Worst Zelda Games?

[Doppleganger]

Recently GameFAQs released a troll-worthy poll that featured Zelda games, with Majora's Mask getting the #1 slot. Having not played MM, I don't know if this is a good/bad thing, but I've heard split discussion over its quality for years abroad. Even here.

The Zelda games I did play were Season, Ages, and A Link to the Past. I really loved Seasons and Ages, and felt ALTTP was of the same quality. Yet, I'm consistently seeing people rate ALLTP as the greatest Zelda game ever, while Seasons/Ages just a few ranks ahead of Zelda CDI.

wtf, someone care to shed some light on this? What bugged - graphics? Not being "Nintendo"? Easy puzzles? Nostalgia? I'm completely at a loss for this huge disparity.

[big bad birtha]

To be honest, I don't really know either. I didn't see that much of a problem with Majora's Mask. The gameplay was solid, the story wasn't bad, the game had a decent amount of collectibles and side quests, and the masks gave it a good variety. Despite that, I've seen numerous insults about the game. I remember a few years ago that a few people from here were insulting a guy for liking it.

The only real problem I can think of is the fact that you have to travel back in time after a certain amount of time passes. It means that all the dungeons you do, and events before that have a time limit, but even then, the time limit shouldn't be that bad. When playing it, I never ran out of time, or got near running out (unless it was on purpose.)

Doppel, were The Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil on the poll? Even with the hate on Majora's Mask, you'd think those two would win that poll.

[Doppleganger]

I should clarify, the GameFAQs list only included "good games", but the Zelda lists were by people rating the Zelda games in response to hearing MM win.

Zelda CDI games have been on some lists, but many seem to take the consensus that they're the worst games for granted and don't include them. It's implied they're at the bottom.

[enchantress]

It's baffling, really. I know a lot of people who rank the N64 Zelda games (OoT and MM) as being in the top five selection of Zelda games.

Besides, polls are unreliable in the sense that you're just getting the personal opinion of a small group of people. Go to another forum with people who have different gaming interests and you're going to get a completely different result to the same poll.

I loved ALTTP, Seasons, and Ages, but personally rank OoT and MM even higher, with OoT standing out as my all-time favourite game. Someone else may find that OoT was the worst of all (which is complete and utter blasphemy :p), but everyone believes differently so each to their own, I guess.

MM's graphics weren't Twilight Princess quality but then again I've never been one for graphics as I prefer the gameplay quality, storyline, etc, over how pretty a game looks, but I can't understand how or why it could ever end up at the bottom of the pile when taking all Zelda games into the equation.

I found Majora's Mask quite enjoyable, and perhaps if I'd played it before OoT it would have ended up as my favourite, but it's definitely high up on my personal list of favourites.

[YUKI.N]

In before Zora?

How anyone could majorly dislike Majora's Mask is beyond me. Its storyline was one of the strongest and most unique of the series, IMO. Sure, the time limit was off-putting at first, but you get used to it quickly and then it becomes an interesting challenge. In fact, I'd say the sense of impending doom and the realization that, no matter what, it's impossible to save everyone within the given timeframe, are the driving forces behind the plot. Not to mention all your hard work will eventually get erased. Pretty heavy stuff for an E-rated game.

I suppose MM's level of "darkness" compared to other Zelda titles may cause discomfort for some. But I think it's good for Nintendo to break away from the standard formula every once in a while. I'd say Link's Awakening is a comparable early example, how did that game fare on the list?

Having played ALttP after OoT and MM, I think the game's merit is probably its nostalgia factor. I didn't see anything special about it otherwise.

As for Seasons and Ages, seeing as they're the first Zelda games developed by Capcom, I guess I can only say that they lacked a certain... "Nintendo" flair. I enjoyed them both more than ALttP, but I wouldn't rate any of them as the greatest games of the series or anything.

Minish Cap was pretty good though. Haven't played Phantom Hourglass or Spirit Tracks yet, so I can't rate either as better or worse.

Of course, OoT will always be my personal favorite. (*hi-fives Tess*) MM comes in as a close second.

[Holy Emperor]

If you guys want to know my deep dark secret..... I never played MM. :(

I love OoT and LttP a whole bunch though. :X

[Blastoise]

If you guys want to know my deep dark secret..... I never played MM. :(

I love OoT and LttP a whole bunch though. :X

I've never played a 2D Zelda to completion, so

uh

[Holy Emperor]

Which Zeldas have you played to completion then?

[Muyotwo]

Oracle of Ages and Seasons are two of my favorite games period, but I like Majora's Mask probably best of all of the 3D Zeldas (then Windwaker). I like OOT a great deal (and I can probably play through the first few temples with my eyes shut) but I think that its nostalgia factor (and the buildup I had in my mind of it after waiting for it for years after the N64 release) overinflate it- and when I played through again recently it wasn't as good as I'd remembered. Maybe the 3DS remake will breathe new life into it, but at the moment it's Majora forever.

[Talon87]

Kuno: I've played to completion Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, the Wind Waker, and Oracle of Seasons. Of these, I liked Majora's Mask least.

I've played at least most of the original Zelda, A Link To the Past, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Oracle of Seasons, Oracle of Ages, the Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess. Of these, I liked Majora's Mask least.


Doppel: I think it's the fact that most people never played Oracle of Seasons or Oracle of Ages. If I recall correctly, the games did not have backwards compatibility with original GameBoys. I know that I first played Oracle of Seasons in 2001 on my GameBoy Advance, the system one up from the GameBoy Color for which the games were released. The GameBoy Color didn't have nearly the market penetration that the GameBoy Advance did, and the GameBoy Advance didn't have nearly the market penetration that either the original GameBoy or the DS did. So if I'm right that you could only play Oracle of Seasons on a GBC, GBA, or Super GameBoy (SNES), then that limits the number of people who would have been able to play this game. Then you have to factor in how willing or unwilling people would be to play a game which struck many as an inferior Link to the Past.

I enjoyed Oracle of Seasons, but it was admittedly not that memorable of a game. A friend gave me his copy of Oracle of Ages for free. I never beat it, instead making it roughly two-thirds of the way through the game. I think that if I hadn't have purchased Oracle of Seasons with my own money, that game might have met a similar fate. It's hard to deny the impact that buying a game will have on your drive to complete it.


bbb: unfortunately, most of the complainst against Majora's Mask boil down to taste. There's no accounting for taste, really, and so you're going to get people all over the spectrum. Here are my own reasons for disliking the game:
I really hated the time reset. Really. really hated it.
Part of what made Ocarina of Time so fun was its sandbox nature. You were put into the world and were free to do whatever you wanted to do. Want to ride Epona for hours on end all around Hyrule Field? Go for it. Want to climb up Mt. Goron and jump off from the very top, once while wearing no boots and once while wearing the Iron Boots? Go for it. Want to go hunting for all ten (twelve?) Poes at once? Go for it, no one's stopping you. But in Majora's Mask, this was impossible. Majora's Mask placed very clear limitations on your ability to have fun just wasting time exploring the land. And this really sucked.
One of my biggest complaints with the time resets was that you had to go and re-fetch Epona every single time. I hated the alien abduction mission. And to make matters worse, iirc you can't even get Epona any sooner than Day 2 (of 3). Which meant that you were forced to spend one-third of the game horseless. This majorly sucked. (If I'm wrong about that, sorry, it's been years since I last touched Majora's Mask. I know I'm right about having to re-fetch the horse each time though. HATED that.)
Ocarina of Time was cool because you started off as Kid Link but then you got to grow up and become Adult Link. I always preferred Adult Link. He looked better, he had the better weapons to choose from, etc. Unfortunately, Majora's Mask doesn't give you 100% Adult Link. It doesn't even give you 50% Adult Link. It gives you 0% Adult Link. Bummer.
Ocarina of Time felt like it had a real world with real civilizations. You could feel that there were the different tribal races (Hylians, Gorons, Zora) and that there were the primitive beasties (like Deku). Majora's Mask kind of blew it by bringing back the OoT tribal races but having them be perverse alternate universe forms. It would have been better had Majora's Mask either invented its own races to do new things with (as Wind Waker did), or else have had a large passage of time occur between the events of OoT and MM such that we might be more willing to accept cultural or even genetic changes (as Wind Waker also did), or else to have had the OoT cultures but to have left them alone. I realize that Majora's Mask tried to do this with the Deku tribal race, but I actually really disliked that. I would have been more accepting of humanoid Dekus had the passage of time between OoT and MM been much greater.
The story in Majora's Mask was much less appealing than that in Ocarina of Time.

The thing is, most of these are aesthetic complaints. You might like alternate universe stories. I don't. You might like the story in Majora's Mask. I didn't. You might have thought the mask morphing was cool. I despised it. So on and so forth.

[YUKI.N]

One of my biggest complaints with the time resets was that you had to go and re-fetch Epona every single time.

IIRC, once you learned Epona's song, she was yours. I think you have to complete the target shooting mini-game first though.

Ocarina of Time was cool because you started off as Kid Link but then you got to grow up and become Adult Link. I always preferred Adult Link. He looked better, he had the better weapons to choose from, etc. Unfortunately, Majora's Mask doesn't give you 100% Adult Link. It doesn't even give you 50% Adult Link. It gives you 0% Adult Link. Bummer.

Fierce Deity Mask? (...is cool enough for 10 Adult Links. XP)

The story in Majora's Mask was much less appealing than that in Ocarina of Time.

I thought MM's story was more appealing than OoT's in that OoT was just the same old "defeat Ganondorf and rescue the princess" plotline. MM was something totally different, and was much more emotionally impacting than OoT.

I did enjoy the unabated freedom of exploring Hyrule in OoT, which is why I think both games should be played for a full experience. Each has what the other lacks. To me, they're two halves that make up a whole. MM's story made me appreciate OoT's more, and vice-versa.

Personally, I theorize that Termina was not an alternate universe, but a dream like in Link's Awakening. This makes it as much of a soul-searching quest as an effort to save the day. It made myself pause and reconsider what I was fighting for (in OoT as well), and whether it was worth it.

[Holy Emperor]

You guys are making me want to play MM, although I'm not reading your posts fully to avoid spoilery stuff. D: I'm using this break to play old games (playing FF8+9 atm, although 8 is intolerable).

[YUKI.N]

You totally should play it.

I feel like re-playing a Zelda game myself now. Should it be OoT, MM, or TP? Hm, decisions, decisions... (Golden Sun and FSN can wait, right? *shot*)

By the way, maybe we should add a poll so we can make our own list of UPNers' favorite Zelda games? =D

[Milotic111]

I have played most zelda games, except the philips(?) ones and oracle and four sword series.

I must say that I like MM the best, followed by Links awakening and wind waker. I rank alltp at the bottom, I didn't really like it, but I guess that was mostly because it feels like a handheld, yet you have to play it on a console. The rest are in between.

The new DS series are quite different but very fun (IMO)

[Concept]

Personally I've played TP, OOT, both Oracle games, MM, Links Awakening and Wind Waker. TP is probably my favourite, with MM hot on its heels. OOT and Wind Waker were good too, but I never really got into either Oracle game or Links Awakening. I think Wind Waker was the first I played (my family had a Playstation rather than the N64 back in the day, so didn't get to play the N64 ones when they were new. And we had the megadrive before that).

>Kuno.

Off topic, but I like FF8 :(. It's not the best but it's good. 9 is great up until the end of disk 2 at which point the rest of it is dull for the most part. Damn now I want to play 8 again.

[Holy Emperor]

>Kuno.

Off topic, but I like FF8 :(. It's not the best but it's good. 9 is great up until the end of disk 2 at which point the rest of it is dull for the most part. Damn now I want to play 8 again.

I'm like an hour or two into 8 and it's super boring. Don't like the system they had or the fact you need items to cast spells etc. Triple Triad also kind of sucks.

Ps. Lets talk about Zelda again

[big bad birtha]

In Majora's Mask, I quit giving a shit about Epona after I got the Goron mask. Between a horse that only moves forward and can't jump ledges and freaking Sonic the Hedgehog mode that goes faster than Epona and has an awesome jump distance off ledges and ramps, the choice is obviously the Goron mask. I've spent so many hours in Majora's Mask going wild with the Goron Mask.

To answer the original question of this topic, if I had to pick a worst Zelda game I've played, I'd probably have to say Phantom Hourglass. Don't get me wrong, I had fun with it, but as someone who's used a traditional controller all his life, I'm not crazy about using a stylus to play. That's why all my DS games are RPGs.

[Doppleganger]

Got some feedback on why the Oracle games were rated so poorly.

Note that I wasn't as surprised at them being rated low as I was at them getting failing (6/10) grades. Given the Zelda series sets the bar pretty high, I'd imagine a "formula" game like Twilight Princess and A Link to the Past to be toward the bottom, since the different games like MM and WW supposedly take what people recognize as classic Zelda and twist it all over to create a wildly new experience.

The #1 criticism is "the Oracle gaves had the worst dungeon design until Phantom Hourglass came out".

I'm surprised such a strong objection is worth damning the entire game over, but apparently it's a big deal. Maybe I'm too casual toward such things, design was never something I was thinking about when I played the Oracles or ALTTP.

[YUKI.N]

I've spent so many hours in Majora's Mask going wild with the Goron Mask.

Goht = Best Zelda boss fight ever? I think so.

The only thing I remember about the Oracle dungeons is that Jabu-Jabu's Belly gave me hell, especially when I was trying to get this one chest I thought I had missed permanently. Finally figured it out in the end, after many hours of trial and error.

[Jerichi]

>I have never completed MM

I've only completed one Zelda game.

Wind Waker.

[Milotic111]

Does that include every chart, every upgrade, every figurine (including Knuckles) and (get this) every PLATFORM on the sea?

I've done it all, except the platforms...

[Jerichi]

Completed as in played through the main story.

[YUKI.N]

Does that include every chart, every upgrade, every figurine (including Knuckles) and (get this) every PLATFORM on the sea?

I've done it all, except the platforms...

I did 'em all, including the platforms. >>; And I'm pretty sure I cleared every treasure chest off the ocean floor - even the uncharted ones.

Sucks being a completionist...

[Milotic111]

Forgot about the charted and uncharted treasure chests. But I wasn't going to do that anyway, even I am not that dedicated.

Of course in MM, I don't need to open every chest, so that's a game I have truly completed.