening
Spirit Tracks
Twilight Princess
Phantom Hourglass
A Link to the Past
The Adventure of Link
Ocarina of Time
Majora's Mask
The Legend of Zelda
Four Swords Adventure
Four SwordsI haven’t played Skyward Sword. If you want to include spin-offs: Hyrule Warriors would be at the top of the list, and I haven’t played the Tingle games or Link’s Crossbow Training.
The people who hate Skyward Sword are game critics and people who haven’t played the game. I’ve been watching someone play it on Twitch and it doesn’t look as bad as people make it seem.
Here’s my small list:
Wind Waker
A Link to the Past
Link's Awakening
The Legend of Zelda
The Adventure of LinkWind Waker is by far my favorite, I got hooked on it right away and started a new game right after finishing the first and got quite far in that second game. I love how I warped to the wrong location once and ended up at a huge fairy’s fountain. The underwater castle is beautiful. It truly is a great game and the aesthetics are lovely. I don’t understand people who whined about it on the Internet; maybe they like their games to make them feel depressive?
Lttp is childhood memories, I’m tired of it frankly but I can’t rank it lower than second since it’s one of the games I’ve played most often. Link’s Awakening was really interesting. Zelda I and II I’ve never finished but not because they’re bad… they’re too hard and kinda scarce, on 1 I dropped the game when I realized I needed the second ring but couldn’t get it after so many tries (those damn monsters you can only damage from behind!!). On 2 I played mainly to replace my mom’s game I accidentally deleted but dropped it when I learned I needed every magic upgrade to get a magic I absolutely needed but couldn’t remember which one I forgot. Which REALLY sucks from a game.
I’ve also played Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask and OoT Master’s Quest but not enough to scale them. Skyward Sword deserves a special mention though, I dropped it because the first challenge where you need to prove yourself was too stressful. My heart was almost skipping beats.
BTW, Zelda: Parallel Worlds is a very hard and complete romhack of LttP, for the curious. I’ve just heard about it.
EDIT:
Skyward Sword did feel scarce (I don’t know how else to name that) and I’ve heard there’s a flying beetle with really frustrating mechanics. A friend of mine dropped the game because that made her mad. It also looks like from the beginning that it’s going to be really linear, which we are not used to from Zelda games. That could possibly be lazy design turned into a level game with some cosmetics to hide it/make it feel zelda-ish. And that could be why it’s “disliked”/trolled about.
- Majora’s Mask
- Wind Waker
- Ocarina of Time
- A Link To The Past
- Oracle of Ages / Seasons
- Link’s Awakening
- Twilight Princess
- The Legend of Zelda
- The Adventure of Link
- Minish Cap
- Phantom Hourglass
___Merged doublepost__________________
Parallel Worlds is excellently done. Much, much harder than ALTTP. Definitely worth a play through.
I’ve actually only played aLTTP and Minish Cap. Never finished aLTTP either.
You guys probably aren’t any bit surprised by that.
About that pic, it really seems to be what happened… people generally dislike the change and come to like it once something new comes out from Miyamoto.
I’ve always liked his view on game design though, he’s really seeing them at their core. From what I read, (can’t cite, I don’t even remember where I read that) when he creates a game he goes like “ok, we’ve done such mechanics, no point rehashing them in a new game”. So he invents new mechanics. He’s not exactly a game designer but more like a game mechanic designer which makes for really inventive things like Mario Galaxy. When you think about it, most of his games are about new mechanics.
Zelda 1, “ok we’ve done the moving picture thing that can fight other moving pictures”. Then he came up with Zelda 2 “ok, now we have a sidescrolling moving picture that can fight other moving pictures AND he can do magic”. Mario 1, “ok we have a platformer”. Mario 2 Jap, “ok we have a platformer with luigi behaving differently” [The fact that the differences were so small is my interpretation why we got Doki Doki Panic in America, might not be 100% the reason but I’m sure it put a good weight on the decision]. Mario 3 “ok now he has power ups, can fly, pick up things etc etc”. Sometimes now he falls under the pressure and releases something like 4 swords but hey, never ever a sellout… that game had more breakthrough mechanics we’ve never seen anywhere else before. Minish Cap kinda falls short and reuses mechanics from 4 swords, Link’s awakening and LttP with added mechanics that are limp in comparison to what he makes usually, mostly graphical but I wouldn’t be surprised he didn’t work on that game.
EDIT:
When he leaves we will have lost probably the greatest game designer of all time.
Editedit:
Seen how he’s so proud of Pikmin? Completely new mechanics, that’s why. I’m not a fan of that game but man how often do we see something almost completely built from the ground up? Rarely, I think. Tetris is superior in terms of inventive mechanics but Miyamoto really pulled a great trick out of his hat right there. He really doesn’t come across as the type who thinks everything’s been made, he’s impressive and an inspiration.
Editeditedit:
Can he be compared to anyone in the creative arena? [surely but I’d really like to read names] Often, we’ll see a person release 1 game with new mechanics and get stale… like how bands usually have only one really good song. I usually think “everyone has their one great song in their minds they can create” but this man right here… he really knows how to invent.
Editediteditedit:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/shigeru_miyamoto.html
These quotes aren’t like the one I read but most reflect that mindset.
The developers from Nintendo have always been out of touch with fans. They constantly cry about the complaints they get and went so far as to remove casual content from Smash Bros to get at hardcore fans for looking at their leaked cut-scenes. Most people are going to tell you that their first Zelda was the best anyway.
Wind Waker was embarrassingly incomplete, the empty ocean was their filler salvation. Thankfully they pushed Skyward Sword back for what seemed like years instead of pulling that shit again. Otherwise I thought all of the console Zelda games were great.
Miyamoto isn’t a genius, he’s just been making games since the late 70’s. Modern society is so focused on consumption that we give all kinds of authority to people we assign competence or celebrity status to. If you want to really understand game design just start from the late 70’s and work forward cloning games and making your own variations like Miyamoto did.
I think I played every Zelda game for 30 minutes before giving up.
Zelda has always been an innovative series. Every new console Nintendo comes out with, Zelda tries to exploit the powers of the console by using gimmicks in the games.
Zelda 1: First open world game with dungeons and monsters, one of the first games to use a save feature
Zelda 2: Sidescroller like Mario that combined platforming with tricky RPG
Zelda 3: Open world, more RAM, so now we can use the Mirror to go between worlds, LOTS of new items that can exploit the SNES’ new strengths
Zelda OOT: Extremely Open World, we now have our items on the C-Buttons, first 3D Zelda which means that they wanted to focus on building a strong 3D world as a gimmick for this game, which is why it is so popular
Zelda MM: I don’t know why this one exists to be honest. I guess they wanted to stress scenario this time more than gimmicks. The only thing I can comment on here is the usage of masks which is unique to the game.
Zelda WW: “How open can we go?” Apparently a lot of people thought it was too open based on what Various said. They must’ve been stuck in the instrument rut if they brought the system back in the form of a conductor’s baton. Oh well. Gimmicks this time are celshaded graphics to test the GPU on the GC, large open maps, and use of the C-Stick instead of C-Buttons + Others to make your spells.
Zelda TP: “Alright guys that was wayyy too open apparently. Lets give them a tiny map this time to remind them how far we’ve come since OOT” in which they packed a lot of secrets into, just like in aLttP. New gimmicks are the wolf, the bloom graphics engine, and WiiMotion for the sword. Other honorable mentions go out to the static panels that can move around on the map in active time (like the factory level) while still being able to lift Link off the ground if he’s got boots. A major improvement in game flow. Personally I liked this one because switching between wolf Link and adult Link had its strengths and weaknesses. I found wolf Link to be really strong and supported my playing style better.
Zelda SS: “Okay guys, they hated Twilight Princessu let’s just return to the roots. We’re gonna make this one about gameplay through and through this time.” And they did. With the added WiiMotion+ installed in most Wiimotes, they had free reign to fuck around with that. With which they made the Beetle, the Sword, and even the harp you use in the bar, run off of that gimmick. Other notable features are the improvement system, the large maps (super large) that didn’t suffer from texture degrade when you looked too far away, or got too close to the edge of the map (which I was disappointed to find out there WAS an edge…). Most people seem to hate it because they suck at using WiiMotion+. I loved it. The bamboo cutting minigame, the parachute drop, fights with Ghirahim, they were all so much more epic because they attempted to immerse you in it by giving you Link’s right hand.
Zelda has always been about Gimmicks, and I can’t really comment on the 2D ones because yes they do have to copy things, but it’s more like a rolling snowball. LttP took from Zelda 1 a lot, 4 Swords Adventure improved on that, and then Minish Cap went and built a castle on top of that. I hate A Link Between Worlds because it seemed lazy and the use of the 3D gimmick was terrible, considering it’s a 3DS game. OOT used the Gyro sensors in the 3DS a million times better than LBW. Overall it was just a weak game.
edit: “merged double post” lol no
I couldn’t say which one i think is best, but I’ll make a list of which games I’ve played the most, to least.
Oracle of Ages
Oracle of Seasons
alttp
Minish Cap
Links Awakening
I never had any of the consoles after the snes so I haven’t played the 3D games much
The handheld games are so good, but for w/e reason people hate GameBoys. shrug
majoras mask
the oracles
lttp
oot
twilight princess
the only zelda games i can actually play. cant play those DS versions, WW or skyward sword i just think they suck honestly
I found the GBA LttP port better on handheld for some reason.
Link’s Awakening was the first game I ever got for my gameboy color, and I spent sooo much time playing it.
Oracle of Ages and Seasons improved the gameplay even more, and added in the cool time period switching / season changes, and then in a genius move that I wish every 2 pokemon games would do now, linked them both into a larger story all together.
Fun times. Oracle of Ages has my second favorite soundtrack, next to Windwaker.
The one with Four Swords, right?
I just like playing stuff on my handheld consoles. It’s nice being able to play anywhere. I own Tales of the Abyss on PS2 and bought the 3DS port even though it’s the same exact game. I got the HD remake of FFX/X-2 on my Vita, too.
Yeah. I dunno what it is about it, it just feels funner to play than its SNES equivalent.
and yeah I agree. Portable gaming is seriously under rated.