THE ULTIMATE LEGEND OF ZELDA THREAD.

Twilight Princess had a lot of neat things in it but it's all buried under so much cruft that although I enjoyed it the first time I played it, I'll never play it again. It's also one of the worst offenders in the 'items as keys' area.

I've played the main console games between LttP and Skyward Sword, in addition to Minish Cap and GC Four Swords. Playing that many games might lead you to think I'm a big fan of the series, but really I'm fairly mox-nix towards it nowadays, and I think GC Four Swords is the only game I'd ever play again, assuming multiplayer. I'll probably still check out Zelda WiiU, but I'm hardly drooling with anticipation or anything.


Majora's Mask definitely has some of the best atmosphere and NPCs, given its huge focus on side quests, but the fact that 75% of the game's content is those optional side quests is pretty whack. Nearly all the side quests are just for a piece of heart, which would be more appreciated if the game wasn't about as poop easy as all the others.

GC Four Swords can actually be quite fun with others, and does some things I'd like to see in the regular Zeldas. Namely, I love the effects of upgrading the items, and the occasional huge crowds of mooks. And while most people prefer to explore environments and backtrack to them later on to find other things etc, I honestly prefer this game's general linearity. Not so much losing all the upgrades you find every level, or not being able to carry more than one item at a time, though.

Twilight Princess I think has the most cinematic boss fights, but mostly the game felt dull. I don't know if it's the color palette or lack of magical items or what, but the game doesn't feel as "fantastical" as the other Zeldas. I mean, there's the Twilight Realm, but... eh. It just mostly feels like the "REAL IS BROWN" dimension more than anything, and the monster designs (and the sound design) seem more appropriate for a sci-fi than the usual Zelda fare. I suppose that was a deliberate attempt to make the place feel alien, but I don't think that was the way to do it. Midna is definitely the best "Navi" the series has ever had, though. The "secret" techniques were all pretty spiffy, though. Shield Bash is a pain to do on Wii version, but I legitimately enjoyed fighting Darknuts in this game.

As for Skyward Sword, which I played probably 85% of, I don't know if my distaste for it is for what it did different or for what it did the same. The developer interviews while it was in development were hinting towards a different experience, namely more compact. Namely, their comments about how Twilight Princess was too damn big and that they wanted to concentrate on "density of gameplay"... too bad it seems that meant they just wanted to reuse locations more.
I was legitimately interested in the motion control additions, as my sister and I played Wii Sports Resort and were like "so when are they putting all this shit in a Zelda game?", so the fact that they didn't program it well is not only a huge disappointment, but a complete mystery as well. I mean, I can understand the swordplay being off, as having to animate Link is a big jump up from animating a Mii, but how did they not even get the pointer to be reliable? Damn thing keeps drifting all over creation... I don't think the control is as bad as a lot of people claim, but I wouldn't call it a success.
I do like the directing swinging options, even if they technically aren't all that new. Every 3D Zelda since OoT has had left/right/down slashes and thrust - this is just the only game where choosing one direction over the other actually matters. However, the way they programmed the enemies to take advantage of it is really lame. Rather than fighting normally, letting you look for an opening on your own, they mostly just run up to you and block, making every enemy feel like the direction-chopping mini-game from Wii Sports Resort rather than an actual fight. I can't comment on how accurate the swinging is, though, as after a while I found it was more reliable to just ignore enemies, chuck bombs at them/shoot with arrows, or attack them without caring and just shield-bash the counter attack if they block. (Some counter attacks are so slow you can actually just swing your sword again and kill them that way)
Beyond that, and several other missteps (The Sky is just The Great Sea V2, only now you can't just set the wind and go grab a sandwich while sailing the vast emptiness), the game felt like more of the same Zelda/generic action-adventure formula I've grown tired of.

Yeah, the graphics don't seem like they were what the developers wanted. It's also a bit inconsistent in that the characters and enemies and such all look completely normal anyways.

I want to say that you're exaggerating about the reaction times for the enemies, but it has been 3 years since I touched the game, and, as I said, I just ignored that mini-game completely after I found out how utterly broken the shield bash is.

e: what actually makes it worse than the chopping mini-games is that the enemies don't split in half when you chop them.

Oracle of Ages/Seasons is forever my favourite.
I've been working through LoZ and Link's Adventure. Hard! I'm getting used to it slowly.

A Link to the Past and the remake A Link Between Worlds are the only games I could finish without having to consult a guide to find my way through a dungeon. I did use the guide to find a few out of the way secrets, mainly to 100% ALttP. Dungeons can be overlooked quite well, it's clear which way to go and you can frequently use a different item to solve a puzzle in a different approach. It also has well-designed enemies - they have notable and clear patterns and attack you agressively enough to stay on your toes. Keep in mind I missed the hint goggles and never knew they even existed.

Confusing and unnecessarily complex dungeons made me gave up on OoT's Fire Temple (how is the Water Temple supposed to surpass that?), Minish Cap's final dungeon (A wonder I even played this far), Majora's Mask's beginning (I would have never figured out you're supposed to wait until 5 minutes left) and after the third dungeon in Wind Waker (having absolutely no clue where to go next).

Bosses in OoT and Minish Cap are sluggish, easily predictable and merely require spamming whatever item you found in the dungeon until the opponent falls over, then running at them with the sword. While there is simple bosses in ALttP you just whack with your sword, the boss' attacks (and sometimes, the arena) force you to pay attention at all times.

The puzzles in the dungeons in A Link Between Worlds were pathetic, every time you had to use an item there was an icon in the shape of the item on the exact spot where you had to stand while using it

Nintendo plz, no one is that stupid, this is not enjoyable, we play puzzle games because we enjoy figuring things out

The rest of the game was okay. The wall puzzles were great. At first I really liked that it gave you the ability to buy almost every tool right at the beginning of the game - starting you at the point where Link to the Past ended, gameplay-wise. That gave them the opportunity to have a level of complexity in the puzzles that was impossible in other Zelda games - starting things right off the bat with really complex puzzles that required using five or six tools together in clever ways, and moving forward fromthere. However, the opportunity was totally wasted, and none of those tools were ever used in more than one dungeon. Instead of assuming you always had all of them, they assumed you never had any of them, and never made a single puzzle that required more than one tool. So much potential, all wasted.

The combat was also weirdly easier than Link to the Past, and the world was smaller. On the surface it seemed identical, but Link was about 50% bigger and walked about 50% faster, and his sword was about twice as long and swung in an arc twice as wide. Did they really think Link to the Past was too hard for modern gamers? Was this game even marketed to modern gamers? I was pretty sure it was the one Zelda game that was marketed specifically to veterans, so you'd think every aspect of it would be harder. NOPE

It sounds so bad, I hope it never comes out