The Best Legend of Zelda

Drunkalilly wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:

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MGS3 which I always rated low for MGS games

Worst comment in the thread

That's the first, and probably last, time you've ever spoken sense

Read the rest of it OR on what I said about on MGS and TP was 4th in the SONM vote, that it's always going to be high and seems to be the same Number 1 on both forums.

Crumpy Andy wrote:

2 will do, my favourite, but I think, unless there's a massive plot twist and Spirit Tracks comes out on top, I'm happy for it to lose to what it has.

PHourglass all the way, baby.

TP was my fifth - it takes after OoT a bit too much for my liking - but it's still a mighty game. The Double Clawshots alone make it well worth playing; best new Zelda item in ages, in my humble, unsubtle and often wrong opinion.

OrangeRakoon wrote:

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of course the wonderful Midna, who makes having a Zelda advisor fun

Most annoying assistant in the series tbh

Would it be possible to dive into this now? I found Navi more annoying than Midna, myself.

Drunkalilly wrote:

Funniest part though is the tree thing was more emotionally touching than any of those ones.

TP is my favourite Zelda. Also: my favourite videogame.

People talk a lot these days about how games are art, games can make you think, feel, whatever.  All this is true.  However, I feel that games are a mixture of art and science.  The "art" is the story, the characters, the visuals, the music, the lingering memories, even the overall structure of the game.  The "science" is the gameplay: the controls, the battle system, the physics.  

For me, the science is by far the more important of the two.  I can get art from TV, books, music, comics, or traditional in-gallery art.  No other medium has gameplay.

TP may not have the best art out of the Zeldas.  It has the best science by far.


The hub world is the best in a Zelda, with the possible exception of MM - but I never felt I had time to explore that one.  No vast featureless expanse: instead, a vast feature-full expanse.  Even if those features are hills, bridges, cliffs, and rocky tunnels, that's more than the Great Sea or OoT's field ever offered.

The combat is the best in a Zelda, with the exception of SS' Motion+ shenanigans.  OoT and MM's standard combat were rather clumsy.  WW's is beautifully fluid, but revolves around "press A now" and little else.  TP takes the OoT mould and adds the extra moves to it.  Dancing around the opponent to pull the Back Slice on them, or nailing the Mortal Draw, surpass almost anything the other games can manage.

This extends to the horseback combat.  The "vehicle" is the best in a Zelda.  Swordplay immediately supersedes OoT's and MM's, the Loftwing was too separated from the meat of the game to qualify, and the King of Red Lions was a clumsy old bugger.  Even with the Fast Sail, you couldn't swordfight from a boat.

The items are the best in a Zelda.

ZeroJones wrote:

The Double Clawshots alone make it well worth playing; best new Zelda item in ages, in my humble, unsubtle and often wrong opinion.

They would be, but you had the Spinner as well!  TP introduces the two best items in the series and makes great use of them.  The selection is somewhat limited, a possible flaw, but these items were so great that I really think they make up for that.  Then you had the revitalising of the boomerang, and the hilarity of the Ball and Chain.

The dungeons are the best in a Zelda.


Now, a lot of people slag off the "art" side of things.  They're not altogether wrong (incidentally, I do agree with Athrun's post up there - that was a tearjerker ).  The game's ugly.  The soundtrack's MIDI.  The plot's pretty by the numbers.  The characters include Colin.

But.

ZeroJones wrote:

Would it be possible to dive into this now? I found Navi more annoying than Midna, myself.

Also Tatl, Ezlo, Phi.  Only the WW companions come close, but Midna > KoRL and Tetra nonetheless.  I still haven't given up on doing a Gintendo piece on her, so I'll touch on this lightly for now - but apart from O_R, we can all agree that she's great, right?

She's not the only good character though!  I loved the Yetis, Malo was hilarious, Zant was a truly great Zelda villain.  The cut-scene that the snake spirit brought about was one of the greats to me.  I think people forget the good characters in TP and focus on the mediocre ones, like Colin and Ilia.  But Midna outshone them all, ironically.

The game is ugly, I won't deny that.  I still think the soundtrack has some great tunes, despite the limited instrumentation.  It's not what you've got but how you use it. And the plot may be largely by-the-numbers (although when Midna's close to death ), but it builds up very nicely to the climactic final showdown.  It may not be hard - it is epic as balls.


The only thing I think I've omitted is the side-quests.  Obviously TP's weren't all that, for all that they brought back fishing and that was a good thing (if you weren't using motion controls).  But I've always valued a strong main storyline over a plethora of side-quests anyway.  LOOKIN' AT YOU XCX.  

TP was definitely cut from OoT's cloth, there's no doubt about that.  But while it fell behind in art terms, its science was incomparably better, than anything before or since.  I think so many people weigh the art more strongly in this day and age, hence (I'll warrant) why number one is what it is.  Personally, the gameplay does it for me.  

Combine excellent gameplay with a great world and a good art-side, and you have my favourite game ever.

Midna is bae.

Balladeer wrote:

TP is my favourite Zelda.  Also: my favourite videogame.

People talk a lot these days about how games are art, games can make you think, feel, whatever.  All this is true.  However, I feel that games are a mixture of art and science.  The "art" is the story, the characters, the visuals, the music, the lingering memories, even the overall structure of the game.  The "science" is the gameplay: the controls, the battle system, the physics.  

I disagree, fundamentally. Gameplay is part of the artistry and the storytelling and the worldbuilding. It can't be separated. But ho hum.

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I still think the soundtrack has some great tunes, despite the limited instrumentation.  It's not what you've got but how you use it.

Oh, god, I'm saving this to my hard drive for next time you go full Balla on a game with chip tunes

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Combine excellent gameplay with a great world and a good art-side, and you have my favourite game ever.

Like I've said before, I think it's reductive to remove the gameplay from everything around it. The combat in a game is nothing without the sound and visuals, the adventure would be boring if you didn't care, dungeons' puzzles would be less exciting if one weren't exploring gorgeous ruins. That said, I really wish Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess were one and the same game. Roll on Zelda U!

Drunkalilly wrote:

Quote :

I still think the soundtrack has some great tunes, despite the limited instrumentation.  It's not what you've got but how you use it.

Oh, god, I'm saving this to my hard drive for next time you go full Balla on a game with chip tunes

And I'll remember the context!  Instrumentation helps, BUT it's not everything.  Also for me the jump from bleeps to something-resembling-instruments is greater than the one from something-resembling-instruments to instruments, although that's obviously subjective.

That said, I've never hated chiptunes, they just don't have the comfort blanket of instrumentation to fall back on if they're not up there.  Dr. Wily Stage 1/2 is still masterful.  It'd be better if it were played using live orchestra, as would the TP overture, but they're both masterpieces regardless. (Wolf howl aside. )

Balladeer wrote:

"I believe if you vote, you have no right to complain. People like to twist that around – they say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain', but where's the logic in that? If you vote and you elect dishonest, incompetent people into office who screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You caused the problem; you voted them in; you have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote, who in fact did not even leave the house on election day, am in no way responsible for what these people have done and have every right to complain about the mess you created that I had nothing to do with.”  - George Carlin

---

Now with that mentioned I don't think the results of this vote have been all that bad in fact there's been a couple surprises & I've enjoyed reading peoples thoughts.

Oh what utter tripe.  It's about the effort put in.  Unless Mr. Carlin tried to influence results in some other way, e.g. was a revolutionary, the fact that he could have influenced the results, and didn't, makes him more to blame than those who did.  What he's referring to, of course, is if the public vote in e.g. a Labour leader, then complain about what the Labour leader is doing - not only is that rubbish in itself, unless the Conservative leader would definitely have done otherwise, it doesn't apply to this situation.  If OoT got voted to 1 because Athrun voted for it that'd be exactly what Athrun wanted, Navi's not going suddenly hike up the forum tax or something.  Mr. Carlin can stick his pretentious lazy quips up his pretentious lazy backside.

(EDIT: Apparently Mr. Carlin was a stand-up, so that was probably a joke and quite funny with the right delivery.  Ah well, I do enjoy a good mini-rant now a then!)


I actually pretty much agree with the order too, and have also enjoyed reading people's thoughts even if I haven't always agreed with them. It's another great GNamer voting thread, isn't it? And I think it's fair to say that the comments make them great as much as anything else.

You should vote, but there have been several elections where I've put Mickey Mouse. I'd rather express my displeasure at the choices than vote for the lesser of two evils.

...all of which is irrelevant to this discussion, where Balla was right to tell Athers to put up or shut up!

Well I just pressed back and lost my long well argued reply

...fuck

It's okay O_R, you can answer with "NO U" if you like, I reckon I've done my piece on TP and anyone who disagrees is going to disagree.  If you're going to go into detail on any one area, though, I'd be interested to know why you object to Midna so much.

I think the lesson here is that no-one really knows anything... except for what's going to number one. Which is, of course... everyone in unison join in with the opening line...
"Gee! It sure is boring around here!"
"Mah boi - Peace is what all true warriors strive for"

...Jimbob, we've already discussed this.



(That's referring to Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, in case that's not clear. Not Wind Waker, from which the .gif was actually taken.)

(Cripes Balladeer, why not just rase the joke to the ground and napalm the area where it was?)

masofdas wrote:

Read the rest of it OR on what I said about on MGS

Yeah I know I was just being facetious

Balladeer wrote:

The hub world is the best in a Zelda, with the possible exception of MM - but I never felt I had time to explore that one. No vast featureless expanse: instead, a vast feature-full expanse. Even if those features are hills, bridges, cliffs, and rocky tunnels, that's more than the Great Sea or OoT's field ever offered.

I still disagree completely, TP's overworld is featureless and empty. The overworld is so much bigger than OoT but it doesn't increase the amount of side content or locations to find and explore to match this. Instead a lot of the space is empty and just serves to increase the distance between points of interest. It also lacks the metroidvania style overworld design of having areas you need to return to after obtaining future items - while these do exist, they are underutilised. WW plays a really effective trick in having an ocean overworld - the world is massive and expansive, giving a great feeling of a vast adventure and exploration, but all of the actual content is condensed into small, well-designed and feature-packed islands. WW also has a ton more side content in general compared to TP. Where WW rewards you for exploring its vast world, TP's is only really used as part of the story. Most other Zelda overworlds compare favourably to TP too. OoT and MM feel a lot less empty because they are a lot smaller. They don't /need/ to be any bigger while still providing the overworld that is necessary to give a feeling of an expansive world. SS takes a different approach by changing the nature of the overworld entirely, with overworld areas that are designed and play out as extensions of the dungeons themselves. In LTTP, ALBW and the oracle games the already content-full overworlds are enhanced significantly by having multiple layers/versions coming from the games' gimmicks. Seasons especially has probably one of the best overworlds in the series thanks to how different the world becomes in each of the four seasons, and how that all ties into the game.

TP doesn't have the worst overworld in the series (I would probably give that award to Spirit Tracks) but it's far from the best. Unless you really like collecting bugs, for some reason.

Balladeer wrote:

The combat is the best in a Zelda, with the exception of SS' Motion+ shenanigans. OoT and MM's standard combat were rather clumsy. WW's is beautifully fluid, but revolves around "press A now" and little else. TP takes the OoT mould and adds the extra moves to it. Dancing around the opponent to pull the Back Slice on them, or nailing the Mortal Draw, surpass almost anything the other games can manage.

The combat in TP is definitely one of the better things about the game and some of the best in 3D Zelda, although I do prefer SS's motion controls. The best combat in the series award though has to go to Four Swords Adventures - you just can't beat that multiplayer battle mode.

Balladeer wrote:

This extends to the horseback combat. The "vehicle" is the best in a Zelda. Swordplay immediately supersedes OoT's and MM's, the Loftwing was too separated from the meat of the game to qualify, and the King of Red Lions was a clumsy old bugger. Even with the Fast Sail, you couldn't swordfight from a boat.

Horseback combat is definitely the highlight of TP and something I hope comes back and is expanded upon in Zelda U!

Balladeer wrote:

The items are the best in a Zelda.

ZeroJones wrote:

The Double Clawshots alone make it well worth playing; best new Zelda item in ages, in my humble, unsubtle and often wrong opinion.

They would be, but you had the Spinner as well! TP introduces the two best items in the series and makes great use of them. The selection is somewhat limited, a possible flaw, but these items were so great that I really think they make up for that. Then you had the revitalising of the boomerang, and the hilarity of the Ball and Chain.

Minish Cap and SS say hello.

Most of the items in TP are the standard Zelda fare and pretty unnoteworthy, with the exception of the double clawshot and the spinner. The problem is that the items are heavily underutilised outside of the dungeons in which they appear. The spinner especially suffers because of this - it's one of the most unique and fun items in the entire series, but outside of the dungeon you get it in it is almost useless. I can only think of one place in the overworld the spinner is used and it is right outside the dungeon. It's such a waste of potential and really lets the game down.

Balladeer wrote:

The dungeons are the best in a Zelda.

/Some/ of the dungeons in TP are /some/ of the best in the series, but it's not something any one game can lay claim to. Most Zeldas have their good and bad in dungeon design and if I was picking my favourites they'd come from many places. I honestly think ALBW might lay the best claim to having the best overall collection of dungeons.

Balladeer wrote:

ZeroJones wrote:

Would it be possible to dive into this now? I found Navi more annoying than Midna, myself.

Also Tatl, Ezlo, Phi. Only the WW companions come close, but Midna > KoRL and Tetra nonetheless. I still haven't given up on doing a Gintendo piece on her, so I'll touch on this lightly for now - but apart from O_R, we can all agree that she's great, right?

Midna's design is rubbish and looks like an original character belonging on deviant art, her personality is incredibly condesending and annoying, I didn't care about her at all throughout the plot, and the fact that she transforms into a beatiful woman is laughable 8^)

When Navi lingered for a brief moment before leaving the Deku Tree she created more of a character and emotional connection than Midna ever did throughout the entire game.

Balladeer wrote:

She's not the only good character though! I loved the Yetis, Malo was hilarious, Zant was a truly great Zelda villain. The cut-scene that the snake spirit brought about was one of the greats to me. I think people forget the good characters in TP and focus on the mediocre ones, like Colin and Ilia. But Midna outshone them all, ironically.

Zant is a very unique villain, but he was surpassed by Ghirahim in SS. The best Zelda villain award though goes to Vaati for being by far the most well developed and justified villain in the series.

Balladeer wrote:

The game is ugly, I won't deny that. I still think the soundtrack has some great tunes, despite the limited instrumentation. It's not what you've got but how you use it. And the plot may be largely by-the-numbers (although when Midna's close to death ), but it builds up very nicely to the climactic final showdown. It may not be hard - it is epic as balls.

When OoT ended with a battle through Ganon's castle to reach Ganondorf, an escape from the castle then collapsing, and then a battle in the collapsed ruins against Ganon, a fight in a field just felt a little... underwhelming. I think OoT, MM, WW and SS all have more interesting final boss fights than TP.

Balladeer wrote:

The only thing I think I've omitted is the side-quests. Obviously TP's weren't all that, for all that they brought back fishing and that was a good thing (if you weren't using motion controls). But I've always valued a strong main storyline over a plethora of side-quests anyway. LOOKIN' AT YOU XCX.

The lack of side quests in TP is one of the standout failings of the game for me not because I think they are necessary in a Zelda game (I love SS after all) but because the game's whole world design was crying out for them. It comes back to the overworld being made larger but not having an equal amount of side content to match.

...NO U

Seriously though, good work on taking the time to retype your arguments, of which there are many; but I seriously doubt we're going to convince each other and I've said all I have to say already.  

I did read your bit about Midna, and we disagree so fundamentally about that one point that it strengthens my resolve to leave this where it is.

@ Balla - Aye it was indeed a joke, your image reminded me of it that's all but even though I vote myself I still see a lot of truth in what Carlin said but of course the full context helps here.

Just a small thing - I reckon that the point of a debate is to improve your understanding of the opposition position. If you're going into one to persuade people to your point of view, you are going to be disappointed a lot of the time.

Number 1: Dark Souls

PS3, Xbox 360, Steam
90 points, 9 firsts
Everyone on GNamer's favourite game, of course this was the winner! Everyone loves Dark Souls, it's all we talk about on here.

You said:

I say:

They said:

Well, this has been fun guys! See y'all at the next vote.

A worthy winner indeed, Bloodborne was obviously robbed though.

...APRIL FOOL!

It is still April, right?

Wind Waker was my fourth place.  Like its fellow Gamecube Zelda, I felt it was an example of the art/science divide, this time going the other way.  Beautiful game, great music, epic scale, decent set of characters and plot device - however the combat was often simplistic ("Press A to win"), after the initial swell of adventure the sailing soon got dull (until you get the Fast Sail in the remake), and there were only five proper dungeons, with a gaping obvious hole where another should be.  Nonetheless, I'm happy to see it win - I gave it an 8/10 when I finished WWHD, but that's probably one point too harsh in retrospect.  It really was a beautiful thing.

Plus: pigs.  Gaming needs more pigs.

Also my honourable mentions were to the Okami games (brilliant offerings, Zelda-like but obviously not qualifying for proper votes); Skyward Sword's bloody amazing motion controls which I will defend to the Game Over; Midna (natch); and the inevitably brilliant and wonderful Zelda U, which I hope will unite games scientists and artists under a banner of harmony through being big (and filling that big-ness with things to do) and beautiful.

Finally, that is a good point that Zero made there, although I think I fell at the first hurdle with O_R's Midna paragraph!  However I have read and understood the rest of his points.

Right, I'm done here.

Crumpy Andy wrote:

A worthy winner indeed, Bloodborne was obviously robbed though.

Most sensible thing Andy has ever said, Bloodborne should have won this vote easily.

Drunkalilly wrote:

...all of which is irrelevant to this discussion, where Balla was right to tell Athers to put up or shut up!

Can't put up when the vote's over now

Besides things in the public domain are fare game, I have freedom of speech thanks to our societies core values and I shall abuse use it!  

Balla wrote:

Plus: pigs.  Gaming needs more pigs.

Bloodborne has the best pigs.  

Three things.

1. Dark Souls III winning the vote, good punchline.

2. ISS 98 is the best game that's been mentioned in this thread until now.

3. Jaster saying that Bloodborne has the best pigs when Hogs of War has been out for over fifteen years should result in a six hundred year ban from the forum.