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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Top The Legend of Zelda Games!

 

What is actually the best Zelda game?

Zelda: Game and Watch 8 3.94%
 
Link: The Faces of Evil 11 5.42%
 
Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon 11 5.42%
 
Zelda’s Adventure 5 2.46%
 
Freshly Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland 19 9.36%
 
Tingle’s Balloon Fight 9 4.43%
 
Link’s Crossbow Training 39 19.21%
 
Picross - Twilight Princess 18 8.87%
 
Other 35 17.24%
 
See Results 48 23.65%
 
Total:203
Platina on 18 October 2016
Nuvendil said:
Platina said:
I'm not familiar with the Zelda Cycle?

Basically, a cycle of fanbase opinions on a title.  A new game comes out and is loved and praised.  Then the honeymoon period wears off and it is cynically criticized ad nauseum, often being compared to a "past gem", until it is ostricized as the "black sheep" of the franchise.  Then later, it is reexamined  more favorably and welcomed back into the fold as an "underrated gem" and eventually becomes declared a classic.   It's not a super smooth transition every time but is fairly reliable.  Much like the Elder Scrolls cycle where ever new game since Daggerfall has "RUINED EVERYTHING" and later that game will become part of the set of classics that the new Elder Scrolls will be "ruining".  Cycles like this are common.

Oh I see, this does seem to apply to most Zelda games :p



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curl-6 on 18 October 2016
Nuvendil said:
curl-6 said:

You can respect/admire something without necessarily liking it, I agree, (for instance I respect GTA 5's technological achievements even if I'd rather deep throat a cactus than play it) but the way I see it, even that that respect/admiration is based on what we subjectively think is worthy of respect/admiration.

To bring it back to Zelda, I actually have a hard time these days picking between Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess as my #2 pick behind Ocarina. SS has the better controls, combat, and non-dungeon areas, while TP has the better style, bosses, and partner.

Personally, I have Twilight Princess HD as my favorite Zelda.  It has writing almost as good as Skyward Sword, Midna is an amazing character, great art style, a good overworld, a good story, good world building.  Basically, does everything really good.  

Skyward Sword has excellent dungeons, unique controls, excellent art style, and the best writing BUT a weak overworld approach (I don't find it that bad though), a good bit of revisiting areas, etc.  Wind Waker has a vast world, improved combat, and some very entertaining characters, but too few dungeons and some monotonous end game stuff hold it back.  Basically, these two have some excellent points but some marked weaknesses that pull them down.

OoT is, imo, jack of all trades, master of none.  Good plot, flat charafters.  Good combat, not much variety to it.  Lots of dungeons with challenging puzzles, but not very interesting to traverse.  Art style gets things done but can feel generic.  Big world, not much in between big areas.  Basically, all pretty good, never feels great.  

Haven't finished Majora's Mask, but I feel it will fall in with WW, SS as a game with really strong areas and some marked weaknesses.

Ocarina wins for me as it best embodies what I feel Zelda should be;  an epic fantasy adventure with a good balance of light hearted charm and dark seriousness, basically the video game equivalent of Lord of the Rings.



curl-6 on 18 October 2016
mZuzek said:
curl-6 said:

Ocarina wins for me as it best embodies what I feel Zelda should be;  an epic fantasy adventure with a good balance of light hearted charm and dark seriousness, basically the video game equivalent of Lord of the Rings.

That's all good and stuff, but how about having an epic fantasy adventure that is actually original instead of generic? And has a good, captivating story instead of a bland one with equally bland characters?

I mean, why be just an "equivalent" of Lord of the Rings when you can actually take that as just an inspiration to do something new?

It's Skyward Sword I'm praising here.

If I want a captivating story, I'll read a book. I play Zelda for the gameplay.



Goodnightmoon on 18 October 2016
curl-6 said:
Nuvendil said:

I don't.   I hold GTA as the single most overrated franchise of all time. 

Agree with both of you.

I end up buying GTAV thinking it would be the one I would finally love... and not even close, it was ok for the first 10 hours and then I just didn't wanna play more, the city is great, driving with good music on the radio is fun for a while but the gameplay is just... meh, nothing to remember.



curl-6 on 18 October 2016
mZuzek said:
curl-6 said:

If I want a captivating story, I'll read a book. I play Zelda for the gameplay.

...In which Skyward Sword is also miles better than Ocarina of Time or any other Zelda game for that matter..?

I am a big fan of Skyward Sword, but I found Ocarina's gameplay better on account of its pacing and bosses.



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Nuvendil on 18 October 2016
curl-6 said:
mZuzek said:

That's all good and stuff, but how about having an epic fantasy adventure that is actually original instead of generic? And has a good, captivating story instead of a bland one with equally bland characters?

I mean, why be just an "equivalent" of Lord of the Rings when you can actually take that as just an inspiration to do something new?

It's Skyward Sword I'm praising here.

If I want a captivating story, I'll read a book. I play Zelda for the gameplay.

Imo, Twilight Princess HD gives both.  And Skyward Sword may be less epic in the traditional sense, but it has characters I'm invested in.  And that, I think, is the weakest part of OoT: no investment in anything.  People praise the opening of OoT for being in medias res, but I find it is more like taking a book that does start in medias res, turning two pages and starting at a random point in a random paragraph.  I have no attachment with the town or the rest of the world, there's no world building.  And in an adventure game or RPG, I find that very important.



curl-6 on 18 October 2016
Nuvendil said:
curl-6 said:

If I want a captivating story, I'll read a book. I play Zelda for the gameplay.

Imo, Twilight Princess HD gives both.  And Skyward Sword may be less epic in the traditional sense, but it has characters I'm invested in.  And that, I think, is the weakest part of OoT: no investment in anything.  People praise the opening of OoT for being in medias res, but I find it is more like taking a book that does start in medias res, turning two pages and starting at a random point in a random paragraph.  I have no attachment with the town or the rest of the world, there's no world building.  And in an adventure game or RPG, I find that very important.

I was invested in it just fine, simply for being such a vibrant fantasy world of talking trees, a lost tribe of elf kids, a dark prophecy, etc. Cliche on paper, but delivered on screen with the sincerity and gusto to make it work. Frankly, character development and story is not a major concern of mine in video games.



h2ohno on 19 October 2016

Of course the world and characters are harder to get invested in in OOT. It was the first 3d game and the first N64 game. It was on a 32 megabite cartridge. It was never going to spend enough time with the characters to make them stand out the way later games would be able to, otherwise it would have been like Majora in cutting down on the amount of dungeons.

I first played OOT in 2007 at the same time as I was playing through TP on the Wii. I stopped playing OOT to finish TP because I having much more fun with the latter game and only came back to OOT after I had beaten TP. If you didn't play OOT on the N64 the improvements later games made are very apparent.



Nuvendil on 19 October 2016
curl-6 said:
Nuvendil said:

Imo, Twilight Princess HD gives both.  And Skyward Sword may be less epic in the traditional sense, but it has characters I'm invested in.  And that, I think, is the weakest part of OoT: no investment in anything.  People praise the opening of OoT for being in medias res, but I find it is more like taking a book that does start in medias res, turning two pages and starting at a random point in a random paragraph.  I have no attachment with the town or the rest of the world, there's no world building.  And in an adventure game or RPG, I find that very important.

I was invested in it just fine, simply for being such a vibrant fantasy world of talking trees, a lost tribe of elf kids, a dark prophecy, etc. Cliche on paper, but delivered on screen with the sincerity and gusto to make it work. Frankly, character development and story is not a major concern of mine in video games.

Well that certainly makes your praise of OoT more understandable.  For me, I need something more than that.  Games can be great without a story, don't get me wrong.  I loved Super Mario 3D World and many other games this gen and previous gens with little story.  But a stronger, more engaging story can make a great game fantastic.  

h2ohno said:
Of course the world and characters are harder to get invested in in OOT. It was the first 3d game and the first N64 game. It was on a 32 megabite cartridge. It was never going to spend enough time with the characters to make them stand out the way later games would be able to, otherwise it would have been like Majora in cutting down on the amount of dungeons.

I first played OOT in 2007 at the same time as I was playing through TP on the Wii. I stopped playing OOT to finish TP because I having much more fun with the latter game and only came back to OOT after I had beaten TP. If you didn't play OOT on the N64 the improvements later games made are very apparent.

Well I have no issue what so ever with admitting OoT was a massive achievement in its day.  And if I had been into it at the time likely would have been plenty absorbed.  I have issue with people saying it stands up today just as well.  IMO, OoT embodies the idea that the game which is the benchmark of current hardware capabilities will one day be a monument to hardware limitations.  OoT stretches itself thin to flex the N64's muscles while with Majora's Mask, Nintendo took a more realistic approach in terms of what was possible to fully realize within the hardware's limitations.



Miyamotoo on 19 October 2016
Goodnightmoon said:
curl-6 said:

Agree with both of you.

I end up buying GTAV thinking it would be the one I would finally love... and not even close, it was ok for the first 10 hours and then I just didn't wanna play more, the city is great, driving with good music on the radio is fun for a while but the gameplay is just... meh, nothing to remember.

I agree with you all. :D

IMO is underrated, maybe it's good game but definitely not my cup of tea, because huge popularity I tried it and play it for few hours, after that I deleted and don't have any desire to play any GTA game ever. But for instance I very like Red Dead Redemption.

 

Nuvendil said:
curl-6 said:

I was invested in it just fine, simply for being such a vibrant fantasy world of talking trees, a lost tribe of elf kids, a dark prophecy, etc. Cliche on paper, but delivered on screen with the sincerity and gusto to make it work. Frankly, character development and story is not a major concern of mine in video games.

Well that certainly makes your praise of OoT more understandable.  For me, I need something more than that.  Games can be great without a story, don't get me wrong.  I loved Super Mario 3D World and many other games this gen and previous gens with little story.  But a stronger, more engaging story can make a great game fantastic.  

h2ohno said:
Of course the world and characters are harder to get invested in in OOT. It was the first 3d game and the first N64 game. It was on a 32 megabite cartridge. It was never going to spend enough time with the characters to make them stand out the way later games would be able to, otherwise it would have been like Majora in cutting down on the amount of dungeons.

I first played OOT in 2007 at the same time as I was playing through TP on the Wii. I stopped playing OOT to finish TP because I having much more fun with the latter game and only came back to OOT after I had beaten TP. If you didn't play OOT on the N64 the improvements later games made are very apparent.

Well I have no issue what so ever with admitting OoT was a massive achievement in its day.  And if I had been into it at the time likely would have been plenty absorbed.  I have issue with people saying it stands up today just as well.  IMO, OoT embodies the idea that the game which is the benchmark of current hardware capabilities will one day be a monument to hardware limitations.  OoT stretches itself thin to flex the N64's muscles while with Majora's Mask, Nintendo took a more realistic approach in terms of what was possible to fully realize within the hardware's limitations.

For instance OoT 3D is great game and experience even today for today standards, but of course that want be mind blowing and that will have effect like it had 18 years ago.