#i'll still replay it but probably replay the og and remake first

[strfe]

finished rebirth & i'll maybe write more about it some other time but for now i'll just say it was ok

[timbrrwolfe]

Just a little mainline Zelda game tier list. Figured I'd make it now for posterity as I intend to (eventually, at some point) play through more of the series, and I wanted to have a record of where stuff stood in my mind before playing. TL;DR I have a bias for both 2D zeldas and newer games in general. Longer explanations under the cut for anybody who wants to read my ramblings

The Oracles games are my favorites, with Ages being one of the first games I ever beat, especially without cheating (though I did use a game guide. Miss those things, honestly. Online walkthroughs just aren't the same). Breath of the Wild does a lot of things right but there are some things that very much annoy me (weapon degradation being the main issue that some of the other issues kind of have their roots in), but overall it's a pretty good time. Ignore that I'm technically about halfway through it and still want to finish it before Tears of the Kingdom comes out even though I don't expect to get that right away (because money). Link to the Past is the only other one I've actually played at length, and despite never finishing it, it was a pretty good time. I don't know if it's a good or bad thing that I played the GBA port. Just not quite as good as the others, though it's been a few years since I played it so maybe I'll replay it before I redo the tier list. TotK does look interesting, and while it still keeps the weapon degradation it's got some stuff to mitigate that (hopefully), so I'm definitely interested in getting it. Link Between Worlds is very much on my radar but that's gonna require me to pick up (ideally) a New 3DS/XL(LL) since my own 3DS XL broke years back and I missed it at the time. Minish Cap has been on my list for a while, and I even played a little bit of it but got distracted and haven't gone back to it. Still, I expect if I give it a proper chance I'll enjoy it, and I intend to do that some point soon. Link to the Past I also wanna get to, though I'm not sure which version I'll do. Maybe I'll get the Switch version and play through the OG first to see how it compares.

Windwaker honestly probably should be in the middle haven't played tier, on further reflection. I haven't played it but honestly I've seen a lot of it played so I don't think it would hold my attention to play through it myself. Also it seems like a refinement of OoT and MM which is both good and bad. Twilight Princess through Spirit Tracks I don't know a ton about but what I've seen of gameplay or heard about them haven't really appealed much to me. The Four Swords Adventures games I basically know nothing about, and Triforce Quest I know even less about.

It's a bit disingenuous to say I haven't played some of the games in the final tier, but I definitely haven't put much time into them. I gave OoT something like 20 minutes years after it's initial release but I think I missed the boat on how stunning it was to have huge 3D environments after years of smaller 2D games. So without that aspect of spectacle the gameplay didn't grab me much in the short time I spent with it. Maybe if I had played it alongside, for instance, Banjo Tooie, I'd feel differently about it (since I enjoy Banjo Tooie a lot despite being similar games outside of the tones and details) Majora's Mask is basically just more of Ocarina of Time, with a more sinister atmosphere. So, similar issues, with the added obstacle for me in that it's a game with a countdown, which give me hives. I've also seen at least parts of these games played so it's not like I have 0 idea what they're like. Having said that I'm not completely closed off to the idea of playing certain versions of the games. (Unofficial PC port of OoT, 3DS remakes of both) Zelda 2 I gave about 10 minutes, had no idea what i was supposed to be doing, and never went back to it. The OG is a similar story. Plus, as I said, I am very biased against older games in general. I don't play games to overcome difficulty (if it's fun I'll push through a challenge until I beat it but a lot of older games are hard without being fun. So.)

Just my personal thoughts on the series. I like certain kinds of things and not other things.