Twilight Princess anticipation: How do you rank the console Zeldas?

[Sairon]

8.8 @ gamespot, if everything said in the video review is true then that just confirms that zelda games autos full score at most sites, just for being zelda.

[Kail]

This is standard practice in the book review industry. In addition the book industry has the gall to publish a great review, then a year later when the hype has died down and clearer heads prevail they will come out and say they knew the book sucked all along. The same sort of thing happened with the movie American Beauty, where all the reviewers that were raving now pretend they were lukewarm.

You mean like how Gamespy called Halo one of the most overrated games of all time (quote: 'To me, the original version of Halo simply offered too much room for improvement, and the majority of its reviews DEFINED the word "overrated."') despite the fact that they gave it four out of five stars?

And then the PC port of Halo came out a week later and they gave it a perfect score of five out of five?

[Margalis]

My favorite was Jade Empire making the top 5 "most dissapointing games" list at gamespot (I think it was gamespot) after they gave it an 8 or something like that.

[schild]

My favorite is still the Bulletproof preview/review. The preview talked about how promising it was and built it up like a champion of Rome. 2 Days after the game came out the same rag obliterated it. I mean, really, unless a story gets better, you can generally give a game a score within 2-3 hours of playing. Two days don't mean shit.

[geldonyetich]

Call me crazy, but I think an 8.8 is a good score.  If you look at Gamespot's Top Games listing, you'll see an 8.8 score ties them at 10th place in a list that includes all games on all platforms for the last 6 months.  So a 8.8 is like Twilight Process is the 10th best game in the modern gaming world.  8.8 might be a little too high, really.  Those Zelda fanboys need to take a pill.

[Kitsune]

1 - Ocarina of Time.  Lots of people call it overrated, I disagree.  Seeing Link and Zelda brought to 3D was a breathtaking experience.  Yes, the N64 tech is very dated now and it shows in the sparseness of the world, but the game didn't just do a lot of things right, it did a lot of things perfectly.  The music fit perfectly, the controls were good, the character designs were excellent, and the story was great.  Gannon finally looked like a badass instead of a big pig, the adult Link looked and moved and fought well, and the future world was deliciously fucked-up and full of the dead, a great contrast to the shiny happy world of the opening.

2 - Link to the Past.  The best 2D Zelda game, no question.  A fantastic and fun game that always stood out well on the SNES.  Much more of a story to it than the NES Zeldas and a world chock full of things to do and explore.

3 - Wind Waker.  Having a young Link throughout the game initially rubbed me the wrong way, especially after that gorgeous video of 'the Gamecube Zelda' got flushed and replaced with the cartooniness of Wind Waker.  However, after playing through it, my opinion did a 180.  The stylistic art was executed well, it is by far the best-looking of the cel-shaded games I've seen.  The controls are fantastic, the way Link dodges and attacks is so natural and smooth that I actually enjoy just fighting things, where in most of the other Zeldas killing the little monsters would grow to be a chore.  And the story, despite the toony graphics, was pleasantly grim, and Gannon was not an entirely unsympathetic character for the first time ever.  Still evil and dangerous, but aware of his place in the cycle of good and evil.

4 - The Legend of Zelda.  Overshadowed by its excellent children but still deserving of a top spot.  The first of its kind and, for its time, a very involved game.  It taught us all to either bomb or set on fire everything in sight, valuable life lessons that I carry with me to this day.

5 - Link's Awakening.  A shame that they never updated it to GBA-level, but still a very solid Zelda for the game boy.  Good gameplay, decent story and characters.

6 - Majora's Mask.  Honestly, this one just never rubbed me the right way.  The presence of the timer struck me as a little annoying, it took away the enjoyment I had with simply wandering the world in Ocarina.

7 - The GBA Zeldas.  Nothing wrong with them, but they were a touch on the generic side and not even created by Nintendo.

8 - Adventure of Link.  I actually liked it, and was apparently one of the only people who did.  Zelda II was very hard and unforgiving, but it was big and offered plenty to explore and find.  But it stepped far out of line with every other game in the series, and I certainly see where it turned off lots of fans, so it's banished down to the low end of the list.

9 - Four Swords.  I just really didn't care.

[Sairon]

  :-D

[Yegolev]

As is overfixation on nostalgia.  Link to the Past was a solid Zelda game, maybe even the measure in which many would judge a Zelda game, but can one cite a single thing that this tile-based SNES title did that hasn't been done better in Zeldas since?

Swordplay.  Even though I generally like the 3D Zeldas better, the swordplay in the 2D ones was better by being more organic.  It's just too hard to control something like that in 3D, which gives us the not-bad-by-itself  Wind Waker swordfighting.

[Xanthippe]

I don't think I ever played Link to the Past, although I have played the others (some for only a few minutes, however).  The first Zelda remains my favorite.

Twilight Princess - so far I have ridden Epona around.  I'm happy with that part of it (spent maybe 30 minutes in game).

[Roac]

I don't think I ever played Link to the Past, although I have played the others (some for only a few minutes, however).  The first Zelda remains my favorite.

If that's the case, then it's probably worth it if you grab it as one of the few titles off Wii Shopping (I assume they have it anyway).  It's one of the best titles on the SNES in my oppinion, and unlike some other titles (even good ones), it ages well and would still be fun.

[geldonyetich]

Much like Gamespot giving Twilight Princess a 8.8, my putting Link to the Past at #5 under four other Zelda games wasn't suggesting it was a bad game at all.  The Zelda series has been one of many gems and only a few rocks, and given that the gaming industry has largely dissolved into a protracted task of finding diamonds in the rough, calling a game a gem is becoming an increasingly better compliment.  I think I put the Minish cap above it only because it had so much side collection activities that boosted its longevity.

I'm not sure I'd say the swordsplay in Link to the Past was better than the lock-on combat that was pioneered by Ocarina of Time, but it was good.  I'd say different enough not to be able to compare the two in terms of better or worse.

[Daydreamer]

1.  Link to the Past - 2d dungeon hackery FTW
2.  Ocarina of Time - 3d dungeon hackery FTW
3.  Legend of Zelda - Old Skool dungeon hackery FTW
4.  Link's Adventure - Side-scrolling dungeon hackery
5.  Wind Waker - Cel-shaded dungeon hackery pointless sailing
6.  Majora's Mask - Meh

I'd put just about all the GB Zeldas between 2-3, if I had to.

If it isn't plainly apparent, I play Zelda for the dungeons - I love their art, the puzzles, the intermitent fighting.  My beef with Wind Waker and Majora's Mask isn't that they are bad games, its just that their dungeons arn't generally big enough/original enough compared to some of the others in the series because the focus is on the other parts of the game.  What makes TP so special, at least in the first 10 hours, is that the twilight realm gives me almost the same feel as the dungeons do - it has the danger and puzzles that draw me into the series.