Topic: Which Zelda game has the best (x)?

@Dezzy The side quests in Majora's Mask — mask quests — were that game's title gimmick. Going into the next Zelda expecting the same thing would yield about as much as expecting the King of Red Lions or (usually) Wolf Link. The Majora's Mask side quests were also tied into the story and three day progression, and were in a sense just an extention of the metroidvanian progression normally found in Zelda titles. Breath of the Wild's 'side quests' are much more comperable to the fetch questy content in other games like XV.

1) Wind Waker - Absolutely gorgeous even to this day, one of the best looking games ever.
2) Breath of the Wild - Slightly barren but the sense of exploration was immense.
3) A Link Between Worlds - Based on A Link to the Past yet even better
4) Twilight Princess - Although a bit hazy I remember some impressive battles
5) A Link to the Past - Simple yet effective
6) Link Between Worlds - Simple yet surprisingly deep with twists.
7) The Wind Waker - Expressive and Fun
8) Adding my own: (Music) A Link to the Past - So Many Legendary Tunes from the title jingle to the credits medley

Yeah I should've included music. The other 2 seem less important for the overall game though.

I'd definitely choose Ocarina as best on music though. Maybe Skyward Sword next.

I'd say the absence of any decent antagonist proved preeeetty important for Breath of the Wild. It's much of what separates that game's plot from The Wind Waker.

1) Graphical Style - Wind Waker
2) Overworld exploration - Breath of the Wild
3) Dungeons - Twilight Princess
4) Bosses - Phantom Hourglass
5) Battle Mechanics - Wind Waker
6) Story - Link's Awakening
7) Characters - Twilight Princess

8) Music - Skyward Sword
9) Overall - Breath of the Wild

Interesting how many people ended up loving the Wind Waker visual style.

@Dezzy I think it just ages really well. Most of the others don't look so good these days.
The HD version probably won't hold up so good.

@Octane Frankly I do think BotW had the best overworld by far. You could explore it well, and there were unique aspects that were barely repeated (each segment of the world felt unique). Now I should qualify that statement — the Korok seeds and treasure chests and rewards for finding places were incredibly repetitive, but the geographical areas themselves were incredibly unique and well done. You explored not because for some unique reward, but because for the sake of finding new areas (exploring for the sake of exploring).

Majora's Mask and then Ocarina would be runner-ups, if only cause they had barren over worlds that at least were small enough to easily traverse (MM was better than Ocarina because I think it had more things going on than Ocarina). Twilight Princess had a pretty barren overworld with nothing unique — space to function as filler between locations — IIRC (I'm replaying the game in HD on Wii U, so I may change my mind soon).

I played Wind Waker HD, and IMHO the overworld is pretty meh. It's sort of like BotW, except the stuff in between locations/islands are incredibly samey looking and repetitive. Sailing on the seas is a pain and not fun at all as well. The water just functioned as a filler on the way to the next destination. And sea combat was not fun at all. So IMHO BotW does win by a long shot in that category.

@Dezzy I'm a big fan of the final boss fights so I included that category in. And I liked the Ocarina Ganondorf best so I included him in. I still don't understand why people say Wind Waker gave Ganondorf a backstory, one sentence does not mean the character magically has his motives and background fleshed out.

I'm actually in the minority but while I enjoyed Wind Waker's graphics a lot initially, over time they annoyed me. People just had really disproportionate sizes in the game, and the style just felt too extreme. Still like it better than the opposite extreme (Twilight Princess), although my preference is a balance of both — keep the cell shading but have realistic proportions (Breath of the Wild).

@Haru17 It's amazing how Ganondorf is a great antagonist (if not for backstory, at least his presence as a villain is good), but Ganon is incredibly lackluster and terrible. A giant pig monster, really? Not to mention BotW barely gave any menace to him besides the occasional story from Zelda or something.

Eh, I liked Calamity Ganon. Making him an ancient force of mindless, apocalyptic evil was an inspired move and gave him a bit of mystery and menace. Aside from his WW portrayal, which was a tad more nuanced, Ganondorf has always been a thoroughly boring villain.

Ganondorf isn't about complicated schemes, but the moments he inhabits and how creepily charismatic he can be. Really, it's a joke to compare the pink goo that was Breath of the Wild's antagonist until the last hour to Ganondorf.

I especially love how in Twilight Princess you're seeing these backstory cutsenes bridging his imprisonment since Ocarina. Then after you scale Hyrule Castle Midna and Link are actually meeting him for the first time. That's my favorite thing about TP's Zelda and Ganon; it's not about personal grudges or kidnapped love interests, they're just meeting a foreign conqueror in battle for the sake of the kingdom. Like Link is a knight or something. Midna has a bit of affection for Zelda, and Link and Midna for each other, but rescuing Zelda is more of a political obligation than anything for Link.

@shadow-wolf The geography is only as interesting as the content. They look different at first glance (although I don't think anyone could tell the three snow areas apart from a screenshot), but once you go through them, you discover the same enemy bases, same enemies. Exploration was only fun until you found a good weapon, because that was the best possible reward. Exploring for the sake of exploring is just filler. I still think the world was way too big for the content that was in the game. I prefer a smaller world, with a bigger enemy variety, more gameplay altering items, unique boss fights. It feels like they went with quantity over quality this time.

There are lots of different areas and most of them are different, but not all of them are interesting. The big empty space behind Death Mountain wasn't too interesting and the Gerudo Highlands was my least favourite main area. Some of the others kind of felt like they existed just to bridge the gap between two areas.
Before you entered the area it was already a given that there would be some bokoblin camps cooking some meat, a few in a tree hideout and a guardian or lynel. If you were lucky they changed the colour of the Lizalfos, Keese or Chuchus but that was it.

By the time I had most the hearts and full stamina I had completed all of the divine beasts, activated all towers and had more powerful weapons than I could carry. That was when the game became less interesting for me. There was no challenge to enemies and I had enough stamina to climb anything.

When I went back to play Master Mode I had to start from the beginning and I started to enjoy it again. I think the lack of resources available to you is what forces the player to be creative and explore, because that's what had driven me to new places in the first place.
Hopefully they sort out these issues in the next game, it's still amazing and they created a great world but I think they need to fill it with more variety in it's content and not just geography.

I liked his constant provocative presence on the world map. The final confrontation really needed him to be some kind of character though. He seemed like a mindless beast in this. Some kind of story explanation for his motives would've been good too.

@Octane I agree there weren't many rewards, but I enjoyed exploring for the sake of exploring (appreciating the wild, like you were exploring in real life). But I guess that's just different preferences between you and me. Although I agree with you on the next game, they gotta make the world smaller (I think even cutting it in half would be nice), have more enemy variety, and have a bigger emphasis on story.

@Haru17 I agree, he never was about elaborate schemes, but he's easily not just Zelda's, but Nintendo's most charismatic villain and the villain with the most presence in whichever scene he appears in. That being said, I found it interesting you mentioned Ganondorf in TP. I loved seeing him of course (cause I'm a fan of the character) but of the three 3D Zeldas he's appeared in so far, that appearance really felt like he was shoe-horned in for the sake of it. The game was mostly about Zant, and then towards the 2/3 point they were like "LOL no Ganondorf is there" and Zant got tossed to the side. Ganondorf barely had any buildup in TP, he just sort of appeared, great fan service but story wise not the greatest. I'm also surprised you haven't mentioned how Zant was thrown under the bus in TP, that was a bit of a disappointment story wise.

@Tsurii Imagine if he had fully reincarnated into Ganondorf (or at least enough to have a conscious mind). That would've been AMAZING. I would've loved the interactions between him and Link.

@Tsurii The game already has enough loopholes as it is, consistency isn't Aonuma's strongest suit. I don't see how that would hurt the game in any way.

Anyway, the biggest bummer is that you never got to fight the pig-whale calamity Gannon. His first form looked like something out of Dark Souls mixed with all the elemental Blights, and the second form was a giant uninspiring motionless pig.

@shadow-wolf Zant dying before the end of the game doesn't diminish him, it just means there was more to Twilight Princess' plot than one villain. And I always hear that line about Ganondorf being shoe-horned in. It doesn't make much sense. I think you may have forgotten, but Ganondorf is foreshadowed after the first three dungeons when the Fused Shadow proves useless against Zant, then he's the subject of a flashback at the end of the Arbiter's Grounds.

Zant's character was that he was a usurper brought up on someone else's power. He's almost cowardly. His arc was concluded when Midna let her hate come over her and literally rip him apart, which is such awesome territory that Zelda is usually dogmatically unwilling to go to. Just like the twist that Zant was more powerful than Midna with the Fused Shadow, there was another twist that Ganondorf was more powerful than Zant. I really don't see a problem with it, plenty of games have already ended well before the Palace of Twilight and they found a small way to weave Zant into the full-blown traditional Zelda finale.

And really, who thought a 3D Zelda wasn't going to have Ganondorf in it? The only one that didn't have him was the quickly-developed semi-spinoff Majora's Mask. That was the first Zelda game Aonuma directed and Twilight Princess was the last, he clearly wanted to make a traditional Zelda game on the Gamecube and tell a traditional hero's journey with it, but do so in a way that felt complicated and different from Ocarina. And in terms of in-universe lore it makes complete sense that the dimensional prison the sages banished Ganondorf to would have been the Twilight Realm where he infected the politics like a freakin' elder god.

@Haru17 I mean from what I remember (I last fully played the game 8 years ago so my memory is a bit fuzzy) he was definitely mentioned before the end with the execution scene and all, but you never really confront him until the end. But Zant was more powerful than Midna with the fused shadows? I don't remember that, guess it's a good thing I'm replaying the game for the first time in 8 years right now on Wii U haha. I'm starting to warm up to it, I hated the Wolf Link and Tears of Light sections on Wii but on Wii U they're actually kinda fun (partly because of less tears and because of the second screen map). And I forgot how developed the people of Ordon Village are, especially the kids like Colin. That being said I'm only at the Forest Temple so my opinion might change.

Zant was a nice change from only having Ganon as the villain. He wasn't as good as Ghirahim but still impressive in his own way. Hopefully we'll see the Twili return in some form, even though I'm not sure how that would work in the new BotW style of Zelda.

I wish the Mirror of Twilight in BotW was more than just a reference for fans to appreciate. It would have been amazing if it actually worked!

@shadow-wolf Better I just don't say anything more. Maybe you'll be able to attune with the story better now that you're expecting Ganon like I was.

And I mean Breath of the Wild really could have used a biome that wasn't just 'mountain,' 'jungle,' 'generic western fantasy forest.' Or just interiors and confined spaces, that's how they could work the Twilight Realm.

And are you sure that fetch quest is the Mirror of Twilight? The design looks completely different.

@Haru17 The Tears of Light quest I mentioned in my previous comment was the first one, in Faron Woods. But in general, I used to dislike the Tears of Light when I last played the game but now I kinda liked the first one. Of course my opinion could change over the course of the game.

I see what you mean, I vaguely remember venturing into the Twilight Realm and even going through it as Link (not the wolf) on the way to Zant, but don't remember the particulars. But it's a fantasy setting that BotW didn't have.

There's a lot of stuff I'm noticing now that I'm paying more attention to the characters and know how TP ties in with Ocarina of Time. I noticed Link's triforce of courage right from the beginning in Ordon and how it helped him transform into a wolf (and now I understand why he had it from the beginning — because Ocarina's Link went back in time and kept his piece, which got passed down to TP's Link). Ordon Village's characters are really well-developed, I know most of them by name or at least by character, and you can feel for them when they lose all the kids. I'm impressed with TP, the first time I played it I didn't like it too much but now I like it quite a bit.

Also, I'm not sure why people always criticize the beginning of TP. Sure, there's a bit more "mundane stuff" to do than in Ocarina and BotW and Wind Waker, but I think it took me about an hour or so to get Link turned into a wolf, and another hour and half or so to get to the Forest Temple. That's not exactly a long intro, considering I'm 2.5 hours in and already at the Forest Temple.