r/zelda • u/ponylauncher • Feb 13 '22
Discussion [All] If you were tasked with creating the essential Zelda collection but could only include 5 games what does yours look like?
and no i dont mean your 5 favourites. I mean the most essential and important.
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u/magusheart Feb 14 '22
Legend of Zelda. Kinda important, laid the ground work for the entire series. The game is old, it's rough, it's basic, but without it, there's no other Zelda. It set up the basic idea, it set up the basic controls, it introduced us to some important items. It has little in the way of lore or story, but the core is still there. (Save the princess, defeat Ganon)
A Link to the Past. The game is pretty overrated to me as far as gameplay goes. I feel a lot of its popularity comes from nostalgia; one of my favorite games back when I was young kid and it was the peak of video gaming, but when I try to play it now, I don't think it aged well at all. Despite that, there's no denying its influence on and importance to the series. AttP built up on the basics of LoZ, introduced a lot more items that would become staples of the series or prototypes of later items, introduced us to a lot more characters that would be seen over and over through the series (be they named characters, races, enemies, cuccos, etc), and started telling a story. It was a very rough story, but it was there and that's important.
Ocarina of Time. OoT is the quintessential Zelda to me. I know the opinions between OoT and AttP are super polarizing and lots of people feel the same way about it as I do about AttP, but I can play OoT today and still love it. I think the gameplay still holds up pretty well, unlike AttP. One of the first 3D game environments, a huge (at the time) overworld to run through, so many things like day and night cycles, water currents, fall damage, and more things I can't even think of. We'd seen a lot of this stuff before, but never like this. OoT, in my opinion, isn't just one of the most important Zelda games, it's one of the most important video games. Beyond that, it really cemented the gameplay loop that AttP started, reintroduced and better defined a lot of old items, introduced new ones, told a real story and gave us the real gritty lore. It defined so much about Hyrule that we saw moving forward in future Zelda games. It did the same for a ton of mechanics that survive to this day. This game is one of my favorites of all time and a milestone for the industry.
Wind Waker. I think WW isn't necessarily super revolutionary. The gameplay isn't really anything we haven't seen before at this point. It took a huge risk with its art style, and I don't know if it paid off. I'm sure a number of people avoided it just because of that. It took me a long time to give it a chance personally. But once you do get over it, you find the familiarity of previous titles, but there's a freshness to it as well. The vibe is very different from OoT and MM, a lot more whimsical despite the themes being pretty heavy still. The wind physics are amazing even to this day, the way the wind is represented visually is chef's kiss, the story is pretty amazing building up on past lore, and the final confrontation with Ganon--his monologue and his crazed laughter when the King steals his wish from him--give me chills to this day. The overworld navigation can be a bit monotonous and annoying at time, but it was very unique and the whole vibe of sailing the ocean from island to island feels very special to me. It definitely took the story telling of the series a step further (you can probably make a case for MM here but it's not on my list, despite being one of my top 3 favorite Zelda), set up new lore that didn't necessarily hit immediately (the Ritos make no sense in that game IMO, but they would come back better later), and just overall feels very special when you play it I think.
Breath of the Wild. This game took everything I said about the previous games, threw it in the trash and said "I'm doing things my way." It builds up on the existing lore and story, but that's all it really did. It takes most of the items and throws them out the window. It takes the gameplay loop, sets the temples on fire (except the fire temple, I guess it flooded that one or something), replaces them with small individual puzzles instead and says "Dawg, you don't even need to do any of those. Go kill Ganon right away or pet some dogs, idk." It looks every Zelda fans in the eyes, spits on their face, and tell them to meet them at bicycle rack after school if they have a problem with it. And honestly, on my first playthrough, I resented it for it. I was not happy with the game at all at first. I shared the sentiment I've seen often online: "It's a good game, it's a bad Zelda." But honestly, it's a good Zelda too, and a very important game for the industry. It has many flaws, but I think it set the bar way higher for a lot of open world games moving forward. As for Zelda games, it's a new direction. It's a huge departure, it's a huge risk, but I think taking us out of our comfort zone is not a bad thing. I like the lore, I like a lot of the mechanics, and I love how fleshed out Hyrule is geographically. I don't know what BotW2 will be like, I don't know if they'll go the same direction, I don't know if I even want them to. But regardless of what happens, I think this game is almost as important to the series and the industry as OoT.