Don't act surprised like I'm the first to not care about MM. Time limits alone in a game where I would traditionally be exploring is enough to leave a bad taste in my mouth.
The three days act more like different time periods with slight changes in each day rather than a time limit tbh. Not only you can reset any time you want with very little drawbacks but by slowing it down, you have an enormous amount of time to fully explore a new area/do a dungeon. Besides events spanning three days like the sword quest and the couple's mask, pretty much every area/dungeon in the game can be covered in one day tops, and I like to take my time when I play. It's not like they turned Zelda into an arcade-style game based on time limits
The three days act more like different time periods with slight changes in each day rather than a time limit tbh. Not only you can reset any time you want with very little drawbacks but by slowing it down, you have an enormous amount of time to fully explore a new area/do a dungeon. Besides events spanning three days like the sword quest and the couple's mask, pretty much every area/dungeon in the game can be covered in one day tops, and I like to take my time when I play. It's not like they turned Zelda into an arcade-style game based on time limits
Don't act surprised like I'm the first to not care about MM. Time limits alone in a game where I would traditionally be exploring is enough to leave a bad taste in my mouth.
MM is good because of the 3-day system, not despite it.
You're not supposed to do everything in one go, and you can slow time or reset to day 1 anytime you want. How exactly does this inhibit exploration, again? You can spend a whole cycle just exploring, then go back to day one. Still not enough time to explore? Use another cycle to do so. Repeat as needed.
I've been on a Zelda kick lately so I'll play. Of what I've played:
9. Phantom hourglass
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8. Oracle of Ages
7. Wind Waker
6. Twilight Princess
5. Majora's Mask
4. Link's Awakening
3. A Link Between Worlds
2. Ocarina of Time
1. A Link to the Past
I love solving the folks in Termia problems with the Bombers Notebook. How many of the mask were useful and some let you transform completely. One of my favorite quest was helping Romani defend the Ranch from aliens.
I can understand why you hate the time limit but worse Zelda is crazy to me.
Control was not issue for ss. I played tp on Wii and it was fantastic. Ss lacked soul. Exploration was not there at all. Hated hub world. Bird was shit.
Tp was so epic on Wii.
I could not play mm due to time mechanism as well. I felt too much tension. Not fun.
Skyward Sword and Spirit Tracks are straight trash. TRASH I SAY!
Thinking about it now, Skyward Sword may be worse than Spirit Tracks.
The Imprisoned is garbage one time let alone THREE TIMES, Groose is in the running for worst Zelda side character, the Sky Keep was the worst end dungeon in the console game series, the mini-games are awful especially Pumpkin Pull, my Wiimote kept having to be re-calibrated, the list goes on.
But no, nothing is worse than Spirit Tracks.
I know picking Twilight Princess as my #1 is controversial. It's not the best quality wise, and isn't anywhere near the most original or innovative, but it's my most favorite because the friendship between Midna and Link really worked for me, and I really liked most of the dungeons.
My only other controversial choice is placing A Link Between Worlds before A Link to the Past, because I think the 3DS game is just more fun than the SNES game.
And I think the original Gamecube versions of Twilight Princess and Wind Waker are better than the Wii U remakes. The only addition I enjoyed was the improved camera feature in Wind Waker HD, that produced some fun shots that people posted on the Miiverse.
Will never take anyone that calls Skyward Sword trash seriously.
My rankings.
1. Wind Waker - The first game I ever played to give out a feel of adventure. Sailing the oceans was so great. Charming characters, world and general feel.
2. Skyward Sword - Best game of last gen. Amazing controls and level design. The whole sky world was amazing to explore with charming characters. Link and Zelda had a beautiful relationship in this game. Only issue is Fi and her constant bickering but easily ignored.
3. Ocarina of Time - Not much to say really. Still the best game of all time because of how revolutionary it was.
4. Twilight Princess - Amazing game really but just not as charming as the other ones.
I get that the weapon rental system wasn't everyone's cup of tea but I really don't think it took away from the fun of the game. Link Between Worlds is maybe my favorite Zelda next to Links Awakening.
Will never take anyone that calls Skyward Sword trash seriously.
My rankings.
1. Wind Waker - The first game I ever played to give out a feel of adventure. Sailing the oceans was so great. Charming characters, world and general feel.
2. Skyward Sword - Best game of last gen. Amazing controls and level design. The whole sky world was amazing to explore with charming characters. Link and Zelda had a beautiful relationship in this game. Only issue is Fi and her constant bickering but easily ignored.
3. Ocarina of Time - Not much to say really. Still the best game of all time because of how revolutionary it was.
4. Twilight Princess - Amazing game really but just not as charming as the other ones.
I don't think SS is trash at all, but then again Ocarina is far from the best game of all time. It may be among the most innovative, but it has been far surpassed. I say that as having just played it. N64 games are cool and all, but extremely dated.
I don't think SS is trash at all, but then again Ocarina is far from the best game of all time. It may be among the most innovative, but it has been far surpassed. I say that as having just played it. N64 games are cool and all, but extremely dated.
I love Spirit Tracks. It fixes all the shitty things about Phantom Hourglass, adds a cool mechanic with Zelda as your partner, and creates one of the most memorable worlds in the whole Zelda series. The train thing even leads to some incredibly cool moments that couldn't be done otherwise. And the end boss is genuinely hard.
Came in expecting the Oracle games to be low, but was pleasantly surprised. They're my personal favorites. Hard to explain why I like them so much other than they're just solid. Items are really fun, dungeons are interesting, and the world is great to explore. There's nothing in particular that stand out about them, but overall they're the most fun.
Weird to see Link's Awakening placed above them though. Having played them back-to-back I remember having a lot less fun with Link's Awakening.
Also, it's a crime to put Twilight Princess above Skyward Sword. Ugh. But I've argued this too often and don't feel like defending it again.
I never died during the game so I didn't have an issue with it, but I'm split on whether I like the get all weapons when you want them or do a dungeon get an item, better.
20. Phantom Hourglass
19. Spirit Tracks
18. Tri-Force Heroes
17. Four Swords
16. Twilight Princess
15. Hyrule Warriors
14. Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland
13. Skyward Sword
12. Four Swords Adventures
11. Ocarina of Time
10. The Legend of Zelda
9. Zelda II
8. A Link Between Worlds
7. Oracle of Seasons
6. The Minish Cap
5. Oracle of Ages
4. The Wind Waker
3. Link's Awakening
2. Majora's Mask
1. A Link to the Past
My Zelda playing history is weird. I played ALTTP when it came out, and after that I never played a Zelda game until Twilight Princess(on the Wii). I absolutely loved it. Freaking loved it. Since then I bought a lot of Zelda games to catch up. Skyward Sword I started liking, but I couldn't get into it because the motion controls just weren't working for me, I never got it figured out. The precise diagonal slashes just never worked for me, so I stopped early on.
Wind Waker HD felt outdated with new graphics, I didn't like it as much as Twilight Princess. Tried Ocarina of Time and that also felt so outdated do never finished that either. Then I struck gold with ALBW. Thought it was amazing. So based on my playing history and when I played them my top 3 are Twilight Princess, ALBW, ALTTP.
How is Twilight Princess generally received? I remember at the time people telling me it was split. Some loved it, some hated it. I found it so great.
This is true (for most games, fuck PH and ST). There may seem a giant gap in the number 1 and number 14 games, but all those game are worth your time and and are usually amongst the best game of their respective years. Truly the best game series around to this day.
It's split because it's a very 50/50 game. On the one hand, TP has the worst, ugliest, most barren overworld in the series and mediocre sidequests. On the other hand, it has lots of (somehwat) complex and diverse dungeons, which make up the other half of the game. If you play TP, play it for the dungeons, they're God-tier.
Alright, so note that this will be a very personal and maybe therefore controversial list, which I will later explain - also note that I have only scratched the surface of Zelda II and didn't play Oracle of Seasons nor Ages which I will therefore omit from this list.
1) Twilight Princess
2) Ocarina of Time
3) ALTTP
4) Majora's Mask
5) A Link between Worlds
6) The Wind Waker
7) Link's Awakening
8) Minish Cap
9) Skyward Sword
10) The Legend of Zelda
11) Spirit Tracks
12) Phantom Hourglass
So, first of all - I think if you had to name the single greatest Zelda game somewhat objectively it should probably be A Link to the Past, which is clever, dense, really balanced in difficulty, has so many secrets and probably also the best overworld. For me personally though it would be Twilight Princess. It is the great Zelda remix with a cool story, some truly beautiful places and argueably the most fun dungeons in the series! It's the Zelda game that I replayed the most!
I do like The Wind Waker, but I could never understand how people could place it all the way up! I mean, I do love the tone and feel of the game and how it encourages you to explore the world, but from an gameplay standpoint alone it's easily the most underwhelming 3D Zelda! You basically sail from one dungeon to another town, find the right person to talk to, press A, and the character will take you the next dungeon direction. Compare this to Skyward Sword were movement on the different worlds was a puzzle by itself or to Twlight Princess where you had to snowboard down a mountain in order to reach the next dungeon - there is NOTHING comparable in The Wind Waker, so even though I like the world and the looks I will never put it that high on a list like that.
Same goes for Majora's Mask - if I had to hand out a special award for the best story, atmosphere and overall mood in the franchise, I wouldn't hestitate to give this title to Majora's Mask. But because there are quite a few gameplay and design decisions that I can't wrap my head around and that are simply exhausting to play (getting all the eggs from the pirate bay or reaching the top level of the stone tower dungeon by replaying the elegy of emptiness again and again for example), I can't place it that high.
At least we can all agree that the DS Zeldas are crap! Even though I liked Spirit Tracks A LOT more than PH (especially the Soundtrack!).
Also a game [OOT] that has been thoroughly outclassed in every single way. The game doesn't have the weirdness MM had to set it apart, nor is any of the gameplay other than Z-targeting particularly great today.
I'm playing Ocarina of Time right now for the first time in like ... ten years? And I can't get over how good it still feels and how fun it is. Majora's Mask is great too, though.
Navi is actually more irritating than I remembered though. Like, Fi-level at points.
These lists are interesting because it clearly shows that people like different things about Zelda games. World exploration, side quests with interesting NPCs, and music are my favorite parts of Zelda games. I think Skyward Sword is an abomination.
Some high school anime story in the intro that drags on endlessly. Then you get out into the world and it's actually just Mario levels. Ridiculous forced minigames that take up hours. Really ugly environment textures. Unresponsive controls - could have put sword swing on a right analog stick. Bla bla.
But people regularly put it in their top favorites, so there must be something redeeming about it. It can't be exploration - maybe some people prefer linear adventures. Conversely, Legend of Zelda sometimes gets put near the top because it has that Dark Souls element.
I've said this before, but I bought SS on launch day, went as far as two dungeons and haven't picked it up since. The two biggest problems were the awful motion controls and the ugly, ugly graphics making it incredibly difficult to play (SS has the worst IQ for a AAA game I've ever seen). Even if somehow these issues were taken care of, the other aspects leave a lot to be desired. The overworld was not remotely fun to traverse, the story seemed low level animu grade, and Fi is probably the worst sidekick in existence.
To this day, SS is the only Zelda that I actually wanted to play that I have almost zero desire to get back to. A tiny part of me does want to beat the whole thing just to check out the (I'm pretty sure) superior dungeons, but I'm in no hurry at this point.
Every time I see this complaint, I'm legitimately baffled. Just because you have a groundhog day 3-day system, doesn't mean you're pressured to do all of your exploring in one shot. Not to mention, you have access to songs that help slow down time, thus giving you even more time to explore.
For a lot of us, time limits in general are very annoying. Even if you can theoretically do a lot of things in that timespan. Hell, I used the inverted song of time and I still ran out of time doing that horrendous egg collecting quest leading up to the Water Temple. And when you have to repeat something like that all over again, shit is the opposite of enjoyable.
No, what's truly baffling is all this talk about LttP being "primitive" and "clunky". What?? As much as I love OoT, at least I can understand when people make that complaint seeing as how it was the first 3D Zelda running on very early 3D tech. But LttP?? In what possible way does this apply? The jump from LoZ was utterly massive. It has beautiful graphics, tight controls, a killer soundtrack, a gigantic overworld with lots of shit to explore, and brilliantly designed and plentiful dungeons. The only major complaint is that Link's sword doesn't have much reach and you have to be super close to an enemy in order to hit them, but that doesn't hinder the overall experience in any way imo. It is probably the best 2D top down adventure game in existence.
The complaints against LttP are especially baffling given that it's usually said by people who view LA as superior, and that's something I will never understand. LA is LttP stripped down on every level except maybe story (if you're into that sort of thing). When I think of a primitive Zelda, this is the kind of game that I think of.
I have to ask... the last Zelda I played was Wind Waker (loved it). Is anyone worried about BotW considering it seems like Twilight and Skyward (two most recent games) are two of the lower ranked entries based off this thread?
I have to ask... the last Zelda I played was Wind Waker (loved it). Is anyone worried about BotW considering it seems like Twilight and Skyward (two most recent games) are two of the lower ranked entries based off this thread?
There have been several other Zeldas besides TP and SS since WW that have "got it". I don't think there's anything to worry about. The reason people don't like those Zeldas comes down to design decisions rather than incompetence.
If you just went off what you read on gaf, Final Fantasy X is an abomination that ruined the series, and Life is Strange is a masterpiece of the ages that sold 20m copies
It's a remake of OoT with some more modern sensibilities and worse pacing.
If you played it before OoT I can totally see you being much more enamored with TP than OoT. If like others you played it after OoT, it was just really derivative. There were some nice touches like Midna, but overall it had a lot of tedium because the world was so similar and it didn't have nice reversals like the Gerudo part of OoT.
I have to ask... the last Zelda I played was Wind Waker (loved it). Is anyone worried about BotW considering it seems like Twilight and Skyward (two most recent games) are two of the lower ranked entries based off this thread?
No I was definitely ready to write them off after SS. They went from 10 (OoT) to 9 (WW) to 8 (TP) to 7 (SS). If they were to release another game in that vein I would seriously consider whether I would give it a sufficient grade.
Great Bay Temple is the best water dungeon in 3D Zelda. Requires excellent use of lateral thinking and spatial understanding, and doesn't suffer the snail-crawl place of the Water Temple thanks to Zora Mask being better than the Boots. Only competition is TP's.
Majora's Mask has critically underrated dungeons. Stone Temple is a serious contender for series best, GBT is a best in category competitor, and Goht is GOAT. Only Woodfall is merely good as opposed to amazing.
1) Ocarina of Time
2) Link to the Past
3) Link Between Worlds
4) Wind Waker
5) Majora's Mask
6) Twilight Princess
7) Skyward Sword
8) Oracle of Ages/Seasons
9) Link's Awakening
10) The Legend of Zelda
11) Zelda 2: Adventure of Link
MM is good because of the 3-day system, not despite it.
You're not supposed to do everything in one go, and you can slow time or reset to day 1 anytime you want. How exactly does this inhibit exploration, again? You can spend a whole cycle just exploring, then go back to day one. Still not enough time to explore? Use another cycle to do so. Repeat as needed.
My friend used to be one of these people. Constantly told me how good it was in spite of the time limits (or because of them). I'd never played it, didn't like the idea of it.
We both played through the game together.
It was way worse than he remembered, and as bad as I expected. Yes of course we used the Inverted Song of Time, it didn't help.
It's less about not having to worry about it most of the time, and more about "god dammit I guess we don't have time to do that now, we were almost done with this part but now we gotta do our end-of-day maintenance, warp around, deposit things, start over, get back to where we were all over again..."
He thought it would be so easy to deal with the system, do it all in a couple of cycles. In reality, playing it casually, having forgotten a lot of the game, there was wayyy more starting over than expected. And it was always an interruption, a bother. Never a sense of joy that now we had to go start over again. It was something we dealt with and had to work around, not something to enjoy.
I've said this before, but I bought SS on launch day, went as far as two dungeons and haven't picked it up since. The two biggest problems were the awful motion controls and the ugly, ugly graphics making it incredibly difficult to play (SS has the worst IQ for a AAA game I've ever seen). Even if somehow these issues were taken care of, the other aspects leave a lot to be desired. The overworld was not remotely fun to traverse, the story seemed low level animu grade, and Fi is probably the worst sidekick in existence.
To this day, SS is the only Zelda that I actually wanted to play that I have almost zero desire to get back to. A tiny part of me does want to beat the whole thing just to check out the (I'm pretty sure) superior dungeons, but I'm in no hurry at this point.
For a lot of us, time limits in general are very annoying. Even if you can theoretically do a lot of things in that timespan. Hell, I used the inverted song of time and I still ran out of time doing that horrendous egg collecting quest leading up to the Water Temple. And when you have to repeat something like that all over again, shit is the opposite of enjoyable.
No, what's truly baffling is all this talk about LttP being "primitive" and "clunky". What?? As much as I love OoT, at least I can understand when people make that complaint seeing as how it was the first 3D Zelda running on very early 3D tech. But LttP?? In what possible way does this apply? The jump from LoZ was utterly massive. It has beautiful graphics, tight controls, a killer soundtrack, a gigantic overworld with lots of shit to explore, and brilliantly designed and plentiful dungeons. The only major complaint is that Link's sword doesn't have much reach and you have to be super close to an enemy in order to hit them, but that doesn't hinder the overall experience in any way imo. It is probably the best 2D top down adventure game in existence.
The complaints against LttP are especially baffling given that it's usually said by people who view LA as superior, and that's something I will never understand. LA is LttP stripped down on every level except maybe story (if you're into that sort of thing). When I think of a primitive Zelda, this is the kind of game that I think of.
I won't disagree with the item switching, but on every other level, Link's Awakening in my book is all that was great about LttP distilled into a fat-free experience that really exemplified the less is more maxim. Less items perhaps, but you got more mileage out of them, especially with the combos. Also, I will add that the combat controls, while not necessarily mechanically superior from an objective standpoint, were more fun as Link's sword swings were more swift, enabling more snappy enemy encounters.
Great Bay Temple is the best water dungeon in 3D Zelda. Requires excellent use of lateral thinking and spatial understanding, and doesn't suffer the snail-crawl place of the Water Temple thanks to Zora Mask being better than the Boots. Only competition is TP's.
THANK. YOU. Everybody says "oh but there's no more boot switching anymore". The reason why the Water Temple will always be butt is because you're forced to traverse like a snail through water.
