Since there are many fans of videogames and Nintendo here, I thought we could have a Zelda thread.
I’m currently on my third play through of Wind Waker since it released and I’m glad to see that while I still remember what awaits me, I’ve completely forgotten every detail of every dungeon. So the puzzles feel almost new to me. As well as most cutscenes. I’ve just finished the third dungeon and my mind is blown by how mechanically rich it was. If you’ve played Zelda for all of your life, you often know what to do, but I can imagine someone without previous experience would be blown away and probably overwhelmed, even experienced gamers. After not having played a 3D Zelda since BOTW and TOTK, I’m amazed at how many different styles of gameplay and systems are there just for this one dungeon. It’s why I love Nintendo and especially Zelda games more than anything: they just spend most of the development time coming up with so many different ways of interacting with the world and then polish them to perfection. There’s more gameplay variety in this 1-2 hour dungeon than most modern 80+ hours games.
It also still looks just as great as it did over twenty years ago. I’m playing the original version in the Switch 2 app and the controls are the only thing that show their age. But I think they could have just made great games forever if the Gamecube was their last console, although I do of course enjoy playing this handheld on my Switch 2 now.
Now I want Twilight Princess on that app more than anything. My last Ocarina playththrough was also around 10 years ago, but I feel like I remember a lot more from that game than I do WW, so I don’t feel the urge to play the remake day 1. Also not convinced by the visuals yet. Having Twilight Princess on the app with the save and load wherever you want functions would be great though. I wish every game had this function, it’s so great if you can only play in very little, bite sized junks. Makes me gravitate towards retro games.
I’m in an odd category as someone who has come to realise that I am a Breath of the Wild fan, but not a Zelda fan. I bounced off Ocarina of Time (which I’m prepared to accept is a problem with me, not Ocarina of Time), and never enjoyed Twilight Princess. Absolutely adored Breath of the Wild (despite putting off playing it for a long time because of my previous experiences with Zelda). I was excited for Tears of the Kingdom in theory but for whatever reason playing it left me completely cold. Again, I think that is more about me than the game - I have such limited free time these days and I feel bad spending it on games.
On second thought, I’m not exclusively a BotW fan, because as a kid I loved this thing:
I got into BOTW (and Swich in general) pretty late in the game, probably just before lockdown in 2020, and as someone who grew up on Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask, and always said, “no way these new Zeldas could be better than the ones I grew up on…” but damnnn they are fucking great.
I still think Ocarina holds up surprisingly well, and am cautiously excited for the remake, but modern Zelda is also really great.
Zelda is my favourite series for sure, first played Link’s Awakening on game boy as a child. Had a long gap in playing games until around 2020, bought a Switch and BOTW, it sucked me in in a way I did not think possible anymore! I am very excited for the Ocarina remake have to say. Also, playing Link to the Past at the moment and on course to finish it for the very first time!
I got into BotW only a year before TotK came out. I played some TotK every week for 18months. I think BoTW is a better game but the size and slightly better controls of TotK had me coming back and back. I think the Hyrule in those games became a happy place for me. I’ve failed to get into any of the ones on the Nintendo Online emulators but am pretty excited for the Ocarina remake. I’d be more excited if I didn’t have to buy an S2 to play it
I got an NES when I was young and ended up adoring a number of games for it. But the only one I had eyes for at the time was Zelda. The exploration. The sense of adventure and accomplishment. There was literally nothing else like it (at least for an 8-year-old).
To this day, when trying out a new sequencer, my first song to get comfortable and test out its chops is the opening theme. I even still have the map that came with it that I puzzled over 40 (!) years ago. I should pull that out and get it framed or something before it disintegrates.
I’ve played every one since. Hard to pick a fave, but BotW is the best at taking me back to the wonder of the original.
My immediate reaction towards @philroyjenkins post as well. Such a great track!
I feel the same about Link to the Past, which never clicked with me for some reason. It’s basically Ocarina in 2D, so I should love it, but I guess it felt a bit outdated after having played so many Zeldas that came after it before I ever tried Lttp.
Lots of BOTW love in this thread. It’s the game I played the most in my life and I loved playing it basically night and day for two weeks when it came out and I could make the time. In hindsight, I still feel like other Zelda titles are more magical. Sure, the exploration is exceptional and the movement is the best it’s ever been. But imagine how great a Zelda game that fused old school 3D zelda with the new open world design would be. York is showing glimpses of that in the story missions that are a lot more fleshed out than in Botw. But I didn’t care too much for all of the building stuff and would have much preferred them to have spent the development time on putting dungeons with a distinct style and dedicated items into the world that you could just stumble upon without knowing how deep they will get. As is, you quickly realized there’s only around three types of things you can discover with lots of variations, but there’s nothing truly groundbreaking for you to discover in the world. I also wasn’t a fan of recycling the map, despite loving it in Botw.
I’ve still got my (big brother’s) boxed copy of A Link to the Past on the SNES.
The box has a weird black smudge on it. My bro used to tell me the smudge was the remains of a spider he squashed with the box. I never figured how if he was telling the truth.
I started with Link To The Past when it came out and have been a fan ever since. Ocarina was peak for me because i was at the right age to still get fully absorbed by a game.
Will definitely get the remake. The characters somehow look off to me. Even if they haven’t used AI the faces look a bit like AI to me. But i bet i’ll have fun playing it.
A cool Zelda reggae version i discovered recently:
I had a similar experience with TotK —after BotW it felt too familiar to get excited about, but also too deep and sprawling to make sense of. I played it maybe five times in the first two years and every time came away feeling like I had spent a ton of time doing very little, but once it clicked, I got extremely hooked.
aLttP is one of my favorites (just behind Wind Waker), but I understand this perspective. It definitely shows its age in some ways (the menus/ item select system in particular, some obtuse puzzles).
