Do we consider the DS Zelda's to be 3D games or 2.5D-ish? Those were genuinely bad games. SS is a mess but it at least tried something new. Where TP is a boring game that was made to appeal to the "I want my Mature zelda" idiots and Wind Wakers poor sales. The game felt safe as it gets. A better Zelda game starring a wolf released that same year. Okami. Funny Okami ended up the best Zelda on Wii as well.

Do we consider the DS Zelda's to be 3D games or 2.5D-ish? Those were genuinely bad games. SS is a mess but it at least tried something new. Where TP is a boring game that was made to appeal to the "I want my Mature zelda" idiots and Wind Wakers poor sales. The game felt safe as it gets. A better Zelda game starring a wolf released that same year. Okami. Funny Okami ended up the best Zelda on Wii as well.

I appreciated some of what Skyward Sword tried to do, and the dungeons and music were great. But its issues went well beyond the motion controls, though those didn't help its case. It was too hand-holdy, and the hugely simplified world was a disappointment. I might have been more impressed if Eldin, Lanayru, and Faron had all been interconnected with more outer areas. They tried to appeal to both casual gamers and Zelda fans and missed the mark with both of them. Much of BotW's design was a deliberate reversal of course on SS, as well as the changes they made for SSHD on Switch. 

The DS Zelda games would be 2.5D (3D models with 2D gameplay). They might have been better without the forced stylus controls, but again, their issues went beyond the forced control gimmick.

I always considered Twilight Princess to be a Gamecube title. The HD remake agrees with me. Skyward Sword was easily the weakest 3-D Zelda, and a lot of that comes down to the design philosophy Nintendo pursued on the Wii, and I'm not just talking about the motion controls. Skyward Sword actually made me fear for the future of the Zelda series. I also wasn't impressed with the DS Zeldas, so the whole generation was kind of a step back for the Zelda series, especially comparing it to the Gamecube and Switch.

Xenoblade Chronicles and Punch-Out, on the other hand, were great. 

Do we consider the DS Zelda's to be 3D games or 2.5D-ish? Those were genuinely bad games. SS is a mess but it at least tried something new. Where TP is a boring game that was made to appeal to the "I want my Mature zelda" idiots and Wind Wakers poor sales. The game felt safe as it gets. A better Zelda game starring a wolf released that same year. Okami. Funny Okami ended up the best Zelda on Wii as well.

There's no need to insult people for preferring a darker style.

At any rate, whether one prefers Twilight Princess/Skyward Sword is up to them, my point was more that Nintendo was able to output more games on Wii than Wii U because games took less development resources back then.

No no mocking those who shat on WW when we had "Celda" and the whole 2000s when a bunch of idiots wanted all Nintendo to either go 3rd party or make M rated Zelda and "mature" games not kiddie stuff. It was there in the Gamecube era and esp there in the Wii era.  Still some of it even 10 years or so ago pre BOTW people thinking From Soft would make a better Zelda than Nintendo. Or those wanting Zelda to be more like God of War (1-3). 2000s was pretty anti Japan.

I didn't really like Wind Waker's cartoon style and preferred Twilight Princess's darker approach; I never wanted Nintendo to go third party or for Zelda to be like God of War, I simply wanted it to be more like Ocarina of Time which I felt was a more compelling direction for the series.

I didn't really like Wind Waker's cartoon style and preferred Twilight Princess's darker approach; I never wanted Nintendo to go third party or for Zelda to be like God of War, I simply wanted it to be more like Ocarina of Time which I felt was a more compelling direction for the series.

Nothing against preference but talking about a whole attitude of an era. Tho he's an idiot in general. The last vapor of that came with David jaffe using AI to make Zeld alook bland and generic Skyrim saying he fixed it. This is from the guy who could not figure his way out of a room in Metroid Dread, however. BoTW pretty much killed anything left from that era tho.  As for a darker aesthetic for a Zelda game. I did like Darksiders a lot. Esp 1-2. Tho it still had a heavy art style.

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2023/05/god-of-war-creator-david-jaffe-enlists-ai-to-fix-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom

So to be clear no you are not an idiot. The idiots are the ones being dumb about it like Jaffe here. They didn't actually want Mature Zelda half the time they really just wanted to mock Nintendo for being "kiddie".