would you care to explain why each and every one of my points is bad.

The first Zelda is the best if you cut out the aged vague direction, but Zelda should have remained that non-linear forever. It should have been about combat before puzzles, always.

As for SS and OoT 3D, both are selling well whether people like it or not. People should know by now that Zelda doesn't sell more or less based off install base.

and let's not forget OoT 3D is a remake (and I know it has a bundle, but the fact that so many people purchase it means they want OoT still. The bundle doing good for OoT means OoT is strong) while SS requires an add on just to play, ala Majora's Mask. The fact that both of them are selling well shows that the Zelda name is still going strong.

I read his blog, yes and I find many of his points sound, because he backs them up really well, I mean for example, about Aonuma being the worst ever chioce of director of the series. But there are times where I disagree with him, his drunk on Darwin post was utterly retarded, and his labeling of creativity as something bad is just wrong. Creativity is a means to an end, not an end in itself, and not an enemy of good entertainement, period. So unless your definition of sheep is different from mine, I'm not a sheep.

Still, you said Aonuma has been fantastic to the series, then did the DS games get sent to the bargain bin so fast? And why are they poorly regarded among fans? Critical reception is a bad indicator since we know how corrupt and sometimes incompetent reviewers are. innovation and creativeness does not equal good, they are a means to making something good, and that failed with the DS games, Aonumas "creativity" has just morphed those games into abominations.  Is the approach of making "It's Zelda, now with .... Boats!/Wolves!/Trains!/Flying birds and robots!" a good thing and would you not just have a real evolution of the series into better gameplay, and more content, and more epicness?

Do you really think it's great that Zelda has only increased in linearity when games like Elder Scrolls let the player do whatever they want (which was a selling point of the original Zeldas) Not saying leveling should have been incorporated, but the freedom and implementation of physics engines, monsters you don't fall asleep bettling, etc, are how I would imagine a natural evolution of Zelda.

Do you think a guy who didn't even finish Super Mario Bros, should be a game designer at Nintendo?

When you played Ocarina of Time, how did you imagine its sequel?

No Lucas-Rio it was never behind. So let's look at week 6 since that would be around when you made this thread. Week 6 of skyward sword the total is 2.575m, week 6 of OoT the total was .804m. And you didn't think it was obvious which was selling better? Even taking away the 400k adjustment it meant SS was outselling OoT by nearly 3 times as much. Anyone could see that SS would end up with a bigger total.

Fine KungKras let's look at your points.

1. Comparing Zelda and mario.... does this even need pointing out? How an adventure game and a 2d platformer aren't comparable?

2. Zelda should have turned into something like the Elder Scrolls? Urrrrggg please god no. The elder scrolls are just a big map with nothing to do and bad gameplay. We don't need a ridiculously huge Hyrule full of straight forward dungeons.

3. The artstyle is a problem? Seemingly you seem to be saying you wished it was realistic. As you wanted OoT style graphics. May I suggest you play a game called Twilight Princess? The fact is Nintendo couldn't really go realistic with the graphics because compared to the games out now they would look very bad. They had to go stylized, as then it isn't as directly comparable. If anything I think the mistake was not making them more stylized. When the Wii U is out then they make the first Zelda on it realistic. If the xbox next and Ps4 come out and far far better in graphics then consider making the second Zelda on Wii U stylized.

4. So you want a 25 year old game to serve as the basis for what to do? Why not use the more recent, better selling, better received game as a basis?

5. SS had ALL of the advantages? Except not being bundled? Even your point of 95million userbase is tenuous. I had to buy wii motion plus to be able to play skyward sword.

6. Aonuma is ruining the Zelda series? Really lets look at games Aonuma was involved with. Ocarina, Majora's mask, Wind Waker, TP, SS, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit tracks. So he worked on the two best selling games and he also worked on the top 4 rated Zelda games (OoT, TP, WW, SS). Pretty impressive for a guy ruining the series. If you had claimed he was damaging the handheld versions then you would perhaps have a slight point. As it is, nope.

THe funny thing is, that OOT still remains to be the best selling game in the frachise. A 3d game. Funny, huh? And thats just the original N64 version. We dont know how its doing on WiiWare and the 3ds numbers are sick.

OT, why does the OP care. Did you enjoy the game?? I know I am and I could give a damn if no one buys it. Hell I bought KOF13 the other day. Is it going to fly off shelves?? Hell no

Well it is THE BEST ZELDA GAME EVAAAARR in 3D! vs another Zelda game. What did you expect?

1) The best seller for the Zelda serie is TP now if we exclude the OOT remake on 3DS.

2) If you don't care about sales, what are you doing on Vgchartz? This is the place to talk sales of videogames.

The DS games are really very good games. People who complain about these games either did not liked the touch control, who worked very well, or either forget it was a protable game and by no mean a full scale home console episode.

I really like how the serie has evolved and how Nintendo is able to wow us at each episode with something new.

I don't want at all Zelda to become a RPG like Elder Scrolls, that's just not Zelda. I would have loved a bigger overworld in SS, and the overworld is one of the reason I like so much Wind Waker. But you can't have everything and no game is really the absolute perfection.

1. The same argument was made about making a 2D Mario. It was considered obsolete and that it wouldn't sell. See how that turned out. They are different genres, sure, but that doesn't make my point invalid. The latest Mortal Kombat sold well after embracing the spirit of the old games.

2. The Elder Scrolls are excellent gammes, that have an insane amount of stuff to do in them. The Elder Scrolls overworlds aren't empty like Zeldas. They have a coherent universe, and a sense of discovery and unlike zelda, encourages exploration (new Zelda tries this but fails, last time I found something cool in the Zelda overworld was giant's knife, the one that doesn't break, dins fire, farores wind, nayurus love and the Ice arrow in OoT).

3. Mario Galaxy looks fantastic, much better than SS. Graphics can be stylized without taking epicness away. Twilight Princess' artstyle was great, too bad it was a crappy Zelda.

4. Market was different, so you can't say better selling. When you make a game, you put expectations into people's head about what is to be expected from the game. After that, you can't morph the game into something it isn't. The free roaming in the first Zelda, and even ooT is much more like the free roaming in Skyrim today, and not at all like the linear Skyward Sword.

5. Wiis are sold with Wiiremote pluses, Wii sport resort's M+ bundle already put the thing in loads of homes. It's not that big a hurdle.

6. If Wind Waker was a great game, there would be more gamecubes out there, also its unwanted, and completely unnssecary graphical style resulted in endless debates among the fans, and this was when Nintendo needed to show the graphical advantages of the Gamecube, what was Aonuma thinking?! Also, the overworld is an ocean which could be fun if they would have just put in some competent effort into rewarding exploration. All islands are barren. WW is not fondly remembered by all.

Thankfully Aonuma was only responsible for the dungeons in OoT, and he arrived when all the design desicions were already made, so thankfully his influence over that game was heavily marginalized. Maybe that's why it is more epic than everything that came after it. Also, the dungeons are the weakest part of that game.

As Twilight Princess, it was a launch title for Wii, during Wii-mania and it had huge hype due to OoT like visuals, motion controls, etc, it felt like Nintendo would try to make a game as epic as OoT. Except it wasn't, it was ridicoulously easy, item usage sucked, no more hidden goodies like in OoT and you only used most items in the temple you got them, overworld was empty, progression was very linear, Midna was annoying, Wolf form had no place in the game what so ever except for the sake of doing something new even though it was a completely unnatural evolution for the series, just like the ocean overworld. If something isn't a natural evolution, it should be axed, all we have gotten after OoT is a new hook or gimmick (yes, I said it, and thankfully it isn't out of place like it is in many other nintendo related topics) per every new game, that doesn't make it into the next game (While other games, like Skyrim, adds stuff that ADDS to the epicness, and feels like a natural progression for the series).

Majora's Mask sold less than OoT, it was always considered a spinoff. Unlike the traditional and epic plot of OoT, it had a weird plot, and a lot of things in that game felt like they were just there to be creative for the hell of it rather than trying to make the game epic, and in traditional Aonuma fashion, the overworld sucked. The final boss was not epic in the slightest, also, a field with a tree inside the moon? WTF

I already talked about SS. The only good and natural thing it added to the series was Motion+ and Aonuma DID NOT WANT TO ADD THAT TO ZELDA Miyamoto had to have a talk with him to make him change his mind. Other than thay, it takes everything fans complained about in the post-OoT games, and multiplies by ten.

There are so many quotes from Aonuma that indicates that he has no idea what he is doing, like this one:

"The important point here is that people who have been playing the game for a long time tend to forget that Link is just a child on an adventure towards some sort of objective. You know, when playing through the game there’s no need to be aware of Link’s age or what his ultimate goal is. But, when this happens, the things that the player is doing tend to become typical game actions and the awareness that player is just playing a game becomes stronger. Players who need bombs to progress through the game, but don’t have any, will by chance find themselves visiting the bomb shop in the middle of the night. When the shopkeeper says, ‘Hey, you’re just a boy!’ the player who had not been consciously thinking that Link was just a boy realizes, ‘Oh! That’s right! I’m just a boy.’ The player than reflects that he’s walking around in the middle of the night and starts to feel the loneliness of the middle of the night. That leads the player to become one with the game world, and the player experiences reality."  - Aonuma on the realism of Wind Waker

Or this nugget:

"The result was that I was under the impression that the Legend of Zelda was not a game that suited me. So what kind of games did suit me? Those would be text-based adventures. For someone like me who enjoyed reading stories, these were games that allowed you to participate in the story and letting you experience the joy of seeing your own thoughts and actions affect the progression of the story. Plus, these games don’t require fast reflexes and don’t require traditional gaming skills. So, I thought that if I were going to make games, I would like to make this type of game. -  Eji Aonuma. Director of the Zelda series

as for the critical acclaim, we don't know if nintendo pays reviewers like others do, but since so many reviewers talked so similarly about it, and gave it so similar scores, I say that it is possible.

The hype of Twilight Prinecess is gone, the Motion+ addition to SS was crippled because of other bad design decisions that reduced hype. I predict only decline for the series if it keeps going this direction.

I agree that the best thing that could possible happen to the Zelda series is Aonuma not having anything to do with it anymore. He doesn't do all bad, but every game gets more and more Aonuma-ish. I got so bored with the train in Spirit Tracks I didnt even get to the 2nd dungeon (And I've always finished Zelda games before that, it's my favorite series.

SS is a fantastic game in many ways, but god I am so annoyed at the unnessecary messages, the excessive text that you cant skip, getting a message that I found a jelly blob when I already have 72 of them, JESUS CHRIST AONUMA, JUST LET ME PLAY THE GAME!

It's like Aonuma hates all the GAMEPLAY, he wants to remove that from zelda and turn it into an animated movie or a cross-word puzzle. He has overall been a bad influence to the series. That he is a producer now, is still too close. I say Retro should save Zelda.