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I've been going back and playing all my Zelda games in anticipation of Twilight Princess (camping out Target Sat., we'll see what happens).  My question to you:  How do you rank the Zelda games, and where (from what you know about it) will Twilight Princess rank?  I'm only ranking the console Zeldas I have played.

1. Majora's Mask- I'm sure this will be last on most of your lists, but I absolutely loved it.  It was a gigantic leap over Ocarina of Time when you consider side quests.  Getting all the people to do events was a lot of fun.  Secondly:  This is the HARDEST console Zelda I have ever played.  In any other game, while it took me a long time to figure out puzzles and do everything sans Internet spoilers, I never actually had to stare at the GAME OVER screen more than a handful of times.  It happened over and over in this game.  All this and the darker tone combine to make this my all-time fav.

2.  Link to the Past- Just awesome.  The most replayable of the Zeldas because you can beat it in an afternoon if you really press yourself, but also chock full of innovative puzzles (I still get flummoxed by the Ice Dungeon) and cool little secrets hidden everywhere.  I'm STILL not sure I've seen every room in Death Mountain.  And I finally got Chris Houlihan's room for the first time.

3.  Ocarina of Time- fun, but I really don't see what all the "Greatest Game Ever" talk is about.  Hyrule Field felt like a big empty space.  Side quests were lacking, difficulty middling.  The story and boss fights were fun, but I never got that "OMG REVOLUTIONARY" vibe I got with Mario 64.  It was Zelda as a 3d platformer cause the system supported 3d platformers.  But mostly I hated the Water Temple- changing water levels is the thing I hate most in video games.  I don't know why.  (P.S.- the "Master's Quest" version ranks 2.5 for me cause of the dungeon reordering).

4.  Wind Waker- Fun, and definitely had a dark tone.  But I never felt the urge to replay like I did with the top three.  Things got tedious toward the end with fishing up all the triforce pieces.  I liked the story as well (showed another side to Ganon) and I liked the multiplicity of sidequests (collecting clay models, taking the picture of the guy when he is surrepititiously sending a letter, etc).  But it just didn't have the "it" factor for me- maybe it was the graphics.


I didn't play the NES Zeldas.  Twilight Princess- I'm HOPING it will be the best ever.  The only thing that worries me with a 50-70 hour game is the tedium factor.  I did hear there will be easy methods of teleportation as you progress in the game, so I'm hoping the "Sail across the ocean" feeling isn't there.  I hope the controller isn't a colossal clusterfuck.  But if the difficulty, number of sidequests and story are as good as people say they are- best ever  :-D 

I haven't played a Zelda since the NES.  I'm such a wannabe gamer.

I'm surprised that Triforcer considers himself a Nintendo fanboy and hasn't played the NES stuff.  :-P

You could get the original on the GBA at least (you should play the regular GB ones too, if you haven't -- Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons).

1. Link to the past - Love this game, great combat and perfect mix of puzzles.
2. The legend of Zelda - One of my favorite NES games, one of the few NES games I can bare to play even today.
3. Ocarina of Time - Didn't like the controls at all, I find this game to be extremely overrated, how it can be ranked as the no 1 game of all time on gamerankings beats me.

Haven't played Majora's Mask, mostly because I didn't really like Ocarina of Time that much. Would like to give Wind Waker a whirl but I don't own a GC.

Link to the Past is one of my alltime favorite games.  That game and Final Fantasy II (4th in the series) defined the SNES for me.  I also heavily enjoyed Legend of Zelda which also had a lot to do with making me consider what games could be.  I played Adventure of Link, but it was just ok.  I think I appreciated what they were trying to do more than a lot of critics apparently did, but it just wasn't that fun.

As for the rest of them, I never had a N64 or GBA, nor a desire to get them.  I'm not a huge fan of picking up "re-releases" so haven't played what's come out on GC.  Nor do I like the look of cel shading, so haven't played Wind Waker.  Four Swords is the only one that might appeal to me, but I dunno.  Haven't gotten it yet.  Can't say anything bad about it, except that it just hasn't captured my attention much. 

I am, however, very much looking forward to Twilight Princess.  I'm entirely unsure if I'll get it for GC or hold out to play it on Wii, but it's a game that's very high on my list. 

In order from best to worst...

Link to the Past - the best in the series by several lengths, in my opinion.

Legend of Zelda  - original NES version.  Pretty ground-breaking

Ocarina of Time - best of the 3d versions

Wind Waker  - I couldn't bother to finish it.  I'd almost rather sail across a real ocean.

Adventures of Link (?) - Can't remember if this is the real name, but it had some crappy side-scrolling garbage.  Not fun.

I'm glad to see I'm not alone in putting Windwaker near the bottom of my list. For some reason it just never felt all that Zelda-ish to me. And it got very boring towards the end as has been mentioned. So, for me...

The Legend of the Zelda
The Adventure of Link
Windwaker

That's right, i never played a single SNES Zelda. I was Nintendoless from the first console until the gamecube mostly because Nintendo pissed me off by staying with cartridges for so long. In fact, one thing that is making me consider the Wii is the virtual arcade or virtual console or whatever it is called. (I'm seriously considering dragging my girlfriend to Walmart or Target on Saturday.

Unfortunately, before I connected the dates in my head, my girlfriend made me promise that I'd take her to the Harvard/Yale football game this Saturday and then amtrak it back to New Haven for a few days on Sunday.  I'm debating if/how I can frame sitting in front of Target in the pouring rain for over 24 hours as a fun date. 

1. Ocarina of Time
2. Link to the Past
3. Majora's Mask
3. Wind Waker
4. All others are Number Four or lower

These are current ratings, not what I might have thought at the time of release.  Actually, everything under Ocarina is somewhat mutable depending on mood, but close enough.  I don't have any idea how Twilight Princess will turn out, but it looks great.  The only thing that can fuck it up for me is the Wiimote, I think.

I played the original but too much time has passed, I guess.  The second one was awesome but again, too much time has passed and I find it difficult to enjoy some games that old; in this case it is both due to the controls and the fact that I have dozens upon dozens of better RPGs laying around.  I could probably play Link to the Past again, and it was the game that started my love of the mirror world.  More games should have mirror worlds.  MP: Echoes did a passable job.  Soulreaver did a great job of that.

Majora's Mask.  SUPER CREEPY.  Somehow the whole game has a pervasive sense of doom and inescapable death.  The GAME OVER screens that Tri mentioned were somehow not unexpected.

I have not managed to finish either Oracle game, however I have both original carts.  Turns out there is a special shop that opens if you play them in a GBA.

I've played them all from the beginning and really liked them all.  TP is on my Xmas list and looking forward to it.  I have a hard time ranking them due to my loss of detail memories.  I just remember enjoying them all.

1. Link to the Past.
2. All others.

Never played Majora's Mask, although I think it may have been included in my Windwaker purchase (was it?).  I don't like overly hard games so I doubt I'll ever give this one a look.

Ocarina of Time can rot in fucking hell for that water dungeon.  I played this before I knew about GameFaqs.  What a massive piece of shit that dungeon was.  I was really enjoying the game until that part.  I think I may have found the next dungeon and then just put the game down forever.

Windwaker was a good and very beautiful game.  It was rather easy for me to put it down and forget about it though. My nephews have my Gamecube, so I doubt I'll ever play this one again.  Okami is a better version of Windwaker.  Too bad it's soo goddamned long. Worth playing, but initial impression of this game was greater than my current thoughts about it.  Not aging well compared to the other Zeldas.

First two Zeldas on the NES I didn't like.  The side scroller was abhorrent.

Only way I'll play TP is if I buy a Wii.  I won't buy a Wii for it, however. 

Something that I think is strange is that I don't remember the water dungeon too much. I suppose it might have been hard, but not as hard as the horse archery minigame.

I broke two N64 controllers on that dungeon.  TV beats Plastic Controller.  I suppose paper beats TV.

There's a Link to the Past, Zelda 1, and Zelda 2. Those are the only Zelda games that were ever released.

The UK version has The Wind Waker, and Majora's Mask in a double disc case.

There were Zelda's after the NES?  Hmm.

I think I've played through the NES version 3 times (the last time about 5 years ago), and the second journey twice.  Good times.  Playing it again on a modern console just seems like it would be sacrilege or at the very least, not nearly as fun.

My Rankings:

1. Majora's Mask
2. Ocarina of Time
3. Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
4. Wind Waker <-- tough to rank compared to the others, since it did many things so right but felt different.
5. Link to the Past

Ranking Link to the past at Number 5 is a grand showing of insanity.

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?

Yea, that would be "fun."

A surprisingly good universal answer for such a subjective aspect.

Ya know the one thing that annoyed me in Ocarina? The fact that you could not parry with 2-handed weapons.

Link to the Past did "it" prefect.  Even if other games come along and does it perfect, it won't feel as good the first time.  To beat Link to the Past, you either find a new "it" and do it a way that standard bearer was could have done it at the time.  WHich is why Twilight Princess sounds so great.  It could be LtP with the extra immersion of the Wiimote.

I love the series, but this conversation is so tired.

1) Ocarina of Time.  It just seemed to capture the feel of the series best.  The controls seemed excellent for the time, the dungeons were very well designed (possible obligatory exception for the water temple)... it just seemed awesome to me.

2) Majora's Mask.  I think this game is better than Ocarina of Time, but Ocarina had more impact, since Majora's Mask borrows so much from it.  So I put it at number two.  Still great.

3) Link's Awakening.  I just really dug this one.  I liked how you had to manually block things with your shield (revolutionary!), I liked the story, dungeons, all that stuff.  Awful graphics, of course.

4) Link to the Past.  Very fun.  Obviously.

5) Minish Cap.  Probably the best looking and sounding 2d Zelda game. I liked it, but those bloody "hit the four buttons at once" puzzles got kind of annoying.

6) Original Zelda.  A cool game, but it hasn't aged well.

7) Oracle of Seasons/Ages.  Just seemed half-assed to me.  I dunno why.

8) Zelda 2.  I AM ERROR.

9) The CD-i games.  Holy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mHw5g55oC4) hell. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imlyVV0yYKo&mode=related&search=)

"IT BURNS!" indeed.

Anyway...

1)  Link to the Past
2)  Original
3)  Zelda 2
4)  I bought a PS1 during the next round of console releases, so that's it.

So much hating of Adventure of Link, the one Zelda game that was actually challenging.

Also a great game!

I wouldn't call any Zelda's even remotely challenging. That's not what they're about.

I liked Adventure of Link back when it came out.  Of course that was because it had a few more RPG elements to it, and RPG's were still in short supply on consoles.  RPG fans pretty much had to take what we could get.

1) A Link To the Past - the pinnacle of the 2d Zeldas.

2) Links Awakening - Yes, it's actually damn good.

3) Wind Waker - Sure, the last third of the game sucked ass thanks to Nintendo pumping up the finishing time with the bullshit triforce piece hunt, but when you weren't in the fucking boat Miyamoto had such a boner for it was fun. I have fond memories of the start of the game but it just sucked so fucking hard towards the end it pretty much spelled the end of any fanboyism I had towards the series.

None of the others make my list. Ocarina of Time is easily among the most overrated games in history.

I'm done with Zelda. If I ever play another Zelda title it'll be a friend's copy, and probably not for long.

Also, Gamespot committed the ultimate sin among paid-for game review sites and shitty game rags; they gave a flagship title from Nintendo less than a 9.0.

http://www.gamespot.com/wii/action/thelegendofzelda/review.html

Read the forums for some amusement. Fanboys are SCREAMING for the head of the reviewer when they haven't even played the game.

Gamespot's review was the lowest one I've seen.  Overall the game is getting really good reviews.  It's funny because I'd seen more than one person in the past month or so claim to have anonymous sources who played the game and thought the controls sucked.  People who don't tend to be outright liars mind you.  I guess they must have all been playing earlier builds of the game or something.  The only major complaint I've really seen so far is that some people are saying that the graphics aren't as good as the could have been, and that's it's not even better looking than some Gamecube games.

A couple reviewers - behind closed doors of course - have been saying that the new Zelda while it's very good, isn't Zelda-caliber. If that makes sense.

Basically, fantastic action/adventure, but when you're among kings (Zelda) - you need to be... better.

Only in the gaming industry could we have reviewers giving the "real" reviews behind closed doors.  Tell those fucks to grow a pair and do their job.  And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

1) A Link to the Past. Epic game, and I think it was on par with Super Mario World. That's saying a lot I think.
2) Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link. Nostalgia is probably placing this at 2, but I enjoyed the game at the time and there is one thing about this game that stands true today. Those orange knights in the castles have better AI than any MMORPG NPC.
3) The Legend of Zelda. Pretty basic but it set the stage for A Link to the Past. The sound a bomb makes when it unveils a secret opening will be with me until I die.
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I tried Ocarina of Time and I failed at the same place Rasix did. That water dungeon. I just don't like 3D Zelda games as much as I liked the 2d ones.

I also don't enjoy 3D Metroid, for the very same reasons. However, I like 3D Mario games. Go fish.

No, not really only in the gaming industry. 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.

If you want some more concrete examples of this pick up "The Reader's Manifesto". It is fairly common practice for reviewers to get sucked into the hype and give a glowing review, then later pretend they were never on board without ever issuing a correction or mea culpa.

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Anyway no love for the Four Swords? That was incredibly fun with 4 players, although the barrier to entry (4 people with GBAs getting together at the same time) is kind of crazy.

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.

You mean like how Gamespy called Halo one of the most overrated games of all time (http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/september03/25overrated/index17.shtml) (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 (http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/halo-combat-evolved/6215p1.html) of five out of five?

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.

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.

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.

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.

(http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/3840/wiicryae3.jpg)  :-D

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.