What's the worst 3D Zelda game? (poll)

[supkid]

Wind Waker is default the best one because when I booted up my copy after a long hiatus, I was lost in the middle of an ocean with no idea where to go or how I got there, as opposed to being lost in the middle of a dungeon with no idea where to go or how I got there.

 

[C_Ali88]

Wind Waker is default the best one because when I booted up my copy after a long hiatus, I was lost in the middle of an ocean with no idea where to go or how I got there, as opposed to being lost in the middle of a dungeon with no idea where to go or how I got there.

Click to shrink...

Ok but the question is which is the worst?

 

[Parthenios]

People claiming BotW "didn't feel like classic Zelda" either never played the original or need to go back and replay it immediately. In many ways BotW was a return to its roots.

Click to shrink...

I replay both quests in the original LoZ about once a year, and have every year since the early 90s. I don't think BotW specifically resembles the original outside of some superficial things. It's much closer in design to the OoT style of game than it is to BotW.

Like, both games are "hard" but since LoZ does actually have some semblance of a linear progression (even if you can and are even encouraged to sequence break), the game gets harder and harder as you go, and the difficulty outpaces your progression. BotW is the opposite, where almost literally everything is accessible from the go so the difficulty is rather static and the game gets really (really) easy as you power up.

And both games let you go to the whole overworld more or less from the start, but LoZ isn't about the overworld the way BotW is. LoZ's overworld is more or less Peach's castle from Mario 64; just a clever hub for the actual levels designed for players to tool about in between stages.

 

[nocdaes]

I had to go with the one I never bothered to finish, which is Twilight Princess.

Skyward Sword had a lot of shortcomings and I think it's fair for it to win/lose this vote, but, I found it a lot more fun than Twilight Princess.

 

[Deleted member 40102]

Majors mask... I hated timed story games with a passion.

 

[H2intensity]

Twilight Princess for me.. Outside the dungeons there aren't anything interesting about that game. I think its one of the moment Zelda series lose its identity because Nintendo just want to please that crowd that hate Windwaker by try making it more "western".

 

[supkid]

Ok but the question is which is the worst?

Click to shrink...

Skyward Sword, didn't like the controls at all on it.

 

[Deleted member 5519]

I really wish I knew which version of Twilight Princess people who despise the game played. I played the Gamecube version and then the Wii U remaster that had regular controls and a non flipped world. Twilight Princess has plenty of issues aside from the Wii's motion controls but I absolutely adore the game and think it has alot to love. When I tried the Wii version is absolutely destroyed the game, I couldn't stand the waggle.

If all you know is the waggle version I recommend trying the regular proper way to play on Gamecube or Wii U. If you still don't like it that is completely fair, but the Wii version just does the game a huge disservice.

I loved Midna, and I do not think Zant was a wasted character.

 

[Shion]

It's a toss-up between Wind Waker and Skyward Sword for me (not a big fan of Twilight Princess either).​

Wind Waker is clearly a rushed and unfinished game. There's a severe lack of content, it features some of the weakest dungeon-design in the series, the overworld is massively underdeveloped and underutilized, the game fails to provide any kind of meaningful challenge, the combat is overly simplistic and I still feel that its art style is a terrible fit for Zelda. I know that this has become a controversial opinion these days, but this is how I feel. So, let me clarity by saying that I find Wind Waker's art beautiful in its own right and I would totally welcome, say, a new EarthBound game in that style. It's just that, aesthetically and tonally, a saturday morning cartoon is definitely not the type of experience I want from Nintendo series like Zelda or Metroid.​

Still, I think that Wind Waker has a handful of redeeming qualities that elevate it above Skyward Sword:​

a) It offered a world that actually felt immersive​

b) It managed to evoke a sense of adventure​

These are aspects that I personally value a lot in a Zelda game.​

Skyward Sword, on the other hand, has absolutely nothing going for it, it's like the polar opposite of what I want from this series. The lack of a proper overworld to explore, the extreme focus on puzzles and the complete disregard for everything else that defined this series, the linear dungeons that don't even require a map for navigation, the incredibly bland environments that are completely devoid of atmosphere, the awful pacing, the animu vibe, the unnecessary padding, the absolutely ridiculous amount of hand-holding. Skyward Sword was a forgettable and utterly tedious experience for me, that became even more painful due to its focus on motion controls. I had to force myself to finish it and, to be completely honest, I only did that because it was the newest installment in what used to be my favorite series since the NES. It's a terrible Zelda and a meh game at best.​

 

[Strangiato]

Breath of the Wild because it has the depth of a puddle, but the width of an ocean.

Click to shrink...

This is probably the most apt description of a video game I've ever seen. If BotW has actual dungeons and they don't all look the exact same and they don't throw a dumb stamina meter right smack in the middle of the screen which is the most un-Nintendo, least elegant solution imaginable then it could be a greatest of all time. As it stands BotW is not even in my top ten of all Zelda games.

 

[Professor Beef]

Never before has a more wrong opinion been uttered. Congratulations.

Click to shrink...

Ocarina isn't some sacred cow, and I had to power through it when I replayed it a couple years ago.

 

[Principate]

Ocarina isn't some sacred cow, and I had to power through it when I replayed it a couple years ago.

Click to shrink...

Of course it is. I played it a few years ago too and the main bulk of the game, the puzzles has aged pretty damn well. Even today you'd rarely get a game with as many intricate and well thought out puzzles. There's a good reason it's highly regarded.

It didn't enter all those all time greatest lists for nothing.

 

[SixelAlexiS]

Wind Waker. It's clearly an unfinished game

Click to shrink...

THIS!!
It has like three ugly dungeon and don't even a final one, that is a sort of mnemonic labirinth... it's pathetic.
Yeah, the little islands are cute but that's it, it the Zelda with less content around, it's like an unfinished alpha.

And ROTFL at all those votes to Twilight Princess, imho the best one (not considering Botw, haven't played).

SS is ripetitive, yes, and lack of a proper overworld... but it a big game full of thing to do and is fun to play, doesn't deserve first place here.
WW it has only the overworld but the rest is just... bad and empty.

[played the WiiU version, ppl get tricked by a s***ton of nostalgia...]

 

[DIE BART DIE]

the animu vibe​

Click to shrink...

Interested to hear what you think of Breath of the Wild.

I despised Skyward Sword's Japanese high school anime vibe, with its sophomoric writing, cheesy romance, the Master Sword being anthropomorphised as a cute girl, the lame Groose character and the ridiculous theatrics of the villain.

It's not that I didn't want the series to take inspiration from anime though. Ever since I saw Princess Mononoke, I wanted a Zelda game that looked and felt like a Ghibli production, as I thought that tone - with its balance of whimsy and melancholy - would fit the franchise perfectly. After Skyward Sword, I thought the chances of that happening were next to zero, so imagine my surprise and delight when Breath of the Wild was unveiled.

 

[Deleted member 4346]

I didn't play Skyward Sword, but Wind Waker on the Gamecube was not a good game. It was middling, honestly, like a 6/10. Ironic too because the uproar when it was first shown was about the art style. The charming art was one of the best things about it. Gameplay, particularly the sailing, was just not up to the series' standards.

 

[Torpedo Vegas]

I didn't like Majora's Mask. I can't really place why. Just every time I play it, I stop wanting to after half an hour.

 

[hiredhand]

Voted for Twilight Princess for the terrible pacing, the bland art style and an almost complete lack of new ideas.

 

[Deleted member 8791]

Majora's Mask for me. Never liked the travel back in time gimmick.

 

[JershJopstin]

Alright, I never stated they were any better or worse in that regard. What was subjectively worse were the characters (Groose and/or FI), controls and to a large extent, for me, the bird. The way link held the sword also irritated me.

Click to shrink...

Well, at least you recognized those as subjective. I liked all those things! Except maybe the sword bit, but it didn't bother me.

What was objectively worse: The slow pacing for most of the beginning and other periods interspersed throughout the game, unstoppable cutscenes, slow dialogue menus, FI's constant interruption and badgering, the inevitable and too frequent readjusting of motion plus, fighting sealed demise over and over and over again (Which is why it boggles my mind people actually complain of the Beasts. The audacity! At least they were different even with their similarities, bosses and all. Meandering feather monster with puss gout toes was the SAME every time. Down to the circular path he slowwwwly meanders up)

Click to shrink...

The pacing was objectively worse? What's objective about that? TWW and TP absolutely have their moments with this, too. TP's start is worse for me; it feels like a tutorial all the way through the first dungeon, and while SS does too, TP then immediately throws you into another slow twilight section. I don't feel like I'm really playing the game until after Eldin twilight. It's not good. TWW forces its pacing up until you've cleared two dungeons by arbitrarily limiting where you can sail, and loses all sense of good pacing with the triforce quest.

The rest... I dunno, I guess they're 'objectively' bad, but most of them didn't really bother me? I don't really skip cutscenes. Fi really tones down the forced interruptions after the beginning. I'll give you the slow text. The Imprisoned fights did have mechanics changes with Groose (though unfortunately, for once the game didn't explain all your options with him). My motion plus could stay calibrated for hours.

 

[FinalFanXtreme]

Skyward Sword was good but the controls are flawed. I only finished it because it's Zelda

 

[PetrCobra]

Twilight Princess has aged fairly quickly, and perhaps a bit worse than Ocarina when I consider the difference in age between them. It's become a bit too clumsy for my taste. Every other 3D Zelda including Skyward Sword (although, fuck the repeated Demise fights) is above it in my book. Still a great game for sure.

 

[Oscillator]

Game as a whole is very apathetic in its design rendering the whole thing as "pointless." It's a game that has no purpose, no reason to do anything despite its systems.

Thinking about it now, in some ways, it's more tech demo than it is video game. The aimlessness and pointlessness of the whole package work when the entire crux of the game is "look at all these gameplay systems/mechanics!" You can do some neat things with the systems in play, but they neither serve or have, any purpose other than, "Look at thing! It's neat!"

Click to shrink...

(Note - I've said this before some time ago to someone else with similar thoughts)

Just because BotW isn't for you doesn't mean it's an inherently bad game. Polarizing, certainly, but for those who understand what the designers intent was, it's a work of art.

It's a matter of active vs. passive players. Active means you need a steady stream of positive reinforcement - being told where to go, what to do, big moment upon big moment. Passive means you have to find the hook of the game yourself.

BotW's hook is not any of it's goals, but rather just being in the world. Navigating the terrain, poking through little nooks and crannies, finding new areas, finding new ingredients/materials/wildlife (I did most of the Hyrule Compendium manually, which I found to be a great diversion), experiencing changes in weather and temperature, experimenting with different navigation and combat techniques (of which there are a LOT), and even just taking breaks and soaking in the deep, deep atmosphere.

This could all be dismissed as a walking (or perhaps climbing) simulator, but just because the dungeons and shrines are relatively weak (there are a fair number of good elements to them, and even a bad Zelda dungeon/puzzle is still pretty decent) doesn't mean the entire rest of the game is only one long repeated note.

If you brute force the game, making beelines for all the major objectives and exploiting weaknesses in the systems to make everything easy, you will hate the game. If you play the the game at ITS pace, its finer points shine brilliantly.

P.S. This isn't something I made up to justify the game's design - other people have seen it.

and they don't throw a dumb stamina meter right smack in the middle of the screen which is the most un-Nintendo, least elegant solution imaginable

Click to shrink...

While I agree that there are issues with the traversal system (oodles of fast travel points being a bandage for no real upgrade path for greater speed), what is there wouldn't work without a stamina meter. And that said, where else could it be put other than where it's most visible? Losing track of how much you have left easily leads to sudden death.

 

[base_two]

It's Wind Waker. That game has some great highs, but it is absolutely a unfinished game. It feels like they pieced what they had together in the last 3 months and kicked it out the door for release. If it's one game in the series that need a sequel proper, it was Wind Waker. Unfortunately, pressure from fans encouraged Nintendo to make Twilight Princess, by far the most derivative game in the series.

 

[breakYODAy]

Voting Skyward Sword for the repeated areas.

 

[Deleted member 19782]

I like all 3D Zeldas but Wind Waker would be the one I'd be the least excited to play.

 

[Drayco21]

I didn't play Skyward Sword, but Twilight. Princess was always super boring and ugly, and I've never bothered to finish it

 

[LegendX48]

(Note - I've said this before some time ago to someone else with similar thoughts)

Just because BotW isn't for you doesn't mean it's an inherently bad game. Polarizing, certainly, but for those who understand what the designers intent was, it's a work of art.

It's a matter of active vs. passive players. Active means you need a steady stream of positive reinforcement - being told where to go, what to do, big moment upon big moment. Passive means you have to find the hook of the game yourself.

BotW's hook is not any of it's goals, but rather just being in the world. Navigating the terrain, poking through little nooks and crannies, finding new areas, finding new ingredients/materials/wildlife (I did most of the Hyrule Compendium manually, which I found to be a great diversion), experiencing changes in weather and temperature, experimenting with different navigation and combat techniques (of which there are a LOT), and even just taking breaks and soaking in the deep, deep atmosphere.

This could all be dismissed as a walking (or perhaps climbing) simulator, but just because the dungeons and shrines are relatively weak (there are a fair number of good elements to them, and even a bad Zelda dungeon/puzzle is still pretty decent) doesn't mean the entire rest of the game is only one long repeated note.

If you brute force the game, making beelines for all the major objectives and exploiting weaknesses in the systems to make everything easy, you will hate the game. If you play the the game at IT'S pace, its finer points shine brilliantly.

P.S. This isn't something I made up to justify the game's design - other people have seen it.

Click to shrink...

Addressing the bolded/colored: While that in and of itself is fine, several other games have done that and they did it far and away better while having a sense of urgency, purpose, wonder, and presence such as The Witcher 3, Fallout New Vegas and Horizon Zero Dawn. BOTW, by and large, doesn't work on this level for me as by the time it had finally arrived, it was a very static, dull and generic game world full of monotonous Ubisoft checklist design by comparison.

In general, it feels like a game I probably could've seen what everyone else sees in it IF I was exclusively a Nintendo only gamer and never ever touched, or considered other platforms. I didn't beeline it to the finish, I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 130 hours here with 1 playthrough on the Wii U and a 2nd playthrough on the Switch. I will admit, straight up, that I found it more enjoyable on the Switch; I made myself a personal goal of doing all 120 shrines before even coming near any dungeon or major village (major village as in the Zora domain, Goron village, Rito village, etc). I started to enjoy the game a touch more, going through what were essentially "high level" areas with only 3 hearts (but upgraded armor) but the game quickly made sure to rear it's ugly head back in and stifle my enjoyment. The shrines very quickly stop being interesting or "fun" to trudge through and then the ultimate reward is the ugliest version of Link's classic tunic in the series history (though this is subjective, I know).

The gameplay systems and mechanics are neat at face value; there's a lot of interesting stuff going on under the hood that does make for a great foundation. But, this game, it's just not good. I genuinely cannot see what others see in it UNLESS they are Nintendo only gamers and do not touch other platforms, in which case, sure, I can see why they'd be amazed.

There are things in here that I like, things I enjoyed, but there are far and away more things in here that poison the entire package for me. Is it a bad game objectively? No, but I cannot call it a good game either. It was/is my most disappointing game of 2017 and one of the few that I'm incredibly critical of.

Sorry about the wall of text. I've said a lot about this game (though not necessarily here) despite me just straight up hating it. It's something I'm very tired of talking about yet still enjoy talking about >.>

 

[Deleted member 7130]

I can get to the desert area before Skyward Sword becomes unbearable to me. There's elements I genuinely like despite not liking it overall.

Wind Waker is consistently boring to me from the very beginning.

 

[Manwell]

Ocarina isn't some sacred cow, and I had to power through it when I replayed it a couple years ago.

Click to shrink...

But to say that it's the worst 3D Zelda ever made? You should at least explain why you feel that way.

For me it's Wind Waker mostly because of the excessive padding that game had towards the end and the sailing which was slow and felt incomplete. I actually enjoyed sailing in Phantom Hourglass as there it felt like it was fleshed out more as a core mechanic to the game (drawing out routes, etc).

I totally understand why SS easily wins this poll and while the game is absolutely flawed, for me the really good dungeons and bosses saves it from being the worst.

 

[Professor Beef]

But to say that it's the worst 3D Zelda ever made? You should at least explain why you feel that way.

Click to shrink...

I didn't say it was the worst, but it's down there. I ended up choosing Skyward Sword anyways.

 

[Timeaisis]

Absolutely Twilight Princess. Skyward Sword has a lot of redeeming qualities, like the combat, the story, and the dungeon design, and the overworked puzzles. Twilight Princess has a few good dungeons and uh...that's all I got. SS definitely has the lowest lows, but Twilight Princess is a worse game overall.

 

[cgatto]

I think Twilight Princess, followed by Skyward Sword.

If I had to rank these as my own personal favourites from most to least, I would say:

Breath of the Wild
Majora's Mask
Ocarina of Time
Wind Waker
Skyward Sword
Twilight Princess

 

[Deleted member 11413]

Twilight Princess because the start of the game has so much tedious bullshit like the twilight bug hunting. I haven't played Skyward Sword so I can't comment on it, maybe I would choose that one if I had but I say Twilight Princess as it stands.

Still a good game though, a lot of the dungeons are good and Midna is a good companion character (better than Navi for sure).

 

[C_Ali88]

Well, at least you recognized those as subjective. I liked all those things! Except maybe the sword bit, but it didn't bother me.

The pacing was objectively worse? What's objective about that? TWW and TP absolutely have their moments with this, too. TP's start is worse for me; it feels like a tutorial all the way through the first dungeon, and while SS does too, TP then immediately throws you into another slow twilight section. I don't feel like I'm really playing the game until after Eldin twilight. It's not good. TWW forces its pacing up until you've cleared two dungeons by arbitrarily limiting where you can sail, and loses all sense of good pacing with the triforce quest.

The rest... I dunno, I guess they're 'objectively' bad, but most of them didn't really bother me? I don't really skip cutscenes. Fi really tones down the forced interruptions after the beginning. I'll give you the slow text. The Imprisoned fights did have mechanics changes with Groose (though unfortunately, for once the game didn't explain all your options with him). My motion plus could stay calibrated for hours.

Click to shrink...

Well for one because SS's beginning is a literal tutorial not just feels like one. Again I have stated multiple times in this thread and on era: I hate the twilight area of TP and sailing of windwaker why even bring it up? To somehow say "this aspect is worse in a another game or two so SS isn't that bad?" It doesn't work like that, SS isn't the worst Zelda for me because other games don't have elements just as bad. No, the reason being the faults of SS added up to it being virtually non-playable to me.

No other Zelda has done that. Regardless of the negatives they may or may not have had. With SS I am literally NOT playing the game, so I can take the wait up to Eldin in TP to feel as if I'm actually playing. The feeling never comes to me with Skyward Sword, more like fighting the game to get it to progress.

 

[GamerJM]

Of the ones I've played (all except Majora's, yes I know I need to get to it) Wind Waker has the worst dungeons of them all by a country mile (yes, significantly worse than the Beasts in BotW) and you can feel the lack of proper development time. So it's definitely that. Though it's still a good game, there are moments of brilliance in there and it's positively gorgeous.

 

[Taruranto]

Toss between TP and SS. TP has an empty overworld, braindead difficulty, terrible, linear dungeons and started the whole "side-kick that won't shup the fuck up" thing but SS is literally unplayable due to the controls and Fi.

 

[Concelhaut]

It's definitely Twilight Princess. That game is the sign Nintendo caved in to the fans to have a so called realistic Zelda.

Result: a worse uninspired copy of Ocarina .

They could have done something completely different like Shadow of the Colossus for this Zelda.

The game adds nothing to the series. Even Skyward Sword adds essential lore.

 

[Jawmuncher]

Haven't played Skyward Sword, but I wasn't big on the survival aspects and item breaking in BOTW. Especially since so much of the game is based around just messing around in the world, so if you're like me and just want the main quest there's less on offer compared to the older style IMO.

 

[JershJopstin]

Well for one because SS's beginning is a literal tutorial not just feels like one. Again I have stated multiple times in this thread and on era: I hate the twilight area of TP and sailing of windwaker why even bring it up? To somehow say "this aspect is worse in a another game or two so SS isn't that bad?" It doesn't work like that, SS isn't the worst Zelda for me because other games don't have elements just as bad. No, the reason being the faults of SS added up to it being virtually non-playable to me.

No other Zelda has done that. Regardless of the negatives they may or may not have had.

Click to shrink...

Whoa, hold the phone there. I was replying to your comment about SS's pacing being objectively worse, nothing more. Your argument was already a comparison, which is why I bought TWW and TP up. There's nothing really objective about pacing. I was also only commenting of the pacing of the twilight areas and TWW's gated sailing, not saying I didn't like them.

TP's beginning is also a literal tutorial though, I don't know how you can deny that. TWW too, though it is shorter.

 

[C_Ali88]

Whoa, hold the phone there. I was replying to your comment about SS's pacing being objectively worse, nothing more. Your argument was already a comparison, which is why I bought TWW and TP up. There's nothing really objective about pacing. I was also only commenting of the pacing of the twilight areas and TWW's gated sailing, not saying I didn't like them.

TP's beginning is also a literal tutorial though, I don't know how you can deny that. TWW too, though it is shorter.

Click to shrink...

Would you rather I had said a major fault of it is it's bad pacing? Then it wouldn't be subjective?

If you wish to use that instead of "objectively worse" you may but notice I didn't say "What's objectively the WORST is SS's pacing" which would indicate it's the worst in the series. Rather I was comparing it to my favorite Zelda, hence "worse" not "worst." My friend.

It has bad pacing... Other Zeldas do too but it doesn't change or make it subjective.

I apologize if that was unclear. I switch between threads pretty rapidly and sometimes may not contextualize my replies appropriately.

And finally when did I claim WW or TP had great or even good pacing? I never denied it because I've never claimed anything other than SS had objectively worse pacing than other (not all) Zelda games.

Lol TP is not one of my favorites nor is WW so you aren't making a great argument as to why SS is somehow better than the thread or I am giving credit to.

Both SS and TP seem to be pretty low on the best Zelda fans. Most seemingly find one or the other bad in slightly unequal amounts... but most still have them bottom tier. If not for the color and pop of WW and nostalgia (I played it on the cube in the hospital with my dying cousin) it'd be slightly above TP for me. And TP gets the spot above SS.

From most disliked (doesn't necessarily mean I hate the game) to least disliked (Favorite):

1. SS

2.TP
3.MM

3. WW

5.OOT

6. BOTW

*Spaces indicate a major jump in like.*

 

[JershJopstin]

Would you rather I had said a major fault of it is it's bad pacing? Then it wouldn't be subjective?

If you wish to use that instead of "objectively worse" you may but notice I didn't say "What's objectively the WORST is SS's pacing" which would indicate I believe it's the worst in the series. Rather I was comparing it to my favorite Zelda, hence "worse" not "worst." My friend.

I apologize if that was unclear. I switch between threads pretty rapidly and sometimes may not contextualize my replies appropriately.

Click to shrink...

Well, that changes things. A little. But you haven't even indicated that your favorite Zelda is, so just using 'worse' is a little confusing :p. I assumed it was TP/TWW because those were the ones previously brought up... and both of which I find to have worse pacing than SS.

But yeah, it really bothered me to see you list some things off as subjective, and then others that I disagreed with as objective. I'm still not even sure you can objectively say pacing of a fault of the game, though; how would you even measure that objectively?

 

[BowieZ]

Majors mask... I hated timed story games with a passion.

Click to shrink...

Yup. Personally I think it's way way overrated.

But yeah, a clever game does not a great game make.

 

[C_Ali88]

Well, that changes things. A little. But you haven't even indicated that your favorite Zelda is, so just using 'worse' is a little confusing :p. I assumed it was TP/TWW because those were the ones previously brought up... and both of which I find to have worse pacing than SS.

But yeah, it really bothered me to see you list some things off as subjective, and then others that I disagreed with as objective. I'm still not even sure you can objectively say pacing of a fault of the game, though; how would you even measure that objectively?

Click to shrink...

I added a list to my previous post.

Sorry it took so long.

But yes I wasn't calling it the WORST.

 

[C_Ali88]

Well, that changes things. A little. But you haven't even indicated that your favorite Zelda is, so just using 'worse' is a little confusing :p. I assumed it was TP/TWW because those were the ones previously brought up... and both of which I find to have worse pacing than SS.

But yeah, it really bothered me to see you list some things off as subjective, and then others that I disagreed with as objective. I'm still not even sure you can objectively say pacing of a fault of the game, though; how would you even measure that objectively?

Click to shrink...

It's slower paced. FI's shit obviously is a blemish on the pacing. Going through a dungeon.

No one:
FI: Let me repeat useless information or ruin this puzzle for you!

No one:
FI: Use dowsing to find blah blah blah item.
(Hated dowsing, useless)

Npc: Find this item for this quest.
Link:
FI: The probability of finding this item........ blah.

Or objectively measured by how much a game hems you into it's story. Forcing how you play weird segments just to pad an already slow game. Bird travel crap continuously? Yeah. Seal demise again? Yeah. Just breaks up the flow and makes it slog at times.

Same for TP's wolf... destroyed the pacing.

Those are a few pacing issues.

 

[Deleted member 2809]

Expected to see SS first, glad to see TP second. Voted TP. Content is decent but the packaging is just bad.

 

[Discokuningas]

I hate this Skyward Sword hate. One of the best Zelda games. I can't decide which one is the worst. They all have their very different strengths and weaknesses?

 

[Oscillator]

Addressing the bolded/colored: While that in and of itself is fine, several other games have done that and they did it far and away better while having a sense of urgency, purpose, wonder, and presence such as The Witcher 3, Fallout New Vegas and Horizon Zero Dawn. BOTW, by and large, doesn't work on this level for me as by the time it had finally arrived, it was a very static, dull and generic game world full of monotonous Ubisoft checklist design by comparison.

Click to shrink...

Tone/charm could very well be BotW's greatest asset. Those games you mentioned, while great from a pure production values standpoint, all tread familiar ground tonally. Animations, character designs, inventory systems, HUDs, foliage, story beats, dialogue, even music - they may have a "wow" factor, but it's the same kind you find in many AAA blockbusters.

BotW puts its own twist on a huge number of things. Just for example:

Link can hold materials in his hands, then drop them and manipulate them with the elements.
Magnesis can be used to swing metal swords around from a distance.
That jolly horse riding music.
The elaborate (if eventually samey) physics/elemental puzzles in the shrines.
The unique vibes of Zora's Domain and Lurelin Village.
The cartoony wildlife.
The bright, catchy sounds that the weapons make.
Some of the more complex Korok puzzles.
The sense of danger in the early game.
The dense atmospheric lighting.
The sense of exploration and discovery in Hebra's snowdrifts and crevices.

Spoiler: Minor spoilers

The Zora waterbed
The Sand Seals
Ride the Stalhorse
The Horse God

As I once said:

However, in his haste to pull back the curtain and expose BotW's supposedly seedy underbelly, he's missing the key to why so many are blissfully ignorant of it reusing mechanics from other franchises, sometimes in ways that could be construed as sloppy - this time it's ZELDA doing them.

The Zelda feeling is equivalent to what people feel when they watch the best Disney movies. There's an almost subconscious X factor that amplifies whatever topic is currently being handled. It's the primary reason why the Zelda series has such standing in gamedom. When Zelda does something, even if from a purely mechanical standpoint it's not that big of a deal, an edge is added that makes you see it from a completely different angle. This may sound like a fanboy's excuse, but Zelda's reputation for consistently delivering joy didn't come from a cult following, it came from the Zelda team putting just a little bit more effort into game design decisions that other developers see as not significant in the grander scheme of things. You may not have to give that stuff another pass to make a good game, but you'll have to if you want to make a special game.

Click to shrink...

Above all else, the most joy I've gotten out of BotW is just standing in a spot and staring at the horizon. I've done it probably hundreds of times, and each time it just clicks. Here are some from my Miiverse Play Journal (no severe spoilers):

Spoiler

I will admit, straight up, that I found it more enjoyable on the Switch; I made myself a personal goal of doing all 120 shrines before even coming near any dungeon or major village (major village as in the Zora domain, Goron village, Rito village, etc). I started to enjoy the game a touch more, going through what were essentially "high level" areas with only 3 hearts (but upgraded armor)

Click to shrink...

Indeed, that is a more "active" playstyle. I took things as they came, never doing long runs of shrines or quests.

 

[Fritz]

It's Skyward Sword. Which is sad since they obviously tried things with that one. Love the art style and the characters. But ... it has the worst hub and mediocre dungeons plus the motion sensing was plain awful and didn't translate into fun gameplay, imho.

 

[ClivePwned]

I'm go to go against the flow. SS is probably my 2nd least favourite (I didn't finish) but my absolute least favourite is Majora's Mask.
It had some stuff that (at least according to the guide I used when I couldn't progress) that was justbrilliant in terms of its ideas, just really frustrating in its implementation (a trading sequence used to get to a place).

I would play a SS remaster but I haven't touched MM since it came out and its unlikely I'll ever look at again.

 

[paradox85]

My least favorite is Majora's Mask. The reason is simple: I just can't get into games that have some kind of time limit. It always feels like that I can't explore on my own pace and have to hurry everywhere and I'll miss a ton of things. I don't like that feeling.

SS is one of the better Zeldas. :)