Games

Oracle of Seasons

Oracle of ages and seasons were me childhood.

There was nothing quite like when your parents finally let you get another game so you brought home majoras mask and read the booklet thoroughly on the dive home, then after getting control of link again after what felt like centuries to an impatient child and seeing him do flips and shit up the tree stumps

My top three:

1. A Link to the Past. Basically gave the Legend of Zelda its identity, so many staple mechanics, so much lore, comes from this game. First appearance of the Master Sword, the idea of Ganondorf as a king of thieves/sorcerer before becoming a pig monster, Kakariko village. The creation myth with the three golden goddesses came from here. In fact, there's a passage in the manual that basically reads like the design document for the next 30 years in the series, look it up. Gameplay is polished to a mirror shine, and it's amazing how it has lasted with the randomizer community.

2. Ocarina of Time. A sequel which referred to previous entries and expanded on the lore without shitting on it. Imagine that! It's amazing how right they got it as basically the first attempt of a game like this in 3D, even if controller technology had some evolving to do.

3. Breath of the Wild. While it does get a bit samey since there's only so many enemies to encounter, and exploring the world will result in finding shrines or koroks, the openness with which it approaches puzzles aka "just get to the goal, we don't care how." I find very refreshing compared to the previous "you're in a room with a lock and a key. Bet you can't find the only existing solution to this puzzle" dynamic the games increasingly had.

My bottom three:

1. Skyward Sword. The artwork is charming, the soundtrack has a few gems in it but is mostly short repetitive and annoying loops, a lot of the gameplay elements are just blatantly recycled from Twilight Princess. The mysterious floating girl who flies back a distance when Link approaches to lead him somewhere would have been more effective if the Zora Queen's shade hadn't done it a few years earlier, and I fully expected Fi to explain the collect the light fruit games by saying "Yes Master, 'this shit again'." Combine that with the frankly terrible motion controls crammed in as much as possible and the "Master, I have detected a 97.3333% chance that the man you just talked to said that he lives here in town" nature of it all...fuck this game.

2. Adventure of Link. Nintendo Hard via outright unfairness, not much story, not much lore, and rather meh graphics.

3. Tears of the Kingdom. Never before has a game been this much mile wide and inch deep. The story barely exists, there is more content in the Hudson & Rhondson's daughter storyline than in the main story quest. There are two different crafting mechanics added to the game, plus the one from Breath of the Wild, but none are really explored because there's no room, there's no time. In addition to the original map, there's the entire sky and the entire underground, both full of basically nothing. They could have gotten two games out of the concepts found in this one and explored the individual mechanics a lot more, but no. This game is a mile wide and an inch deep.

Breath of The Wild for me. The open world and exploration just blew me away. I wanted to just spend as much time as possible exploring that version of Hyrule.

Second is Majora’s Mask. It was so different than all the Zelda games before it and really dark. I loved the time element and really getting to know all the different npc characters.

Twilight Princess is the perfect LOZ game

Majora's Mask

OoT

Skyward Sword

Twilight Princess

Totk

Botw

Wind Waker

Phantom Hourglass

In that order. Only Zelda games I played.

Link's Awakening was my first game on my Gameboy, so will always have a special place in my heart! Ocarina was my first N64 game too, and it blew my mind! Nostalgia plays some part in how I feel about those games, but both are still solid games to this day.

BoTW and ToTK both managed to push the boundaries of gaming, and the sheer joy of discovery in both games makes them stand out. I do also love ALttP though, and in its own time it was just as revolutionary I reckon. I didn't play it until the 2000s though.

BotW and TotK for sure. Mainly for the exploration of Hyrule in two different forms. Visually appealing as well.

LttP would be 3rd. Story and gameplay was great.

Probably unpopular, but I loved WW as well. Soundtrack is wonderful to listen to.

A link to the past for sure, it's one of the greatest games of all time. My favorite modern Zelda is skyward sword, the dungeons in that game were so well crafted it's insane the amount of effort and detail they contain. Least favorite has got to be breath of the wild, it's a wonderful open world game, but an absolutely horrible Zelda game.

Maybe I'm getting to be an old head but it's OoT for sure

I've been playing the series since LttP. Twilight Princess is my top, for presentation and storytelling.

I feel like Skyward Sword tried to repeat that, but the dungeons and style / atmosphere of the world of TP still come out on top (even though I'm not very much into gothic style and furries). I think SS is way too cartoonish and happy-go-lucky for a world where the surface has been abandoned to the demons and yet everyone who lives there is cool (gorons, kiwis, moles, proto-Zora), that's a massive tonal dissonance between the narration and the actual environment and it just takes me out.

The next ones on my top list are Minish Cap and Link Between Worlds.

Used to be Link to the Past but now the title is held by Tears of the Kingdom.

Breath of the wild is a work of art. SNES was my favorite before it came out

Ocarina of Time, for sure

Gotta be Breath of the Wild, for me. Taken together with Tears of the Kingdom, the series' storytelling and immersion has never been better, I think, and as a game, Breath of the Wild was the tighter, more-satisfying experience, overall.

Wind Waker is a veeerrrrrrry close second. I think it's the most-polished entry in the whole series, in both categories. I'm really not sure what I would change, if given the chance.

Link to the Past for being my first. Twilight Princess for the modern era.

I've only ever played the two Oracle games on gameboy color, they were excellent. Never dinished Ages though, too damn difficult. Something about this format (topdown, block-based...) works really well with my brain

I really liked Spirit Tracks.

Train gameplay was actually enjoyable for me (especially the way it got used in one of the end game fights was so cool). It was also nice that Zelda was an actual part of the game and helped solve puzzles instead of some princess locked away in a castle.

I played Phantom Hourglass much later and Spirit Tracks honestly just felt much more polished and fun.

I've played them all over the years. My favorite for a long time was Wind Waker, because of the feeling of freedom it gave me, so it'll surprise no one that Breath of the Wild beats it.

Breath of the Wild is my new fave. I gotta say that the story of Tears of the Kingdom really did it for me (just absolutely sobbing at points) but since it feels like it wouldn't have had that impact if it wasn't for Breath of the Wild, I give it to Breath of the Wild.

(Special shout out to Link Between Worlds. Really feel like that game was fun as hell.)

Edit: Gotta be real. I don't remember which one I played first? I think it was Link to the Past.

Twilight Princess. I loved the characters and the vibe, the MUSIC was something else too. On par with OOT. The snowy mountain theme was chilling.

It was not revolutionary like OOT, experimental like MM, or transformative as WW, but I feel like it was the most polished, quintessential Zelda game we got.

Now that BOTW and its squeakwal are just cash cows though, it’s sad to think we’ll never get a good old fashioned Zelda game again.

I'm currently going through every (mainline) Zelda game and replaying them. Took a bit of a break at Links Awakening, but I'd have to say my favourite 2D Zelda are Seasons/Ages, and my favourite 3D is Majora's Mask.

Something about the worlds in those games that really draws me in.

OoT for me. ALttP and Link’s Awakening were already my favorite games at the time, but OoT came out at that perfect time in my life when consoles were being made for kids my age and 3D was this mysterious, exciting new thing. To this day, I usually end up replaying it about once a year, and I suspect I’ll continue doing that until I pass on.

Phantom Hourglass was my first but Spirit Tracks is my favorite. I actually really like the stylus DS controls (and it's not even that bad using a mouse on an emulator either) but the main thing I like is the music and story. Music and story I would say are both better in Spirit Tracks than any other game in the series. It also is one of the few games in the series that you can really call a legend of Zelda. She's there the whole time and the main story focuses on her character arc.
Just overall an amazing experience with some really dramatic moments, if I had to summarize what I like about it more than the other games in the series I'd say it's the most "cinematic & dramatic"

Honestly, I think the original. I know its inferior to most of the other games in most ways, but I've found a lot of the modern Zelda games feel pretty shallow and formulaec. Not to say they're bad, but none of them really feel like they stand out to me either - they're just good games. The original on the other hand, feels very different from a lot of the games since then. The world is kept a lot more foreign and hostile both in terms of aggressive enemies and in terms of tutorialization. Its makes the exploration so much more rewarding, and when you do find a new item, that much more special.

Game Boy Zelda is best Zelda.

I love Links Awakening due to nostalgia, but Oracle of Ages is still the longest game I’ve played (since I’ve yet to beat it). Seasons is fine but not my cup of tea, and minish cap is a bit too shaort

Link to the Past is how I discovered Zelda.

Never got to play it through as a kid, but then we got OOT when N64 came out. There's never gonna be a game I'll have better memories from.

Honestly, I think Wind Waker is and I didn't like it when it came out. The art style has grown on me over the years, the combat is satisfying without being to complicated, and the exploration is fun and unique for a Zelda game.

I've sunk more time into TotK than any of the others. I have nostalgia for OoT, TWW and TP, but their gameplay don't hold up to BotW or TotK if you take off the nostalgia glasses.

Might replay BotW at some point.