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Nuvendil on 17 June 2016
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curl-6 said:
Nuvendil said:

Frankly, from a "which is a the better game as they sit now" perspective, I think it lost that throne long ago :P.  In the context of its time, it is definitely the most influential and monumental among its peers, but now? There are just so many ways the games since surpass it.  Still holds up remarkably for a fifth gen game.

Even playing them today, I still give Ocarina the top spot. Yeah, its graphics have aged, but it's soundtrack, dungeons, bosses, and world are still magnificent.

Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword are more polished, and are great games in their own right, but just aren't as consistently brilliant and timeless in my opinion.

See I categorically disagree.  As someone who only played all these games in the last 10 months and has no fond memories or nostalgia, I find Ocarina of Time to have aged worse than most describe.  Not badly, mind.  But it hasn't "not aged a day.". Characters and writing?  There ARE no characters, just a collection of faces with basic, one note personalities that can be  summed up in one sentence.  And the story is beyond plot centered, it is almost exclusively plot focused.  There's some OK world building but every last one of the Zeldas since surpass it in all areas of writing.  The only thing it " has going for it" is the quick pace at the start but honestly, it feels more like a lack of any development of any kind.

Dungeon quality and number is probably the greatest strength.  Here it can match and in Wind Waker and Majora's cases surpass its successors.  But honestly, while they are challenging, they are a less interesting type of challenge compared to Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword.  

And the over world of Hyrule Field is the most ruthlessly lacking one of all the 3D Zeldas.  Twilight Princess usually gets more flack for this but honestly, at least there you have a few mini dungeon type things and some environmental puzzles or obstacles to reach secrets and chests.  Ocarina of Time is just a big vast void with just the ranch to break it up.  It's smaller, yeah, but it's emptier.  

Combat in OoT definitely holds up better than it has any right to for a game from a console with just one analogue stick :P.  But the Twilight Princess and Wind Waker iterations are far more polished, especially TP.

In terms of art direction, I feel every 3D Zelda has more of an identity.  That includes Majora's Mask.

Honestly, a lot of my quibbles come down I think to the game being built to PUSH the hardware in order to show off rather than maximize the potential.  Majora's Mask franklyfeels more like it did the latter.  

Anyway, those are my thoughts :P