Okay, I skipped a few agreements and disagreements that followed this ...

I'd say Wind Waker, as a whole, has more 'potential' than Majora's mask.

The plot strikes a perfect balance between the epic battle of good vs evil, a brilliant adventure and a character piece (not that the moon hitting the planet isnt epic, but Majora's Mask story suceeds BRILLIANTLY due to its characters).... The setting is brilliant as well; a wild, endless ocean, it's bright, vibrant, the feeling when you first get on that boat is brilliant. It's a fun, exciting, bold, fresh adventure, which is just what Zelda should be. For me it's the only game that made Ganondorf actually an interesting villain, every other one he's just 'I WILL CONQUER RAWRRR' whereas here he's already conquered, lost it all, and wants it back. Okay, there's not really any more motivation, but there's a hell of a lot more nuance to it.

Yet, somewhere, it does stumble. Perhaps too long going back and forth on the boat, or not quite enough dungeons, but that epic feeling of adventure does dwindle as you go along. On the other hand Majora's Mask only gets better as you probe deeper into it. It's a smaller game but its bursting with content.

So i'd say MM gets far closer to its full potential than Wind Waker does, but there are moments in Wind Waker that are the best the series has to offer.

That sounds reasonable. I think what makes Wind Waker stumble as one of my favorites is the fact that there are so few dungeons in the first place among a few other things I can't quite put my finger on. The art style admittedly made me apprehensive(like the rest of the internet), but once I saw it in action I thought it was pretty great. The items also didn't feel particularly compelling to me either. I will agree though that the final battle with Ganon was a pretty epic set piece however, and you do sort of sympathize with him on some level. I dunno... The game just doesn't do it for me on the same level as a few other entries.

I'd have to say that I was much more partial to Majora's Mask, Skyward Sword, Twilight Princess, and the GB/GBC entries myself.

On the subject of music however, does anyone else think that several parts of the ending themes in Skyward Sword made it sound like they were gonna play some Link to The Past music, specifically the prologue(starting at 0:40) and staff roll themes? Personally I would have LOVED to hear both of those orchestrated.

Hell, those are two themes that I always curse Zelda concerts for not including...

Huh. I got the impression that damn near nobody cared for Twilight Princess, much less liked it more than WindWaker. I still don't fully understand why it's not more widely approved of.
It was a shame, though, to see TP take a step backwards when it came to the treatment of Ganondorf's character.

Oh, you just made my night. I'll be looking forward to that.

There are actually a lot of people that liked Twilight Princess over Wind Waker. The way I see it personally, it felt like a realization of what they were trying to achieve with Ocarina of Time in terms of gameplay. It just felt more fun to play than Wind Waker. The game's entirety also had a much darker, tragic, and foreboding edge(in contrast with the dissonance, discord, and oddity of Majora's Mask) than Wind Waker which I appreciated, and Hyrule felt huge, whereas the Great Sea(and Skyward Sword's Skyrealm) was all about sailing around an extremely sparse area with a few points of interest extremely spread out from each other.

TP is one of my favorites, in terms of dungeon and boss design. The massive world was fun to explore and the art style was really neat. I still think it has one of the the best final boss sequences out of any Zelda games.

WW and LttP are actually pretty low on my list of top Zelda's. The graphics for WW are beautiful, but the dungeons were lacking and story pretty weak. Plus, showing us old Hyrule and not letting us explore it!? BOO!
Oh. And the triforce shards. UUuuuuuuuugh.

If there was one thing I did enjoy from Twilight Princess, was some of the enemies and dungeons. The story was pretty good, but Zant was such a disappointment to me (his fight was pretty cool though).

As far as 3D Zelda, Wind Waker will probably be my favorite of them all. Despite the overly extended sailing, the game is still enjoyable to me...

Yeesh, didn't wanna come to this thread in case of spoilers (just borrowed Skyward from my brother and I just got to the fourth dungeon,) but if we're weighing in on the various Zelda games, I feel somewhat obligated to chime in. I effing love Zelda. I've beaten all of the games except for Zelda 2 and Spirit Tracks (no, I'm not counting the horrible CD-I games, thanks.) I have the Master Sword and a Hylian Shield hanging up in my bedroom. I have a frickin Triforce tattooed in the middle of my back.

Anyway, I'm REALLY enjoying Skyward Sword. I'm trying to reserve my judgement until I finish it, but I'm already tempted to call it my favorite. Previously that accolade belonged to Twilight Princess. I can really only find one fault with TP, in that the items weren't implemented well outside of dungeons. Other than that, the case could be made that some of the early wolf parts were a little blah, but I enjoyed them. I agree with Malaki when he said that TP felt like the realization of the direction they were heading with Ocarina (another strong candidate for best Zelda.) It's a HUGE Zelda game on every level; content, length, epic feel, emotional impact, etc. I love that game something fierce.

As to Wind Waker, I love that game very much as well. It has many fine qualities, and perhaps the one that I enjoy the most is just how whimsical and charming it can be. It does have one glaring flaw, though; the end game Triforce hunt is pretty damned annoying. It's one thing to be sent on a collectathon. It happens alllll the time in games. But the sheer time and effort required, not to mention the ridiculous timing, really made that one a new breed of lame. That having been said, the end was WELL worth it. SO EPIC.

I saw that you guys were discussing Majora's Mask as well. I feel like MM is the most unjustly forgotten game of the series. I know, everyone loves it and is always talking about how brilliant it is, but it always seems to get swept under the rug when put beside the big, epic Zelda games like TP, Ocarina, or WW. The thing of it is, MM is more of a personal journey, rather than the world-altering quest. This is despite the fact that Link still saves a world. It just feels more personal in MM. Really, it reminds me of Link's Awakening in many ways. Needless to say, it's fantastic, and up there on my list, but yeah, I like the big epic Zeldas more. C'est la vie.

Skyward thus far has felt like the marriage of TP and WW, and that is a potent combination. Throw in the terrific combat (the realization of what we all hoped the Wii could do from the get-go,) and I feel like I'm gonna have a hard time not calling this one the best. We shall see.

Ummm...I wrote a book. Sorry. :sad:



I JUST LOVE ZELDA, DAMN IT!

^Lol. I assume that's hating on me. What's your beef with TP, Bleck?