What are you playing?

[BogusMeatFactory]

I beat a link to the past just a few years ago for the first time and felt the world was empty, the secrets still obtuse in the vein of the original zelda and the story lacking and uninteresting. I felt a lot of the items seemed unnecessary or underutilized and the visuals to be, "off."

It did not click with me at all. I am not saying it I'd a bad game by any means, but it doesn't hold any nostalgia with me and was one of the very last zelda games I've played so it doesn't hold up in my eyes.

I don't think people are wrong for loving it, because personal experiences shape how we view things, but the order within which I've beaten zelda games probably plays a huge factor in that.

[noiseredux]

I understand. Though, having spent SO MUCH time in that world as a kid, it's tough for me to see it as empty at all. I spent hours doing stupid shit like gambling on picking a chest out of three; or doing the little archery mini game and stuff like that. So I always felt that the world had so much going on - granted, I played it after only playing Zelda and Zelda II. I totally understand how impressions of a game can be altered via time and place.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I understand. Though, having spent SO MUCH time in that world as a kid, it's tough for me to see it as empty at all. I spent hours doing stupid shit like gambling on picking a chest out of three; or doing the little archery mini game and stuff like that. So I always felt that the world had so much going on - granted, I played it after only playing Zelda and Zelda II. I totally understand how impressions of a game can be altered via time and place.

Oh yeah, I want to stress that I do not think your feelings are in any way invalid. Your experiences of the game are treasured and rightfully so! The magic and connection you made with it makes it one of your favorites for all the right reasons. There are reasons my top favorite games of all time are games that don't even register on most people's list lies heavily with that idea of how much it connected with me.

Games are awesome... all of them.

[noiseredux]

There are reasons my top favorite games of all time are games that don't even register on most people's list lies heavily with that idea of how much it connected with me.

absolutely. In MY opinion, LJN's Nightmare On Elm Street is one of the absolute best NES games of all time. Seriously.

[alienjesus]

On the topic of Zelda, I am currently playing through A Link To The Past myself. It's never been one of my favourites either to be honest.

However, I haven't played the game in over 14 years, and for this play through I decided to try something different and use a randomiser. It's completely changed the game for me and I'm having a great time.

I will say that I thoroughly disagree about the secrets being obtuse here - I'm absolutely REQUIRED to discover them right now as any random cave containing 20 rupees could now have a hookshot or bow which is essential to beating the game. The 2D zelda dungeons in this game don't feel as fun, but the overworld exploration is the best it's been in the series, and the randomiser really makes you emphasise that. It's also good for making you revalue items - the biggest missing link for my in terms of making progress right now is the magic lamp - an item you normally get before you even find a sword, but for my run it's yet to be discovered and it's preventing me completing all kinds of places.

What the randomiser also does is make you appreciate how many ways there are to approach things in the game. The second dungeon normally requires the book to open, but I've not found that yet either. However, I do have the flute, the titans mitt and the magic mirror, and using a combination of those 3 I was able to fly to a ledge, lift a rock to open a path to the dark world, walk to the entrance of the temple and then use the magic mirror to return to the light world, completing bypassing the obstacle.

If anyones wondering, I still need to complete these dungeons, and find these weapons and power ups:
Dungeons:
Eastern Palace (yes, the 1st dungeon...the lack of lamps is problematic)
Palace of Darkness (darkness - lamps = no progress)
Misery mire
Turtle rock (I'm missing the cane of somaria too!)

Items:
Book of mudora
Magic lamp
Bug net
Cane of Somaria
Red Mail
Fighters Shield
Mirror Shield
Tempered Sword
Gold Sword

[marurun]

I don't have a Zelda top 5. I have a top 4.

1. Breath of the Wild
   I have always been drawn to open-world games (as long as they're not asinine), enjoying fare from Bethesda, Arkane, Volition, and many classic PC RPGs. BotW is, to my mind, the perfect encapsulation of one particular style of those games. They are NPC-lite but exploration and discovery heavy. You get guidance, but not too much, and a lot is left blind, for you to have to simply stumble across.
2. Link to the Past
   For me this was the third Zelda game I played, which makes a lot of sense given the Zelda release timeline. It was really interesting to see more story elements fused with the game and a return to the overhead view. I also feel that, for a 2D Zelda, LttP was about as complex or expansive as I would ever want my 2D Zelda to be. There were times I actually felt some dungeons were too large, or the overworld to be on the verge of too much. I think Nintendo found, pretty much, right where to stop before overdoing it. The portable 2D Zeldas were all, in some form or fashion, too much of one thing or another. Too much item trading. Too much of a step back toward obscure or obtuse solutions to puzzles. My favorite portable Zelda is the GBA port of LttP
3. Legend of Zelda
   Yes, it's obtuse. Yes, it can even be cruel in places. But the simple graphics and gameplay actually help get over that. It's not a game anyone ever expected to hold their hand. It's not a step down or a step backwards from anything. In its day and age it was such a step forward. There were other screen-by-screen adventure games, especially on early PCs, where you wandered around finding items to do other things. But Zelda was so cohesive, balancing overworld exploration against the dungeon levels. Nostalgia is real!
4. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
   Love it! Nintendo was doing some really cool stuff with graphics in this game, like multi-sprite enemies. The music was great. There were RPG elements, magic spells, such a variety of ways to attack. It was great! There was no Zelda orthodoxy at this early point in time, so Zelda could be whatever it wanted or needed to be, and I found this experiment grand.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I understand. Though, having spent SO MUCH time in that world as a kid, it's tough for me to see it as empty at all. I spent hours doing stupid shit like gambling on picking a chest out of three; or doing the little archery mini game and stuff like that. So I always felt that the world had so much going on - granted, I played it after only playing Zelda and Zelda II. I totally understand how impressions of a game can be altered via time and place.

Yeah this is where I'm at. I played the games in order ("back in the day") and loved each one. Being a Nintendo Power subscriber also helped -- if I ever got stuck or frustrated my issues were resolved if I was willing to wait a month or whatever.

Though not my #1 favorite I can't stress enough how much I love the original Zelda. It's so meticulously designed. It really bridged the schism between exploratory adventure/RPG games and arcade/action titles. At the time of its release, it was the best video game ever made.

[PartridgeSenpai]

I find the 2D games and 3D games so different that they're hard to compare, so I'm gonna make a list for each (and just lists of what I'm confident in discussing, as it's been a few years since I've played some of them). (Spoilered to conserve size)

2D Zeldas:

#1. Oracle of Seasons. While I do love Link's Awakening a LOT, that game took me 4 tries to actually finish growing up because it has such serious signposting problems of where you're actually supposed to go next. At least 2 playthroughs died in the last dungeon alone. Oracle of Seasons has all the tighter world design, great bosses, fun dungeons, of the other 2D games before it and puts it all into the best package yet. Link's Awakening is good, but its formula was improved upon. I have beaten Oracle of Ages, but it was quite some time ago and I don't really feel comfortable ranking it here because while I grew up with Seasons (although I played it after Awakening), I got Ages WAY later.

#2. Minish Cap. The writing, the art design, the combat, the dungeons, this is juuuuust barely below Oracle of Seasons and could easily be #1 on its own. It's just such a damn well designed Zelda game, it's probably one of the best GBA games period. Looking for rupees, the charms you match up with people, exploring the town, solving puzzles as you get new items. The world has such an air of mystery and exploration to it that's so rewarding that just typing about it here makes me wanna boot up my 3DS and play through it again

#3. Link to the Past. One of my favorites growing up, and I'm willing to admit a lot of the love for this /may/ be nostalgia goggles talking. 2D Zelda was definitely improved after this, but this is a really great 2nd step for the top-down 2D Zelda games. The music and atmosphere, especially in the dark world is just SO good. It was legit SO scary to me that there were no towns, nowhere to hide safely in the dark world when I was younger, and that's a memory that's too fond to really neglect for me. Lastly, it may not be fair, but I'd specifically say the GBA port of LTTP, if only because I have so many fond memories of playing Four Swords on link-cable with my cousin because that mode rocks~

#4. Legend of Zelda (original). I really wasn't a fan of the first Zelda until I got it through the 3DS Ambassador program, and then I really fell in love with it. Having no narrative really made it hard to sit down at my NES and give it the time to play through it, but just having a little action adventure game to play when I had some free time was SO fun for me that it was one of the first games to bring to my attention just how much more I preferred some games to be portable rather than on console.

I think a lot of the reason I don't wanna put them on the same list is that I just generally prefer 2D action adventure games to 3D action adventure games, but regardless here are the 3D ones

3D Zeldas:

#1: Majora's Mask. This is one that nostalgia also might have some bearing on, but it's just a game world I love so much. All the different side stories, character quests, those are what made me fall in love with this game to the point where I pushed through to beat it without realizing that the slowing-down-time song was even a thing . I enjoyed Ocarina of Time a lot when I was younger, and was so excited for the 3DS remake that I even have the standee for that from Gamestop in my room (it looks freaking awesome), but I just don't think it holds up as well because of the weaker narrative, at least as far as I enjoyed it.

#2. Breath of the Wild. This game has a surprising amount of Majora's Mask DNA in its design philosophy as far as all the extra stuff that you can use to make the later game be easier goes, and I think that may've been why I liked it so much. The shrines are really fun, and while none of the bosses are particularly difficult, this is a game where the journey was definitely more important than the destination. The cutscenes were also done really well for me. I had the Japanese voice acting on, and Zelda's VA is REALLY good in Japanese. That on top of how well the lore is done for the Gorons and especially the Garudo really just made me fall in love with the world as well. It's not the best written Zelda game, but it's up there.

#3. Wind Waker. I haven't played this one in a while, so perhaps I don't like it as much these days, but I definitely have very fond memories of Wind Waker on Gamecube. The bosses are well designed, exploring new islands is really fun an exciting, and the narrative is well done. It certainly drags in some places (like the stealth section in the beginning or finding the triforce pieces later on), but I still say that the good really outweigh the bad here.

#4. Skyward Sword. This is a bit of a hard one to put on here, but there's a reason that Skyward Sword is my most favorite game I didn't really enjoy playing. Skyward Sword has a BIG laundry list of problems, but the narrative really isn't one of them. I remember the narrative so fondly that this game makes this list if anything because if I had to choose whether to replay Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, or Skyward Sword right now, I'd probably pick Skyward Sword because its storytelling is so well done compared to the other two.

As some final notes, I will put forward that I'm basically the only person I know who really enjoyed the DS game, it seems . The only Zelda game I genuinely do not like and wouldn't want to play again is Zelda II. The game's combat is just too hard for me to enjoy the other aspects of the game like the towns or exploration, because they're all punctuated with the ever so frustrating combat. That alongside how the game's world really isn't engaging enough (unlike Skyward Sword) for me to really want to bother trying to muddle through the combat enough to see the end of the game.

------

As for what I've been playing, I'm gonna try and get through Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut on the PS2 so I can start the sequel next month for that month's TR. I have definitely given it enough time to sit, because where I was kinda burned out on Tales the last time I played this, I'm totally up for it now. I got SUCH a fun party member (whom I hope I get back TwT later), Kongman (whom I also assume has a different name in English) and he is SO funny . I really love the showboating muscle-head archetype in anime, and he is just so much of one of those it always make me giggle when he does his fight-end dialogue. 見せてやろう！このキンニク！(Check 'em out! THESE MUSCLES!!!) had me absolutely in stitches

[noiseredux]

got home late last night, but played some LTTP before bed. Got the flippers. Got the mirror. Got the moon stone. Turned into a bunny. Beat the third palace; that jerk boss that can knock you down to the floor below kept doing so. Jerk. Got the Master Sword. Was too tired to continue any further.

[alienjesus]

I finished up my randomised run of ALTTP.

I finished 215/216 treasure found apparently. No idea where the last one was, but it's annoying because it contains a bottle, the last item I need to complete the run 100%.

I enjoy ALTTP in it's original state, but I actually think I might prefer this randomised run. It makes you think outside the box and explore very thoroughly.