Skyward Sword is the only Zelda I have never finished. I'm yet to decide where Breath of the Wild sits, the world and the technical aspects make it the best Zelda but theres just something missing which prevents it from kicking Oot off its perch.

I was loving BotW while playing it but I have found I haven't been drawn back to it after that first month or so.
Will force myself back on for the big DLC coming soonish and will likely get drawn back in.

Gamermike wrote:

Skyward Sword is the only Zelda I have never finished. I'm yet to decide where Breath of the Wild sits, the world and the technical aspects make it the best Zelda but theres just something missing which prevents it from kicking Oot off its perch.

retroking1981 wrote:

Dungeons!!!

Dungeons and magic.  It's not as po-faced as Twilight Princess, but it's not quite as leave-a-sherry-out-for-Father-Christmas magical as I'd like.   It ticks the willowisp boxes, but the 'Lost Woods feeling' could do with being slightly more front and centre imo.

That isn’t even sarcasm is it?

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Gamermike wrote:

Skyward Sword is the only Zelda I have never finished. I'm yet to decide where Breath of the Wild sits, the world and the technical aspects make it the best Zelda but theres just something missing which prevents it from kicking Oot off its perch.

retroking1981 wrote:

Dungeons!!!

Dungeons and magic.  It's not as po-faced as Twilight Princess, but it's not quite as leave-a-sherry-out-for-Father-Christmas magical as I'd like.   It ticks the willowisp boxes, but the 'Lost Woods feeling' could do with being slightly more front and centre imo.

Thinking about it it wouldn't even need 6-10 dungeons just make the DBs meatier or add 2-4 side quest traditional dungeons.

Also, comparison with what Mario 64 did doesn’t completely work. Mario 64 took Mario 3D and also played very differently to previous Marios. More open, more things to do etc. OoT just played like LttP but in 3D. Might’ve been a 10 cos great transition to 3D but ultimately it’s ‘just a great Zelda game’.

I get that but mechanically every Zelda since OoT is the same.

OoT might be perceived as a remake of ALttP but it plays very differently. The rest play exactly the same as OoT.

Nothing wrong with preferring any of the subsequent Zeldas to OoT but it's still so high because it was the one that set the standard.

For that reason it's always gonna top most lists.

Lock on Z targeting? There was not such thing in ALttP even though it was quite plausible.

I hope I'm not coming across as to attacking here. Your list at the top of the page is cool and there's fuck all wrong with OoT being 7th.

But a day later out of nowhere and unprovoked you said it was overrated.

To me coming from a Zelda super fan like yourself, that seems a little odd. If it's overrated isn't Wind Waker even more so, and TP even more than that.

I'm not talking as a Zelda fan here, more gaming in general and the impacts games have. In that respect I think OoT is an important game and will always be high on best of lists, the only Zelda since that can say the same is BotW, as all the others are essentially another OoT.

hylian_elf wrote:

Setting standard and having impact don’t necessarily make it the best game.

Ah, we're talking about different things.

Memorable... good one. Interesting point. LttP would top it for me on memeorbsle basis. I find them all memorable for different reasons though. 

Reminds me (ho ho ho) of a thread I think someone once started. Whether we associate a particular time or item with a particular game. Which then helps us remember the game or makes it more memorable. Did someone do that? If not someone should. So it could be that I find Links Awakening memorable cod I was off sick from school and blitzed through the game in a few sittings/lying downs.

Like how smell enhances memory, or makes something memorable. Every time I have socks casein protein shake I fondly remember my time with The Witness...

JonB wrote:

It definitely makes a difference the order they came in, in that you're doing similar things in all of them and the first time you do those things is always going to be more fresh and interesting then the 3rd or 4th time. The basic equipment set in Zelda is perhaps the most obvious case in point. When I played LttP the different uses of bombs, boomerangs, hookshot etc. felt completely original, so that even some of the more basic puzzles required thought. In OoT they were getting familiar but it made a real difference that the world was 3D (the key point is that it didn't just shift the formula into 3D, it reimagined it in 3D). In WW and then TP and then SS it was a case of diminishing returns, whether they refined the design or not (debatable). Also why the new items introduced in SS are its best feature.  But the other thing for me besides all that is just that everything in OoT is more memorable than the later games, especially the dungeons and the bosses. I played OoT 19 years ago and it's clearer in my mind than SS from 6 years ago.

Yeah, and while we got more and more familiar with the mechanics, Ninty also made the games easier.

I don't think that's just age and familiarity. I have to replay them, but I'm sure WW is a lot easier than OoT.
I did like the combat mechanics in WW though.

OoT is the most magical for me. It was the first Zelda game I played, which really helps.
However it also actually has more magic in it - Dinns Fire etc.
And the most magical setting - properly exploring the lost woods - Kokiri forest - being a proper forest child.
The story, characters, locations, everything is more magical - while that could be largely subjective, I think objectively it does contain a lot more of that.
E.g. the start of WW or Twilight Princess vs the start of OoT.
OoT is a proper fairy tale.

Mechanically OoT played completely differently to LttP because of the Z targeting, 3D, aiming in first person, etc.
A 2D Zelda game plays completely differently. I dislike not being able to face off to an enemy.
E.g. in ALBW I often didn't face an enemy and they hit me from the side or behind, or a bit off centre etc - as there's no lock on, and lack of fidelity/refinement in the movement.
Shooting arrows is a totally different experience too.
I completely disagree with Escape's Z targeting points that the 2D zeldas offer more freedom of movement. They offer less to me. In a 3D zelda I can face a target no problem, just like in real life. In a 2D Zelda it's far from trivial.
If you were to transpose that to the real world it would look ridiculous. People looking 45 degrees away from their target etc.

Anyway, OoT is clearly the classic/defining piece that made the games that followed possible. As such it'll be recognised and remembered for that.
I'll need to revisit it on the 3DS - I bought it ages ago and still haven't played it - but I think the story, characters, and importantly the locations are likely the most magical for many (and easy to give objective arguments for that), with perhaps more challenge than many of the newer games, and an iconic/definitive fairly tale epic story.

The other games often tried to do something different, which makes sense, but that then doesn't make them the definitive classic. E.g. no Epona in WW or Skyward Sword.
An Ocarina and Epona are going to top a wand and a boat for most - and the former are obviously classic.

It's all about the lore and magic after all, no?

Yes definitely. Compare the opening of OoT with the great Deku tree - an innocent beginning then with foreboding, and a mystical, dark vibe.

That's carried throughout - with the skulltulas, and general atmosphere as you say.
It's pretty dark really. The church like temple of time with chanting, then go outside to zombies, with mount doom standing ominously in the background.

Skyward sword is like a funfair.

WW is a children's adventure and cartoon

I've only played the start of Twilight Princess - I really need to play it - but that seems a bit of a departure from the Arthurian legend inspired Link of LttP and OoT.

It's much more Aonuma's game, while LttP and OoT have a lot more Miyamoto and the original vision I think.
Twilight Princess seems to have a Japanese western vibe - at least the start.
I mean he starts dressed like a samurai. Herding cattle. A wolf etc.


That atmosphere in OoT makes sense - as it's very much more the fairly tale.
The legend of King Aurthur and classic germanic fairly tails - Brother's Grimm etc have a similar feel.

Still not played MM, but I think they went all out in that direction there. Took that dark fairly tale vibe and put it to the fore, including the gameplay.

People say the graphics don't matter - e.g. with the backlash against WW's presentation, but what people seem to ignore is that the presentation and gameplay very much match in Zelda games. It's not just skin deep.

WW looks and plays like a cartoon - it's slapstick, and easy.
OoT looks magical, and plays reasonably realistically.
MM is dark and plays dark - foreboding/pressure are the core gameplay premise no?
Skyward sword looks and plays light - lighter than OoT
TP is the most serious and plays as such?

Good points in here.  I was going on about the lack of magic in BotW the other day, no idea where I put it.  Dan nails it, but there's probably just as much truth in Chalice's post.  Perhaps BotW has bundles of the Tom's Midnight Garden feeling, but I grow'd up.

Xmas 92 - Street Fighter II fever at its peak.

I have yet and probably never will play V.

I haven't had that level of excitement for a game since N64 tbh.

MGS2 and the Wii hype came closest off the top of my head.