What is your favourite LOZ game? My fave is twilight princess as it was the first zelda game I played. Being it on the Wii.
What about you?
Link to the Past. Partially the nostalgia hit, but even going back and playing it today just feels good IMO.
Same here. A Link to the Past feels like it defined Zelda games for me. OoT too.
Replayed it last year and it was as good as I remembered. Windwaker is my personal favourite but LTTP is so close it might as well be a tie.
If you haven’t tried them, the randomizer for LTTP is well polished and makes the game really fun for another play through!
I am very bad at the randomizers, but that doesn’t stop me from playing them anyway. :)
In case anyone doesn’t know, the mobile port is incredible when you don’t have time to play a full run.
LttP is the origin of the iconic gameplay style. My preference is Links Awakening which refined it a bit and introduced some fun characters. I was happy with the version on the Switch.
Zelda: Majora’s Mask. The characters were more real in that game than any other Zelda. So much emotion and good music.
That’s probably the Zelda game I had the most negative reaction to. Oh, you’re going to undo all of my progress because I didn’t know how much more there was to do in this quest line before the world reset? No, I’m not going to do all of that again.
But that’s the fun of it! The game really manages to put you in a hurry if you really want to do everything you can in one cycle. Plus, my emotional atachment to the NPCs made me feel so relieved every time I went back in time and saw people living their little lives, clueless about the horrors to come
It would be one thing if I knew how much I had to do ahead of time, but until I’ve seen most of it before, I have no idea. There was some upgrade I could get only after finishing the entire goron temple, race, and some such, and I was on the final step of it when I ran out of time. I can’t do just the last step of it; I had to repeat at least the race, maybe the temple, in order to get to that spot again. I decided instead, “Nah, I’m good,” and put the game down. I respect that they tried to do a lot with a little on the development side, but it introduced tedium for me, the player, to be within those constraints.
This was the last Zelda game I played, but I couldn’t really get the hang of it since I really went into it expecting OoT 2: Eclectic Boogaloo, and OoT was really the best thing I’d seen up until then regardless of franchise. Then I saw all the cool stuff being done in later games with all the amazing tech that was being developed but I just couldn’t get around to have the time or patience necessary to sit and play anymore.
Link’s Awakening. I played the shit out of that on GameBoy. If you knew the screen skip glitch you could break that game wide open.
Most importantly, finish the game while having Marin as a companion until the end. I’m playing the game every year cycling through the three versions and every time I get to the original version, I skip the walrus.
If you’re emulating, there’s a romhack that restores the screen warp glitch to DX.
The Wind Waker for me. At the time, the open world and sea felt so massive, and the colorful cell-shaded graphics made me feel like I was immersed in a cartoon. I played other Zelda games before, but it was the first one to hold my attention all the way to the end. To me, it’s one of those games I wish I could experience again for the first time.
Windwaker would’ve been an easy #1 for me if it weren’t so stretched out. The ocean really didn’t need to be that big, I remember many times where I was just holding forward on the boat and browsing my phone for 5 minutes.
What got me was the Triforce hunt. Nearly no guidance/signposting, constant trips back to tingle, then back to a warp point, then sail around, rinse repeat. Ugh.
They did make it less tedious in the Wii U remaster, but still, eughhghgh
I actually really enjoyed the size of the ocean it made me feel like I was really on a journey
Old guy who has played every Zelda game there is. Breath of the Wild wins.
This was the first zelda I really felt like nailed the open world feel. I had a blast playing this one with my partner.
TOTK overtook BOTW as my favorite because there is just so much to do. It’s one of the things I loved about BOTW, and they somehow managed to cram even more into TOTK.
Before BOTW, Ocarina of Time was my favorite Zelda game.
It’s a super close second
I think my first was Majora’s Mask (I joined the N64 age late) and I’m the same. I wasn’t even committed to buying “new Zelda” until I saw they were upping the difficulty and having players be more self-reliant, and I loved it. I still can’t categorize the exact mode of fun people associate to “dungeons” compared to wide-open exploration.
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 preferred the ship of Phantom Hourglass more to the train but I agree that Spirit Tracks felt much more polished and fun.
Except that last flute challenge which can fuck off
I really think that everyone really had trouble with the DS microphone rather than the flute challenge itself. It came pretty easily to me but I doubt I’m a particularly expert mic blower, so I can only think my mic was a fully functioning one and people like you got a much harder challenge.
Oh jeez I completely forgot about the pan flute. I’m pretty sure my DS mic was broken so those were all torture :,(
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.
Wind Waker was an amazing game
Majora’s Mask is the best Zelda game. However, Wind Waker is my favorite Zelda game. The setting, art style, and musical score all combined perfectly to make a game that was both really fun and relaxing. No Zelda game since has ever matched the feeling of sailing to the Great Sea soundtrack.
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.
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
Never finished Ages either ! my 11yo self was too thick to get through some of the puzzles. I should try it again
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
Nostalgia-wise it’d be Phantom Hourglass, it’s super underrated, super fun game! But otherwise it’d be the Switch duology, they’re incredible games
Phantom Hourglass was a lot of fun, it really took advantage of what the DS can do.
My wife hated having to return to the temple repeatedly, but I enjoyed revisiting the same area and seeing the shortcuts I can take with my new items.
Also, freely drawing notes on the map was awesome.
Ocarina of Time, for sure
Probably a Link to the Past. Although I’ve only played the games in the series up to Link’s Awakening so that might change although the game would have to be pretty damn good
Wait so no ocarina?
Its next on my list!
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.