Those of you that are unaware, Sequelitis is a video series done by Egoraptor where he critically compares games and their sequels in their own respective series. So far he has done Castlevania (2 videos to be exact) and a Mega Man one which are great. Today his latest video came out talking about The Legend of Zelda. Say what you will about Egoraptor, but I found the video to be fantastic. He greatly talks about why Zelda 1 and AlttP are fantastic and what made them great while criticizing (mainly OoT) the newer 3D ones and why they have shied away from what made the older ones great. As someone that loves Ocarina of Time, all of his complaints are very understandable.

Of course this is an opinion video so take it what you will.

This is probably considered YouTube spam/advertising. But to chime in, the best Zelda game is Windwaker. Since the 2D and 3D Zelda games were after different things, I think in all fairness comparing OoT with Windwaker is more fair, as I believe Windwaker is actually a great way to make a sequel.

@shivermetimbers: No the best game is Majora's Mask since it's lean and super atmospheric. Wind Waker has too much Triforce Hunt to be best. It's right up there though in the pantheon of best Zeldas.

I'm kind of hesitant to watch it because Arin has a tendency to bash new stuff in favor of older games. Sometimes out of nowhere.

I tried watching, the voice is annoying. I'm out

Gonna watch this in about... five minutes. Love Arin in everything he does, as Egoraptor, on Game Grumps and on Starbomb. I do believe I won't agree with him though, as it does seem like he tend to like the older stuff more regardless of how good the new stuff is. As SethPhotopoulos said before me.

For me the best Zelda is Majora's Mask. The atmosphere, the locations, the mask mechanic. Damn, that game is good. Also has awesome music, though most of it was procured from OoT. It also has some of the more poignant moments in the series, and did a lot of cool stuff with stories and how you experienced them. The fact that everyone followed the same path every cycle made for a brilliant way to do side-quests. Been enjoying all Zelda's really, some less than others. Skyward Sword was great mostly because of what it did to the storyline, but other than that I think it felt a bit flat. I actually liked Twilight Princess a lot, never understood the flak it got.

I really liked the Mega Man one of these, but this just seems kinda nitpicky in places.

I find it hard to relate to some of his arguments as they tend to be somewhat hyperbolic and hypocritical. For example, he praises ALttP for having to be aware of your surroundings when engaged in battle and exploring, yet he argues that 3D titles throw random enemies and obstacles at you when they can be easily avoided if you had simply looked around and been more aware of your surroundings. His arguments about combat also seem to be more preferential than critical. He criticizes OOT for having to wait for openings to attack enemies and prefers the simple hack and slash of older games. That seems to be more his preference for faster paced gameplay than an actual critical analysis. Though, I do agree that the Iron Knuckle fights are incredibly unique and interesting and show off excellent gameplay concepts that the rest of the combat falls short on.

Also, I get really sick and tired of the irrational Skyward Sword hate. You didn't like it. Great.

The best Zelda Game is Majora's Mask, the most RPG like since... maybe ALttP? Atmosphere, dark themes, tension (mostly due to the time limit), actual consequence and the greatest game over sequence in history.

This video just makes me want to play OoT again.

This kind of ended up being what I expected. I like Arin but he seems to be stuck in the past when it comes to his taste in games. It kind of shines through in Game Grumps because most of the games they play are older or have old school sensibilities.

I like Arin's points in all of these because they really get my brain fluids flowing over my opinion on games. I feel conflicted because sometimes I feel like modern games are so dull and boring because of all the hand holding they do, but then when something like Dark Souls comes out and it brings back all the nightmares of trying to beat some absurd game that is nothing but trial and error (and sometimes a hint of luck) to complete, then I start to think what a good game is.

I don't always find myself agreeing with Arin, but I do like his points about how annoying it is to see modern games constantly breaking the flow of the game with directions for how to play and showing you button prompts, I think it's pretty annoying when all I want to do is just jump in, get immersed into the world and play the game, but there's always some sort of beginning tutorial with a button pop up for something that I already know. Unless I'm doing real rocket science in a game, I don't need a tutorial for playing something as basic as Call of Duty.

Story telling in games can always be a hit or miss thing for me personally. Don't get me wrong, I love MGS, the recent tell tale games, and sometimes even a cheesy Kingdom Hearts story, but I absolutely hate how in Dragon's Age, Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls, and the Witcher how the dialogue pulls you out of the action in order to advance the story. It feels like such a waste of time when I have to hear a guard in Skyrim give me my rights or whatever for killing a chicken when I just want to kill the dragon that's killing everybody in a village.

Does anyone else hate Egoraptors sense of humor? He does the same thing over and over again. He goes off on some tangent THEN GET REALLY LOUD AND THEN CUTS- himself off... like that. Or then he does that same dumb voice.

I think he tried to stretch some stuff but he ended up with some good points.

I completely agree. I liked hearing his opinions, but god damn his obnoxious yelling got REALLY grating.

On the topic of the video: I never really noticed how much waiting there was in Ocarina of Time. I loved it when I played it on the N64 and Gamecube, and I'm a bit fearful to replay it now because It might be one of those games that I only REMEMBER being really good, but in reality it's just ok.

Well, he had some pretty damn good points. Made me think more about the structure of the games, which is nice. I still think Majora's Mask is the best one, but I fully see where he is coming from. If the new ZeldaU becomes more like the old-school Zelda, then that would be pretty sweet.

@flacracker: We all have different sense of humor, and I tend to like this kind. Only been following Egoraptor/Game Grumps for a few months, but I generally enjoy what they do. It's totally valid not to like it, and think it is dumb, but I happen to love it.

@sethphotopoulos: tottaly, he is one of those people who thinks games have a super specific definition and anything that doesn't fit the mold isn't worthy

Arin's credibility went down the drain when he actually started playing games in large capacities and showed that he was incapable of doing in the most insignificant of tasks, due to having the patience of a 4 year old that ate 47 Snickers Bars.

He does raise some issues with Ocarina of Time that people tend to gloss over, like how shooting at Keese/bats that are outside of Z-targeting range is infuriating and not fun. Also that all the hidden caves in OoT do kinda suck since they just have Deku Babas and then inevitably a chest with fucking bombs or 20 rupees in it or something useless.

But I agree that Nintendo took a lot of the wrong lessons from Ocarina of Time regarding what people want from a Zelda game. While it was cool that it fleshed out the Zelda mythology a bit, OoT was the point at which it got really talky and holds your hand through everything. I'll be interested to see what Nintendo takes from the response to Link Between Worlds.

Whoops I didn't find this thread in my search. Good post and GREAT video! I love sequelitis.

From the points he makes it almost sounds like Spelunky is more of a successor to the first Zelda game than any game with the name Zelda in the title that came after it. For some reason I find that amusing.

I'd sooner call Spelunky a Zelda game than Skyward Sword.

I'm glad finally someone rips Ocarina of Time apart. Link to the Past is still the best in terms of having a strong narrative and exploration.

During the video I couldn't help but side with him on most of the arguments that he made, but really after thinking about it for a little while, I think that a lot of the points that he made were too minor for me to really care about them too much. I mean, to start off, he said that he wanted to be able to visit the death mountain but he was gated by some other event that he had to go through first. At this point in the game, I believe you can visit the entire overworld, lake hyrule, eponas ranch, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I mean, when I was a child, this was enough for me to think the world was pretty darn big already. Also, the gameplay that you have to go through to go up death mountain is pretty fun(avoiding guards and sneaking into the castle). So, yeah, the open world stuff was pretty good in my book.

Second, he talked about how Z targetting isn't too great and how the AI slowed down battles by blocking and you have to wait to take your shots. I think Z targetting was amazing, at the time. It definitely changed the way things worked but wasn't perfect by any means when you add old things like bats into the mix. It would have been cool to see it effect gameplay more than just waiting for your chance to attack. It more tests your reflexes that skill and I find that to be fine. It seemed like he made a much bigger deal about it than it actually deserved but that's just my opinion.

I'm guessing the last thing he was talking about was that the talking and the storytelling get in the way of the gameplay but I thought that the story in OOT was fine and it gave you reasons and context as to what you were doing and why. I can understand that it would have been cool to try to weave the gameplay and the story together by putting mechanics in that were tied to the story but for me the time I didn't expect too much. I really enjoyed the story of OOT but I can see why others don't.

Anyways, that's all I can think of right now.

A lot of the reason he posted are some reasons I've never fully clicked with 3d Zelda. It's an interesting stance for sure

I really enjoy sequelitis as a series, but it's important to take it with a grain of salt. Arin has the tendency to get really hyperbolic and mired in arguments based over opinions. He opines that people just shouldn't give a shit about story in games and should only care about the gameplay, when there exist plenty of people who are interested in games with literally no gameplay and all story. See: Phoenix Wright, any visual novel, Mass Effect (haha, burn) . However, as it's an opinion piece, it's good. He argues his opinion well. I don't think he's going for objective analysis in these videos.

Regardless, Arin's scripting in these videos has always surprised me with how verbose it gets. They're well produced and overall very entertaining. Always liked this series.

I think he makes a lot of good points that I've probably not really thought about before with that game. It's one I grew up with, making it easy to hold in an unrealistic light. If anything, this is a very useful video for pointing out the differences between 2D and 3D games and how not everything can be carried between the two effectively. Also, he makes a good point on the eyeball stuff. It seems like more of a gimmick of 3D at the time than actual clever design. More of a showcase for the kind of perspective 3D can offer you than a good puzzle. It's pretty archaic in retrospect.