I think the email was answered before, because I remember saying this before, but the two Zelda games to play are Link to the Past and Ocarina of time. I just replayed both recently and they both are still incredible games that hold up as all time greats. Don't play Wind Waker, it's at best, mediocre and just popular with hipster kids who haven't played it and want to appear Internet cool and independent.
I think the email was answered before, because I remember saying this before, but the two Zelda games to play are Link to the Past and Ocarina of time. I just replayed both recently and they both are still incredible games that hold up as all time greats. Don't play Wind Waker, it's at best, mediocre and just popular with hipster kids who haven't played it and want to appear Internet cool and independent.
I think the email was answered before, because I remember saying this before, but the two Zelda games to play are Link to the Past and Ocarina of time. I just replayed both recently and they both are still incredible games that hold up as all time greats. Don't play Wind Waker, it's at best, mediocre and just popular with hipster kids who haven't played it and want to appear Internet cool and independent.
I will fight you.
I agree with the LTTP and OOT recommendation. But dude what? Wind Waker is like...the third or fourth best Zelda game. And I've beaten every single one, most of them multiple times. Whoever asked that question (again, it's kind of old) should check out my detailed analysis on each game in the series and where I'd rank them. It's right here.
I think the email was answered before, because I remember saying this before, but the two Zelda games to play are Link to the Past and Ocarina of time. I just replayed both recently and they both are still incredible games that hold up as all time greats. Don't play Wind Waker, it's at best, mediocre and just popular with hipster kids who haven't played it and want to appear Internet cool and independent.
A Link to the Past is the best game in the series, but Ocarina of Time is just a mediocre 3D version of that to me. Ocarina's controls/camera are pretty bad, the pre-rendered backgrounds look horrible and dated, and a handful of the dungeons are straight up lame. Like the Fire Temple? that one is straight-up bland, the only "challenge" was some platforms were hard to run on and you fell into lava you could just walk on. The puzzles? pretty knuckle-dragging straight forward. Anyway, that's just one of them, there are fucking awesome ones in that game. But fuck, that game has some incredible music and it is very charming.
The Wind Waker, that game was awesome, even with the missing 2-3 dungeons, it had great atmosphere, great music, great controls/camera, cool items, tons of fun sidequests, a very mysterious world to explore, with many fun little islands and things around the Great Sea you did not have to go to at all, but when you did you got some cool stuff(for a Zelda game) and were just really cool to look at fun to be in. It gave some of the air of the original Legend of Zelda, which Link in that game was originally based off. And that awesome version of Hyrule you could glitch into and walk around in? Fucking awesome. Anyway it is a wonderful game with a lot of love put into it.
Also Majora's Mask is really fun / cool, kind of gets hate because they made a 3D Zelda game with some real challenge to it, and it wasn't a Link to the Past remake, but the openness and how it treats its world and characters is really fun and interesting, just a really cool Zelda game that has a good sense of wonder to it, it encourages you to explore and dip your feet in a whole lot.
Blah blah blah even Twilight Princess had some really fucking great dungeons (Snowpeak especially) just it had a sort of bland wrapping and the Wii version was inferior and the overworld was pretty lacking in interesting stuff to do or explore.
TLDR: Listen to and do what Jeff said on the podcast.
@Dan_CiTi: Again, i *just* replayed the N64 version of Ocarina three weeks ago. I stand by that game as the best in the series, and one of the best games of all time. Since it was my first replay in a long while, I was amazed when reminded of its depth, and its huge open world that felt filled with interesting things to do. LTTP is mind-bogglingly great, but play them back to back, and you'll see how much more there is to see and do in Ocarina.
Wind Waker, man..
I wanted to like Wind Waker, I really did. But the sailing, dear lord the sailing. I remember being excited for about 15 minutes when i first got the boat, then realizing "oh.. i guess each one of these spaces on this grid is exactly one island". Completely killed any feeling of exploration or discovery for me. I mean.. if you're just gonna have a few things for me to do, why the hell pad your game with making me sail for 10 freaking minutes between everything? Since the game is short and most of the dungeons are pretty lazy i think i know the reason for the padding, but man.. talk about bad pacing. Also, I know art is subjective, so this doesn't fly for everyone, but i personally think that game is the ugliest thing i've ever seen. I hate, hate, hate, the art style of Wind Waker; i would rather boil my eyes in vinegar than watch that game in motion.
Lastly, that game is mad sexist. Zelda is an awesome pirate queen until she finds out she's a pretty pink princess and then DOES NOTHING ELSE. Its practically 1950's level of useless heroine.
@Bobtoad1: What depth are you talking about? What stuff to do in the "open world" you mean the Hyrule Field with a few random enemies and bushes in it, and few caves with rupees in them? I mean the game has a few good sidequests, but youre making it sound like Red Dead Redemption or Fallout. It definitely doesnt have anything to do in it, just backwalk to whatever of the levels you need to go to. Wind Waker, while the sailing is somewhat tiring for the first half, you get the ability to warp later, and you can sail pump to make sailing faster too. Then again, I never minded sailing since it was fun to explore the sea and all of the islands. My biggest problem was your ship's canon is somewhat hard to aim at moving targets. I mean, I understand what you're saying, but I have played Ocarina this year as well (in August) and it really isn't that special, and the camera and controls have not aged well, and really the most interesting and best parts of the game are the music and glitches, which are spectacular. As an aside, I find moving around in OoT very slow haha, just moving around the bland Hyrule Field, it even takes so long to get out the Ocarina, call Epona, get her to spawn and run up to you I just end up backwalking, sidejumping, or song warping. The dungeons in TWW are not lazy, that's for sure, they're definitely a lot better than half of OoT's which are very basic, which I can't fault the game for most of the dungeons being extremely simple, since it was the first 3D game and they didn't know how to design the dungeons as well as a game like Twilight Princess, which if anything it had some very elaborate dungeon designs. The Wind Waker's dungeons were always elaborate, with a decent amount of difficulty, but never asked for things that go against the limitations of the game, which I feel Ocarina does, for instance platforming, stealth, or using the first person view a lot. While Wind Waker contains a stealth section, it makes more sense since Link is defenseless, and the camera control allows you to zoom out a bit and turn it making it a lot more playable, in addition to the various tricks and strategies you can use like in any game. These improved controls, camera, and as well as the bigger levels and better, more specific hitboxes for everything allow platforming in Wind Waker to be far less trial and error as well.
My biggest problem was the forced stealth in OoT, in Wind Waker it made sense since you had no sword, but in something like Gerudo's Fortress Adult Link can just be caught? When he is a time traveling, holy sword and magic wielding badass? what the hell? And obviously, the game's camera and controls are far from optimized for this section of the game. This is what I mean about the game aging poorly. Something like the Fire Temple is about as basic as you could make a dungeon in a Zelda game, lowest common dominator, and something like the stealth of Gerudo's Fortress just is not fun or intuitive. I could argue something like the Forest Temple isn't much fun at all(music is fucking awesome! reminds me of Silent Hill 2), but that's just taste coming into play.
I mean, Ocarina takes the sages that had personality and then when they found their destiny, much like Zelda, were locked up for the rest of the game too. And at the end of the game, she shot Ganondorf herself with the light arrows, she was still pretty cool. But yeah Tetra > Zelda any day of the week.
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