i'm bored, so
i thought i'd do the same thing for zelda as i did for mariokeep in mind that these little "capsule" reviews aren't meant to be super in-depth, otherwise i'd dedicate one whole thread to each game, which i don't really feel like doing (except for breath of the wild later this year)
The Legend of Zelda (1986, NES) For a Nintendo franchise as long-standing as
Zelda, you might expect the first installment to be one of the weaker titles in the franchise—at least, that's how it is for
Mario and
Pokémon—but as it turns out, it's still one of the better games in the series, and I wouldn't begrudge anyone claiming it's one of the best games ever made—and let's not even get into how influential this game was. Every dictionary in the world should accompany the definition of the word "seminal" with an image of the title screen of this game. Sure,
Adventure for the Atari 2600 may have done it first, but
Zelda took its concept and blasted it through the roof, being one of the first games ever that you weren't expected to beat in one sitting. Almost everything about the game is phenomenal, even if it's admittedly lacking in the visual department, and between that and the game's slightly janky sense of movement, it's quite difficult to find anything objectively wrong with the game—in fact, I end up just finding more little things to appreciate about it every single time I replay it. I don't know what else to say, really. It really is one of the best games ever. ***
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987, NES) Man, this game gets so much unnecessary flak. Often hailed as the worst
Zelda game (not counting CD-i), people seem to hate this one for two reasons—1.) it's such a weird detour from the rest of the series in terms of gameplay, making it a black sheep, and 2.) it has a reputation for being extremely, frustratingly difficult. To the first point, I would argue that
Zelda is a franchise that
thrives whenever it tries something different. In my experience, the worst games in the series are the ones that paint by the numbers and fail to experiment or take risks, so from that standpoint, I have a great appreciation for
Zelda II. What makes the game unique are the side-scrolling combat portions with gameplay that that combines platforming with RPG elements, where killed enemies net you experience points that can be used to make Link stronger. There are virtually no puzzles—it's all about finessing your way through each action-packed dungeon and decrypting the vague, poorly-translated texts from all the townspeople you'll have to talk to. As much as I personally like the game, though, I would only recommend it to "hardcore" Zelda fans. It's one of those games. It's definitely worth trying either way, but never for an early-adopter of the series. You'll probably just hate it. ***
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991, SNES) Clearly, after
Zelda II, Nintendo really wanted to play it safe and keep the franchise at its roots for the time being—which would normally be a disappointing decision from an artistic standpoint. But when you wind up with a game THIS explosively good, it's pretty fucking asinine to complain. I described the original
Zelda as one of the best games ever made, and I think
A Link to the Past is even better. It's in my top 50, possibly top 30. I would try to explain why, but I feel like these games are ubiquitous to the point where everyone already kind of understands why they're so good. And that's how it should be. If you don't know why it's so good, I would suggest that you play it. It's the bee's knees.
9/10The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (1993, GB) This is another one that I'd only recommend to hardcore fans. It's a cute little game—though, "little" is probably the wrong word, as it offers about 15 HOURS of gameplay—certainly one of the longest adventures available for the original Game Boy. It's definitely cute, though. The game has a goofy sense of humor and a strong sense of self-awareness. This can make it difficult to take seriously as a canon
Zelda title, with its very "cutesy" and cartoonish overall aesthetic, and especially how it's constantly making these tongue-in-cheek references to other Nintendo franchises (mostly
Mario). It's a fun, but otherwise non-essential, installment to the franchise, best thought of as an after-class time waster more than a fully-fledged epic
Zelda adventure. If you're going to play it, be sure to play
Link's Awakening DX, which adds color to an otherwise woefully monochromatic game.
7/10The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998, N64) One of the most overrated games of all time. It's good. It's solid. You might even be able to get away with calling it "great." If you think it's amazing, I won't begrudge you, but I'll question your palate. But if you honestly think this is one of the best games ever, let alone THE best, we are on two completely different planets. This game finds itself marred by so many issues—granted, several of which are fixed or improved upon in the 3DS version—but the inevitable flaws that manifest themselves when trying to turn a traditionally 2D game into a 3D world, namely the ones having to do with the camera, the combat, and even the layout of objects on the map, are SO plentiful and SO apparent that I simply cannot overlook them. I won't tell you it's not a good game, because it certainly is—but I don't especially harbor any reverence for it. Though, if you're new to
Zelda, I wouldn't feel uncomfortable recommending you the 3DS version.
7/10 for N64,
8/10 for 3DS
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000, N64) And then this happened. My god. What a PERFECT followup. I'm so glad that this game seems to be getting the recognition it deserves nowadays. They did exactly what they needed to do—since they knew that
Ocarina was already being considered the best game ever, they were presented with the daunting task of
topping it with the next game. And what better way to go about that than doing whatever the fuck they wanted? Instead of trying to "top"
Ocarina, they decided to throw a curve ball instead—and wouldn't you know it, they ended up topping it anyway. This is one of the most beautiful games I've ever played. What makes it special is that it focuses less on Link and his adventure, and more on the people that he's trying to save from an impending apocalypse. In the game, dungeon exploration becomes more of a secondary task as you continuously repeat the same three-day cycle over and over, collecting masks and interacting with all the NPCs in Clock Town. Everybody has a backstory, personality quirks, daily routine, and problems to help solve. As you help them solve their daily troubles, you get to know (and become emotionally attached to) each and every one of them—but as you continue to reset the past, the sad futility of it all becomes more and more apparent. A stark atmosphere of melancholy pervades every inch of the game's world, and the falling moon above (which can be seen from any point in the game) serves as a constant reminder of the impending doom—and every character reacts to this in their own way; sometimes with fear, others with denial, and others with sheer apathy. But all of them are emotionally broken in some way. If you try to solve everyone's problems, you can permanently reap their benefits, but only to have them all reset the moment you turn back time. You can't save everybody. If I were to rate this game strictly as a piece of art, and focused only on its characters, atmosphere, music, and storytelling, I would easily give this game a 10/10. However, its imperfections become more obvious once you start considering the gameplay—which is undeniably improved from
Ocarina, as they did a much better job of optimizing the 3D world to help it mesh better with the exploration, but there is ONE area of the game that flounders so heavily compared to the rest of the game (the snow area). There are also one or two sidequests involving NPCs that are pretty dang tedious, and don't exactly give you the most exciting rewards. Unfortunately, neither of these glaring issues have been fixed in the overall superior 3DS remake. A lot of people seem to think that the game's dungeons are underwhelming (especially when you consider that there's only four), but I thought they were all pretty dang solid for not being the main pull of the game—and regarding the absence of an adult Link, I feel like the three transformation masks were a worthy substitute. There's so much more to talk about with this game, and I actually have a fully-written review of it that's been jangling around in my pocket for several years, but it's no secret that this is one of my favorite games anyway. I recommend it to absolutely everybody, except for the newest of newcomers to
Zelda.
8/10 for N64,
9/10 for 3DS
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons/Oracle of Ages (2001, GBC) The most underappreciated
Zelda games, bar none. When I first heard about them, I thought they were trying to pull a
Pokémon by releasing the same game twice—but nope, they are actually two completely different games, both geared for two different styles of play.
Seasons is more action-oriented, and
Ages is more puzzle-oriented.
Ages is the superior game, but both are really, really solid, and would probably serve as a great introduction to the franchise, if you can get past the retro aesthetic and somewhat dated gameplay mechanics.
8/10 for
Seasons,
9/10 for
AgesThe Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2002, NGC) My second favorite game of all time, comprising one of the three perfect 10s I've ever felt comfortable giving to a video game. It is magnificent. It's the game that
Ocarina of Time could and should have been. It is the embodiment of all the joy and happiness that my ten-year-old self would have had towards life. Let me tell you something—I'm an anti-natalist, but if this game were a woman, I would have children with her. Because between my genes and her genes, I know that those children would be fucking perfect in every way.
10/10The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (2004, GBA) I think I might need to replay this, because despite having played a great deal of it through, I never actually bothered to beat it. It was an enjoyable experience from, what I can remember, but it didn't really leave much of an impression on me overall. I remember disliking the artstyle quite a bit. The superbrite, highly-saturated color palette the game uses was a bit of an eyesore, and I remember having to deal with a lot of tedious mechanics. The items were cool, though, and I think it had some clever puzzles. It's gonna take while, but I'll give it another shot some day.
7/10The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006, NGC) I need to replay this, too. For me, this was the most unmemorable
Zelda experience. I can't remember a fucking thing about it, other than that it was kind of okay, and that the artstyle, while aesthetically pleasing, became increasingly hard to look at the longer I played the game. I took frequent breaks from it, which is not something I typically do with
Zelda games, and it just felt really, really long. It's easily the most paint-by-numbers game in the series, and that's why I think it didn't leave such a great impression on me. But it wasn't bad.
7/10The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (2007, DS) Direct sequels are kind of rare for this series, so out of them all, I'm glad that my personal favorite was blessed with one. Unfortunately, it's not quite as good, but I wasn't really expecting it to be anyway. It has really great characters, and that unmistakably joyous
Wind Waker atmosphere, but otherwise, it's a fairly standard
Zelda adventure, just on the DS.
8/10The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (2009, DS) A completely unnecessary waste of time with the lamest premise for a
Zelda game EVER. One of my least favorite mainline titles, it's not a bad game. It's just not worth playing, in my opinion, and the reason for its existence continually eludes me.
6/10The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2011, Wii) An insulting casualization that gets worse and worse the more I think about it, so I choose not to think about it. The most disappointing
Zelda game, but only retroactively. I remember enjoying it somewhat when it first came out, but as of right now, it's the last game in the series that I'd ever want to revisit.
5/10The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (2013, 3DS) It doesn't really do anything all that interesting or unique from a gameplay standpoint, apart from the main gimmick of becoming a painting, and it can't help but feel like the
Breath of the Wild holdover that it is, but it's still a solid game (that I admittedly don't remember much of).
8/10Hyrule Warriors (2014, Wii U) Fucking STUPID.
4/10The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (2015, 3DS) Obnoxious and unnecessary. If you're lucky enough to have two other people to play this game with, it might be a fun time. I don't know. But good luck with that.
5/10The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017, Wii U) Again, I'm gonna write a full review for this one, but I guess I'm okay with spoiling my score for it here.
9/10Still need to play:
Zelda (1989, G&W)
Link: The Faces of Evil (1993, CD-i)
Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon (1993, CD-i)
Zelda's Adventure (1994, CD-i)
The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords (2002, GBA)
The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (2004, NGC)
Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland (2006, DS)
Tingle's Balloon Fight DS (2007, DS)
Link's Crossbow Training (2007, Wii)
Irozuki Tincle no Koi no Balloon Trip (2009, DS)
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