So finally let's get it over with...
I did not play ALTTP the first time around, that does not really matter, it could but it should'nt.
There are two things that makes OOT the number one Zelda for me and that's...
1 Ocarina of time made me stop chasing tail and got me into gaming again... Real bad... 4 life....
2 Zelda is to this day the only game that has ever made me cry. (The 10minute ending sequence)
Oh and three it took me a helluvalot time to finish the watertemple got me stopped for ages... I play it approximatly once a year.

ALTTP is a very good game and in some ways OOT is only a 3d remake of that game. However my humble opinion is that Links awakening is the best 2d Zelda.

There are more reasons why OOT is the better of the two however let's discuss it here.

Zelda OoT is widely considered "best game ever", aLttP is very highly regarded too, but I don't care for it much. I'd rather have Majora's Mask, Link's Awakening, Oracle of Ages, or Oracle of Seasons, and Wind Waker is there wasn't sailing...

Oracle yeurgh!!! >P Never did I fancy it. Majora ok maybe a bit Banjo Tooie and to much collecting masks to see the whole ending. Wind waker beautiful but not epic enough.

I don't think anything can beat the first time you play through Ocarina, but I think Majora and Awakening have more replay value. This is quite a harsh criticism of Ocarina because in a way it's a victim of it's own brillliance. It's an epic story and you don't want to go through it again and again (or at least I don't) otherwise it would blunt this aspect (I view it like watching a profound film repeatedly, you'd rather see it occasionally to savour it). Though deep experiences, Majora and Awakening feel less fragile, pehaps because they aren't set in the main universe.

I've not addressed LttP because I think the games I've mentioned are more worthy of comparison.

Oh and i think that zelda 2 is way underrated and i really like it.

CowLaunch, that was actually quite beautiful.

I sort of agree with Cow Launch. I just watched the film Doubt and I was telling a friend, "Wow, that was awesome. I am never going to watch it again." Some games, movies, etc. can be really compelling once but never again, and it has nothing to do with knowing how it ends. I have never really cared about spoilers. Before going see one of the Lord of the Rings movies someone told me, "Gandalf dies!" and then, as if this would somehow make it better, she tells me, "Oh, I'm sorry, it's okay, he comes back."

...

Anyway, back to Zelda. I enjoyed Ocarina my first time through, but even then I didn't put it on the pedestal everyone else puts it on. I can hardly stand to look at N64 graphics. The game feels really empty of enemies, and most aren't challenging at all. The game instead resolves around puzzles which just feel out of place in an epic, adventure game. Even once you get the horse, traveling Hyrule isn't as exciting as it was in the 2D games where every screen was filled with danger and possibility. The camera angle was and still is very frustrating. I hate not seeing what's behind me -- I know it's more realistic, but who cares in Zelda? It isn't fun being hit by things you can't see.

The one thing I appreciate Ocarina for is being one of the pioneers of a more cinematic experience in games, but I find it hard to care that much about the game for this one aspect when Metal Gear Solid did this much, much better. From what I hear, Majora's Mask does, too, though I haven't played it much.

As for A Link to the Past, it's one of my favorite SNES games, but I don't know that it's even my favorite Zelda. The two NES titles, though a bit too unforgiving at the end, are just really good. I like challenging games because they're more fun to play again and again. Replaying Ocarina just feels like I'm going through the motions because it was never about challenging combat or exploration.

Zelda 2 is definitely underrated. In fact, I'm playing through it again right now, though as usual I'm having a lot of trouble on the path to the final temple (it gets to be downright cruel). But it is hardly a Zelda game. I don't like when a sequel is made that has no game play in common with its predecessor, just the face of a popular mascot used to sell the game. More people would love this game if it didn't get compared to the other Zeldas, I think. That also would have increased the chance of a sequel in that style... Sigh, missed opportunities!

Anyway, I'll take LttP over OoT any day of the week, and even then I don't think it's my favorite Zelda (though very, very close).

(EDIT: Darn formatting. I wanted to make the little face with the hyphens for eyes and underscore for mouth, but it kept changing it to an underlined hyphen or a bulleted hyphen, etc. Oh well, that ellipsis will do.)

@Adam

That's the best Gandalf anecdote I've ever heard.

ALttP is obviously one of the best games on any console to date. It took the already great Zelda series and raised it to a new level, adding many features which would later become series regulars, such as heart pieces found around the world, a light and dark world, and a 3 object group followed by a 7 or so object group.

OoT was a great game, although I personally don't feel it deserves to be the series' most highly regarded game. It took a lot of cues from ALttP and became the most famous game for having those. It also kept to the basic formula created by ALttP. Although the 3d was in fact a huge milestone for the series, I think this milestone is causing it to be seen as an epic game, even though it's at about the same level as ALttP.

Out of the entire series, My vote goes to Majoras Mask. It's got great dungeons that are innovative and yet simple to explore. There's lots of bonus content that you can find, and the ability to go back in time and replay certain parts again is great. I don't see wy this game's been lost in Ocarina of Time's shadows all this time, and can't wait for the Virtual Console release.

@adam
So what is your favourite zelda then?
Metal gear solid is one of my favourite games but it hasn't aged well and it's story is as good as bruce willis left bumcheek in die hard 4 the same reason disaster wasn't released in Usa it's a stinky cliché ridden movie. Great gameplay though... Not willis arse mind.

Saying that aLTTP is better than OOT is like saying that smb1 is better than super mario 64 in my eyes/ears anyway...
And i revisit fightclub and jaws now and then to find every little nuance, every little nook and cranny explored same as with Ocarina afavourite something is worth exploring again again and again. Same as with women you find that one which your heart desires and live with her your whole life... Everyday is an adventure and something new exiting to find out...

So you're saying that just because it's a bit older it can't be better?

Uhm. No that's what the other guys are selling that the oldest is the best... It can be but videogames have evolved a helluvalot since birth. Casablanca and citizen kane are still classics, and movies, good movies are made with sort of the same technique today... Don't know where im getting at maybe you do.

@Adam: could've been worse... at least Gandalf dying wasn't the entire focus of the movie (or trilogy). one of my friends slipped up and told me about The Sixth Sense after he saw it, and didn't realize i hadn't seen it for myself yet. d'oh. :/

anyway, re: the actual topic, i always preferred OoT to LttP because it's easier to play. i get lost all the time or sidetracked in LttP and then forget where I was really going or what I was doing, and then i have to consult a game guide to get back to where I needed to be... or, god forbid, i worked my way alllll the way up to a corner of the map only to realize that what I really needed to be doing was all the way in the opposite corner of the map before I could do whatever it was I had just worked my way toward. oops. in OoT, I never had that problem... in fact, the only time I ever had to consult a guide to get through a dungeon in OoT was in the Forest Temple because I hadn't realized that one key is actually outside (and believe you me I scoured what I could get to inside the Temple before I finally gave up).

Both games can be considered great, especially in their respective gaming time periods. If you are a Zelda fan, it shouldn't matter which one is supposedly better. They were both highly engrossing when I played them for the first time. Zelda in 3D was amazing back in the day. A Link To The Past recast how the original Zelda on the NES was imagined.

I do not think it is much of a match up -

A Link to the Past is the easiest Zelda game, is plagued with slowdown - some of it massive - throughout the game, and only builds on the blueprint laid out by the superior NES origional Zelda.

Orcarina, on the other hand :

1. Remade series in 3-d to spectacular results.
2. Very creative and origional dungeons.
3. Had arguably the most creative item in game history - the orcarina - a 'real' muscial instrument capable of playing sharps flats and vibrato - as the central item to tie the game together. Ingenious.
4. A superior and more varied soundtrack.
5.Featured a 2 tier gameworld - on one hand perfectly reflecting the cheerful innocense of youth, on the other the hell of a land laid to waste. Maginficent contrast.
6. Far more fun and sophisticated battle system.
7.Much more atmosphere in its locations.

Orcarina is FAR superior to LTTP, a better topic, in my opinion would be the arcade like and Iconic Zelda 1 vs the RPGish and most satisfiyingly difficult Zelda 2, vs the 3-d masterpiece Orcarina of Time.

A Link to the Past is MASSIVELY overrated, as is the SNES. I may make a topic 'What is so 'super' about the Super Nintendo? Mode 7 was horrible, slowdown was frequent, many of the early 3-d games were a mess to look at AND play, and the key Nintendo franchises on this system are very casual and easy. Great games are Zelda 3 and Mario World, but damnably easy. Donkey Kong Country is very generic, and holds up poorly today, I could go on and on, another time perhaps....

Super Mario Bros 1 IS much better than Mario 64! Oh gosh, you just hate me now, don't you? Haha.
Again, I do like Mario 64 a good bit, and I think Ocarina is okay. So I'm not putting down either game, but I find them overrated and inferior to their source material. I still replay SMB all the time. It's one of the best games of all time, to me. I wouldn't change a thing.

I don't think it is either. I prefer LttP, but they are such different games that I don't really like to compare them. I know you're saying something different here, but just chiming in.

I hear you, brother. I prefer the original due to the better challenge level (though I think the second quest gets to be too hard in one of the later dungeons, I forget which... took me forever to beat it) and more sense of exploration. However, LttP was one of the better looking SNES games while LoZ looks a bit icky, and I have a lot of nostalgia for LttP because I didn't own the first Zelda until long after the others for some reason. Oh, and the music... awesome music. Light / Dark world was very innovative for the time (LttP did the 2-tier world before Ocarina, and better I thought, though I am probably a minority in that opinion). There's a lot to like despite it being super easy, and I don't remember slowdown problems (though it's been a long time -- too long -- since I've played it). Where am I going with this? I agree that the original is significantly better, but perhaps not quite as much as you.

That would be an interesting topic. I've wavered back and forth in similar opinions but solely because of the significant drop in challenge level, not because of any of the other reasons (I like Mode 7, especially in F-Zero). But the lack of much challenge in Mario, Zelda, and Metroid makes each of those entries tough to judge. On the one hand, they have waaaay better presentation than their NES predecessors, they never do anything annoyingly cheap like NES games sometimes did to make them harder, and they had very memorable level designs as well as a lot of improvements and new features. But on the other hand, the approach that everyone should be able to finish these games made them feel sort of like "Baby's First Metroid," etc. It feels as if there should have been a console between the NES and the SNES because there is such a huge difference between the games on each platform.

Perhaps you should make that thread.

I agreed with everything else you said, but I think you're too harsh to the SNES (although I still agree on some of those points), you don't mention anything about the plethora of great RPGs (FFVI may be way too overglorified, but it's still great), and you do admit Nintendo's great games, albeit they're too easy.

And I love mode 7!

Link to the Past is the best Zelda game ever IMO. It's not even remotely close.
And the Super Nintendo was, is, and always will be the greatest game console ever made IMO. Also not even close!

Don't get me worng - I am not saying SNES is JUNK - far from - just very overrated.

Mode 7 made me sick back in the day, and in my opinion it has not aged well. I try to get into the orgional Pilot Wings, and I just cannot. I have no idea why Chrono Trigger has a cheap and primitve Mode 7 racer in the middle of it. Well, yes I do, at the time it was eye candy.... Honestly the fasted way to a headache for me is 10 minutes of the origional Mario Kart. I would rather wear Virtual Boy googles for eye glasses....