Hey peoples,

If you're one of the people that is a HUGE Zelda fan, Tell me your favorite Zelda Game!!!!


I want to know! :D

MY favorite Zelda game has got to be Twilight princess for Gamecube.

What's YOUR favorite Zelda game?

Twilight Princess on the Wii without a doubt. The only one I haven't played is Majora's Mask.

A link to the past. The last great 2D adventure OOT might technically be a better game and the best Zelda (And TP is a pale imitation of OOT at best) but I have very fond memories of A Link to the Past

My favorite is A Link to the Past. It is one of the greatest games ever! I can't believe it has already been 14 years since I first played it.

I've played them all aside from the GB color ones, and Majora's Mask takes the cake. This one will stump you. I thought the 3 day thing was gonna be horrible and ruin the game, but it actually added a whole heck of a lot to the experience, they really pulled it off very well.

I love to replay A Link to the Past.

I think that Majora's Mask might actually be my favorite though.

I have very fond memories of A Link to the Past
As do I, it's definitely my favorite 2D Zelda by far. I wish they had included it on the Zelda collection disc for the cube.

I am still early on in TP. But as for now, OoT. And it probably never will change.

As do I, it's definitely my favorite 2D Zelda by far. I wish they had included it on the Zelda collection disc for the cube.

Yeah I read they did not include it do to the GBA version being for sale... This is on the TOP of my Top 10 MUST BUY VC list.

My favorite is Ocarina of Time.

This is a tough one. I would have to say A Link to the Past due to its graphical polish and quality sound design for an SNES game, along with its varied landmass and great inventory set. Nothing beats getting the tempered sword. :D

Also, I remember waking up 2 hours early many days just so I could play this game before school.

I've actually never played A Link To The Past before, but i'd say that my top 3 are in this order:

1:Ocarina Of Time
2: Twilight Princess
3:Majora's Mask :D

1 Majora's Mask - Still has the best replay value and the most depth. The Twilight Princess map may be bigger, but MM has much more going on every step of the way. Replay value is second to none - I've completed the game multiple times, but I still forget how to solve some puzzles.

2 Twilight Princess (Tie) - I'm roughly halfway through, and it's tremendous and getting better. My only complaint is that it seems more linear than it should, and the side quests seem smaller than they should be.

2 Ocarina of Time (Tie) - For all the improvements of TP, there's nothing that matches the originality of OoT's gameplay. This was the first Zelda game I was able to just pick up and play and figure out what was going on. I could never get into the original LoZ and couldn't make any progress without cheating. (I never played Link to the Past until recently, though - if I had played that first, it might have been tops).

4 Wind Waker - Still has the best gameplay of the series in my opinion. Using the c-stick to freely rotate the camera at any time is a feature I really miss in TP (I hear the GC version of TP keeps this though). I was never a big fan of the graphics, but they never bothered me either. My biggest issue was that the world was much too big for such a short quest.

5 Link to the Past - My favorite 2D zelda. Playing it after OoT, it's clear that OoT's story isn't as original as it seemed at the time. I much prefer the 3d controls and never got the hang of the 2D controls, which is why this one ranks below WW. I've also never been a fan of losing your shooting sword after the first his - I'd rather have no shooting at all.

6 Legend of Zelda - I got through it, but not without cheating. A lot. I have no idea how people got though this alone.

7 Zelda 2 - Meh. Played it on the NES, never got into it. Played it on a PC emulator, never got into it.

Haven't played

I THINK my top 3 will be exactly the same as LinkWarriror's whenever I finish TP. But of course I have to finish it to be sure.

I've only played the Zelda which was for the N64. I think it was called Ocarina of Time... I really enjoyed playing it.

i love all of them. always thought beating shawdow link in zelda 2 was one of the hardest things to do.
guess my favorite is still the original. even tried making my own quests. hard work.

Although I haven't played all of them over the last 20 years or so, I have played quite a few Zelda games, so I'll comment on the top five of the ones I've personally played extensively.

Some of these choices may seem weird, but here it goes:

1.) Wind Waker (Gamecube): For me this has been the high water mark of the series up to this point. Not only were the gameplay and controls excellent, but even after playing TP (although I'm not that far in) I still think the artisitc direction and graphics of WW are unsurapassed. It took the Zelda games I remember from my youth and brought them to life in 3D. The high point however is the setting and the story. I LOVE the post-apocalypic feel of the Great Sea. The size and the amount of time it took you to sail across it was not annoying, but perfectly suited to the tone of the game. I felt that the story wonderfully wove the mythos of the Zelda series together and for the first time really helped to link (no pun intented) all of the games into one cohesive whole. If you look past the graphic style you find one of the darkest stories in all of the Zelda titles, and the game was far better for it.

2.) Tie between A Link to the Past (SNES) and Twilight Princess (Gamecube): Although I've only just finished the Goron Mines, I can already tell the TP is going to be something special. The relationship the Link has with the children, and Colin in particular, is unlike anything that I have seen in a Zelda game. I also like the scale of the overworld, and how the game is slowing building ties to past Zeldas. Depending on where the story goes this one might move up on the list. As for a Link to the Past, what more needs to be said that hasn't been already. Its simply a brilliant classic that no self respecting gamer should miss. The first time I saw the multi-layered dungeons as a kid, I almost filled my pants :)

3.) Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link (NES): Thats right AoL is this high on my list. Although this game gets a bad rap from fans I still think that it's one of the most unique games in the series. Not only do I think that its a worthy follow up to the original, but I feel that it surpasses it in every way. When I first got it I found the play style jarring after playing the original, however after a few hours I still remember the wonder that it started to fill me with.

Link was no longer just a sword wielding boy, but had become a young man who was not only a warrior, but a magician as well. All of the magic and different items helped to fill this game with a sense of atmosphere that has only been equalled by other entries, never surpassed. The almost cruel difficulty really made you feel that you were on an epic quest, and the final battle against your darker half ranks as one of the greaest final battles in all of video games. We also see many of the staples from later on in the series make their first appearance here, music based magic, and the downward thrist for example.

4.) Links Awakening (GB): This one took much of the greatness of Link to the Past and wrapped it around a very atypical Zelda story. Strange characters and a seemingly stranger plot made for a great and unique adventure. It was also the first truely great game for the Game Boy, and the twist at the end was a great way of finishing the story.

5.) The Legend of Zelda (NES): The original. An inspired first game in the series that was revolutionary for its time. Only when you compare it to the polished mechanics and deeper stories of some of the later games in the series does it lose just a little of its luster. However, at the time it was unsurpassed and its place in gaming history will forever be cemented. Oh, and the shiny gold cartirdges of this one and AoL are still by far the best looking that have been produced.

You'll notice the Ocarina of time does not fit in my top 5. This differs from many people's lists, and may make my selections suspect in some people's minds, but here are my reasons. When I first played Ocarina I was blown away like everyone else, however I never felt like it was the greatest for a number of reasons. While the 3D graphics seemed fantastic at first it quickly became apparent to me, even then, that they would not age gracefully and I think anyone looking a Ocarina today would agree. The N64 just wasn't a powerful enough machine to render the epic locations that the desigers must have originally wanted in any kind of detail. It had huge open areas of nothing. Almost no grass, very few trees, and no real detail. The world felt sterile and empty.

Secondly, the story that many people say is the best part of Ocarina is simply a slightly more elaborate rehash of past games, particularily a Link to the Past.

I think much of the love that people have for Ocarina was that it was the first Zelda game for a large portion of current gamers, however when I played it it was already my fifth Zelda, and the transition to 3D alone was not enough to move it past some of my other favourites. I have yet to try Majora's Mask (for a number of reasons) but when it hits the Wii Virtual Console you can bet I'll check it out. I hear the world is smaller, but much more detailed and well executed, and the puzzles are great.

Again these are just my opinions on the subject. YMMV.

Flame On! ;)

I have yet to try Majora's Mask (for a number of reasons) but when it hits the Wii Virtual Console you can bet I'll check it out.

was going to tell you just to play the gamecube disc, but forgot that was a 64 game. (have the gamecube disc)

no flames, pretty close to how i feel. forgot how much fun the ww was.

OOT

TP

LinkttPast

I'm liking Twilight Princess more than any other Zelda so far.

I also like Wind Waker, though I find it too short and easy, and of course, way too much sailing. I like the graphics, though I do prefer the "real" look of Twilight Princess.

My runner up favorites would be A Link to the Past, and Link's Awakening, though my continued liking of those is likely based largely on nostalgia. Oh and The Minish Cap was pretty good too. I also beat Oracle of Ages, and started on Oracle of Seasons, but Seasons ended up frustrating me at some point and I quit. :/

Majora's Mask is one I never managed to finish. The extremely slow framerates bugged me to no end after having been spoiled by GameCube, and the super complicated side quests frustrated me. Ocarina of Time had a slower framerate and poorer graphics over all though, yet I managed to finish it, but I got it when N64 was new. What a difference perspective makes. My Zelda Collectors Edition disk for GameCube runs these two in a nice "high" resolution 480p mode, which looks pretty damned good, framerate is still poor though. I might try Majora's Mask like that again eventually. It's like Link went to the opthamologist and got glasses. LoL

1. TP
2. OOT
3. LTTP
4. Link's Awakening, for the GB
5. WW
6. Minish Cap
7. Legend of Zelda (NES)
8. The two gameboy color ones
9. Zelda 2 (NES)

I never actually played Majora's Mask, but I'm probably going to pick it up for the VC when it's eventually released. I think thats all the games though, am I forgetting any?

Edit: Oh, and thats not to say I didn't enjoy Zelda 2, it's still better than many games out there, but out of all the Zelda games its my least favorite.

Obviously I'm not counting the CDi ones as really Zelda games too.

<snip>


Obviously I'm not counting the CDi ones as really Zelda games too.
Nobody counts the CD-i one.

You mean CD-i ones(plural). There were 2 crappy CD-i Zelda games. One in which you play as Link and one you play as Zelda.

You mean CD-i ones(plural). There were 2 crappy CD-i Zelda games. One in which you play as Link and one you play as Zelda.

Wrong, there were 3.

Here is the cd-i history (http://www.zeldacentral.net/cdi/index.shtml) for those of you that don't know it (complete with endings).

A Link to the Past.
Just so many fond memories, and the one that got me into Zelda in the first place.

I played every single Zelda game when it was new, starting with the original in the mid 80's. I can't say which I would like best if I were playing them for the first time, only what I thought of them in context when they each came out, and given the age I was at the time. My two favorites in that regard are hardly surprising: Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. LttP is a game that I have utterly memorized backwards and forwards, which is a bit of a shame; I'd give a lot to be able to play it for the first time again. After mostly ignoring console video games in high school, my college roommate's Ocarina of Time practically forced me at sword-point to go buy my own N64. But aside from the portable versions, which are all well-done but basically skippable retreads of LttP, there isn't a single console Zelda game that I wouldn't call excellent. They each have strong moments that make them stand out. How about the most recent three: Majora's Mask was almost disorientingly original in its three-day framework while still feeling like Zelda, and it introduced Link's shapeshifting. Wind Waker felt expansive and expressive, and I loved the animation and what I thought was the especially good story/history. Twilight Princess has great art direction and feels fully fleshed out all the way through, almost like they delayed it for two whole years just to add more stuff ;). But Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time are the two that stand out as having been particularly innovative and amazing relative to what had come before; they're the ones that changed my whole idea at the time of what a video game could be.

My favorite is The Legend of Zelda (NES) followed closely by The Adventure of Link. I enjoyed all the 2D ones. I'm in the small majority that absolutely cannot stand The Ocarina of Time. I got as far as the dungeon inside the fish before I forced myself to admit I wasn't enjoying it and didn't need to play. I bought Majora's Mask and the cart's never been played. I haven't tried Wind Waker yet and I expect to get Zelda for the Wii soon and give that a shot.

Cush

Link to the Past was probably the most involving, but Ocarina of Time still ranks among the best games I've played EVER, Zelda or otherwise.

I'm barely into Twilight Princess. It's interesting, but there aren't nearly enough NPC's, and and the control scheme doesn't seem as agile as it did in either Wind Waker or Ocarina of Time.

Wind Waker would be the best of them all in my opinion if the vast expansive world you played in were actually better utilized. There weren't enough interesting side quests, what islands you could explore were only able to be in the most superficial of ways, but the dungeons were well done, and the gameplay style was excellent in my opinion.

I'm actually still just beginning Majora's Mask, so I can't comment on it other than to say it's the most confusing Zelda game to start of any of them.

If I had to make a top 5 it'd be:

Ocarina of Time
Link to the Past
Wind Waker
Twilight Princess
Original Legend of Zelda (the number of hidden secrets still boggles the mind)

A Link to the past, hands down. I'm not really feeling TP. I keep spending more time with it, but I end up bored kind of quickly... Honestly, I'm tired of Zelda games... and Mario games... a new Nintendo adventure franchise would be nice.

Majora's Mask is probably my second fave, and The Adventure of Link third.

Link to the Past for me, and most likely because it was the first I played. I loved that game and still own the original cartridge.

OOT, TP and WW, and every other Zelda game I've enjoyed, was fundamentally the same. Enter a dungeon. Beat a boss. Get a new weapon/tool to solve previous puzzles. It's the same thing with Metroid and that's the reason I couldn't get into Metroid Prime 2 ... it just felt like the same as the first game, only with a crappier save game system.

It's a tie for me between LttP and OoT. I've played through LttP on the SNES and GBA more times than I can count. I was completely obsessed with OoT when I played through it, but the length and large number of sidequests mean I've never replayed it - I got up to the water temple in the GCN port when WW finally came out, and never returned to it.

I finished Twilight Princess on the Wii AND Link to the Past on the DS/GBA yesterday while nursing my New Year's Eve hangover, so this thread is particularly interesting to me at the moment. I've played those two, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and Wind Waker, and I just started on Minish Cap on the DS/GBA. My rankings right now would be:

Ocarina of Time - I actually played Wind Waker before this and thought it was amazing, then played OoT only to find out that Wind Waker wasn't as innovative as I'd originally thought! The dungeons, characters, use of time travel, etc., was just amazing in this game. I managed to convince my wife to play it before playing Twilight Princess. This is one of the top five games I've ever played.

Twilight Princess - It's close to a toss up between TP and WW for me. I actually like the artistic style and free camera of WW better than any other game in the series, but the sailing got really old and gathering the pieces of the Tri-Force toward the end was a huge nuisance. On the other hand, the new controls on the Wii worked incredibly well and I really enjoyed the Silent Hill-esque Twilight Realm and overall darker feel. It was also fun to revisit the folks and locations from OoT. Oh, and for once in a Zelda game I actually felt like the world was involved in the actions around me, not just a single hero running around fixing the problem no one else was even recognizing.

Wind Waker - As I said above, I actually prefer the style of WW to any other Zelda I've played, and as others have pointed out, the post-apocalyptic setting was very cool, especially how it tied back into the previous Zelda games about halfway through. The tedium of navigating the world (even after getting the warp song) and finishing some main plot tasks kind of knocks it down for me, though.

Majora's Mask - I just played this recently and didn't entirely finish it (got the Wii just before the last dungeon; maybe I'll go back and finish it), but I did enjoy it greatly. Once you learn to use the reverse song of time, the frustrations of the 72 hour window for each run at a task/dungeon/whatever are lessened significantly. The masks were a great addition to the game. However, the completely disjoint setting and characters move this down relative to the others.

Link to the Past - VERY fun game and amazing for when it came out. Undoubtedly one of the best 2D games I've ever played. I noted above that WW seemed less innovative after going back to OoT. Needless to say, OoT now seems less innovative after going to back LttP. However, I do like the immersiveness of the 3D games more, and obviously because of its origins LttP does feel less deep overall than the more recent games in terms of characters, environments, etc. Don't get me wrong...this was a great game, but I'm actually waiting impatiently for the first portable 3D Zelda later this year.

Minish Cap - Just started this, so no real commentary on the game as a whole yet, but so far it feels...weird. It doesn't feel like a first-class Zelda game. It feels like the Zelda music, concepts, etc., were picked up by someone else and churned into a Zelda-like game, but not a Zelda game. We'll see as I play it more. Not entirely disppointed because the visuals are fantastic and the whole grow/shrink thing seems like it'll be neat...but it doesn't feel like part of the overall set of Zelda games to me.

EDIT: Update on Minish Cap. This game is fantastic! I think you have to get to (and perhaps through) the first dungeon before judging this one, but I'm enjoying this perhaps more than I did Link to the Past (yes, I know, that's probably heresy to some of you!). I love the Kinstone mechanism; it's like crack! Also, I love the fact that I'm getting dungeon items that I've never seen in any other Zelda game, yet they just feel...right. Also, it definitely feels like a first-class Zelda game now with all the right music, side quests, character interaction, etc. If you're a fan of 2D Zelda games and have a GBA or DS, this is a must play!

link to the past for sure! Althjough i havent played twilight princess yet

I keep liking TP more and more. I am tyring to slow p even more because I don't want it to end. Although I have so far made it last from launch day until now and 80+ hours sof ar.

I keep liking TP more and more. I am tyring to slow p even more because I don't want it to end. Although I have so far made it last from launch day until now and 80+ hours sof ar.
I think you're absolutely correct to slow down. When I finished the game, I had withdrawl pains! I wish I had spent the time to try and complete more of the optional stuff along the way. I know I could go back and do that now, but those kinds of things are better if you spread them out over the whole course of the game, rather than trying to do them all at once.

I just started playing it again, starting over from the beginning, after a layoff of 3 weeks or so. There was such pleasure in just sitting on the sofa and holding the controls. I really can't explain it, but it's truly a pleasure. You should have seen the stupid happy look on my face -- I'll bet it was comical. And this time, I have the component cables. On my PJ it looked fine with just the composite cable, but I have to admit it looks a lot better with component cables.

The only drawback (to me) of playing it a second time is also one of the good things. It's good that you can skip the cut scenes if you don't really want to go through them again. The downside is that if you skip them, you may forget what's the next thing you need to do.

After I finish it a second time and then let it sit for a while, I'm thinking it might be kind of cool to do some "speed runs" to see how fast I can complete the game, from start to finish. I wonder if other people would like to do this also, and post their times, tips, etc. Maybe I'll start a thread when I'm ready to do that...

Can you believe it? I'm 50 and I feel giddy like a 12-year-old. Must be senility setting in. :confused:

-Dan