My "Top 5", would have to be (in no particular order, so I'll list them as they released)...
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
These are my "Top 5", with A Link to the Past not only being my favorite Zelda game, in the franchise, but also, my favorite video game of all time. If I could narrow my favorite game of all time down to one game, it would easily be that game. Number 2, on the other hand, is a much, much harder decision. But A Link to the Past is easily my favorite game, ever. So I'm greatly, greatly, anticipating A Link Between worlds. As for this 'Top 5', I'd probably put Ocarina of Time and The Wind Waker, in the Top 3, along with A Link to the Past.
That said, I liked the other Zelda games too. But not all of them. The CD-i games go without saying, of course. But i wasn't a big fan of the DS titles either. I never finished Phantom Hourglass, and barely started Spirit Tracks. I just wasn't "feeling" those games. I wanted to, but I just was never compelled to play them. I still want to go back and play them, but with so many new and new games comign out all of the time, it gets harder and harder to go back and play older games. So I'll give them a chance eventually. Just haven't done it yet. And I didn't play all of the Gameboy titles. I liked Four Swords, but I didn't play the Minish Cap for the Oracle games. So I can't list those. I do like the original NES titles tho. The two other big console games, however, I have mixed feelings on.
Since Majora's Mask came out first, I'll mention that first. First off, I hated this game. I did not like it at all. I've played it the most, out of all of the Zelda games, just to give it a chance. I've even beaten it a few times. But I just couldn't get into it. It didn't feel like a real, fully Nintendo licensed, official Zelda game. It just didn't. It felt like a poorly executed, cheap, fan-made, rushed, knock-off, lazy cash-in title. I found this game to be horrible. There were a few cool things that I liked about it tho. I liked the idea of it being a 'darker' story, and of the whole moon doomsday thing, and I liked the idea of the time limit and going back in time to the previous day/s to accomplish thing. Those ideas I liked. But I don't think it was executed very well at all. I get that this was supposed to be a direct sequel to Ocarina of Time, and thus, they reused the same engine, and a lot of the same character models and what not. I get the idea behind that. But that's also what made this feel like a cheap knock-off, as a lot of the same character models just had different colors and names. And some places in the game looked ugly. The dungeons had a horrible layout. And the game just wasn't that fun to play. A lot of the masks were useless, other than to get the final mask. There were only several useful masks. The rest were just "filler" and pointless, or had one obscure use. I felt that they missed a real opportunity with the mask system. How are you going to have a game focused around masks, and then make most of the masks either useless or pointless. They didn't execute that well. In fact, there's a lot of things that this game didn't do well at all. The original save feature was broken. Tho they fixed it in later versions. But I had the original when it first came out. I loved A Link to the Past. It was great. And then Link's Awakening came, and surprised me at how great a Gameboy game can really be. I wasn't expecting anything great from it, but it surprised me with how good it was. And then, Ocarina of Time came out, which was a "masterpiece". I have a story about that, but some other time. As for now, The Zelda franchise was hitting 'high' after 'high' after 'high'. I loved it. So when I heard about Majora's Mask being the next game. I was all pumped and excited about it. But then I played it, and the whole time I played it, all I could think of, every time, was... "what is this crap". I couldn't stand it. I kept giving up on it an turning it off and refusing to play it. But, my love for Zelda told me to give it a chance. So the next time, I'd play it for a little bit longer. But not, I just didn't like it. So I'd turn it off and not even think about touching it for a few weeks. Weeks and weeks go by. I'd play a little here, a little there. Nope, didn't like it. I was severely disappointed. Majora's Mask severely let me down with how terrible it was. It felt like they were just trying to milk the series, at that point, and it was released so soon after Ocarina of Time (the next year, I believe), that it felt like they just rushed out a quick and cheap title to cash in on the Ocarina of Time hype that was still in full effect. Ocarina of Time, again, was a Masterpiece. And Majora's Mask was crap. I couldn't believe that Zelda could take such a nose-dive so fast. I kept forcing myself to play it again, and again, thinking, maybe this time I'll like it. But nope, I just still couldn't get into it. Again, there were some things that I liked about it. But overall, I couldn't bare to play it. Eventually, I beat it, and the ending was alright. But overall, I wasn't happy with the game. I had to put more effort into that game to beat it than it was worth. I like to pretend that Majora's Mask never existed, to be honest.
However, then, we got word that there was a new Zelda game, with "modern" graphics. It looked great. What could I say. I thought, wow, this is going to be great. But then, soon after, they changed it to the cartoony form that is, The Wind Waker. When I first saw the cartoonish look, I wasn't impressed. And then I remembered how Majora's Mask disappointed me, and so I braced myself for being disappointed with The Wind Waker. I stopped paying attention to The Wind Waker, as time was getting closer and closer to it's release. I figured, you know, Zelda had a good run, but they aren't doing the franchise any favors. But then, just because I loved Zelda (the game) so much, I felt that I should at least give the Wind Waker a chance, like I did Majora's Mask. I figured that there's always hope that it could be better than Majora's Mask, at least. Tho, almost anything would be better than that game. However, I went into The Wind Waker with the lowest expectations of a Zelda game ever. Majora's Mask I went into with the highest expectations, and left disappointed. The Wind Waker I went in with as low of an expectation as you can have, and I went through the standard paces at first. Doing all of the mandatory story stuff, before my adventure could start. The sailing seemed a bit long, it helped to make it feel more open. Then, over time, the more and more that I played the game, the more and more that I began to enjoy it. The more and more that I started to get really into it. To the point where I couldn't put it down. By the end of the game, when I finally beat it, I was in love with the game. It was that great. Nintendo had did it. It had brought my passion back to the Zelda franchise, with what is now one of my top 3 favorite Zelda games. I was so happy with The Wind Waker that I immediately started a second playthrough. Immediately. Literally, the moment the credits ended ( as I always sit and watch the end credits to the games that I beat. Always), I just immediately started another game, and played it through to completion. It was just as satisfying. So I like to think that Majora's Mask doesn't exist.
Next was the Twilight Princess game. I have mixed feelings on this one. On one had, it was a good game. Not great, but good. That's because, on the other hand, I wasn't a fan of the "Wolf-Link" parts. Turning into a wolf took me out of the game. I much preferred his humanoid form over the wolf form. I wasn't a fan of the wolf parts. I didn't hate them, I just didn't look forward to them at all. Also, the game mostly felt like a "cookie-cutter" Zelda game. Like they were just trying to "hit all of the notes" when making it. It wasn't a bad game. Just average, with some parts that I didn't look forward to. So it was good, but not great. I thought that it could of been better. Skyward Sword was next, and mixed it up a bit. I did like that. I enjoyed Skyward Sword more than Twilight Princess. In fact, I'm in the minority when I say that I liked Fi better than Midna. With Midna, there were times when I was annoyed with her throughout the game. Not as bad as Navi, as Midna was good at times too. I think the ending is what helped Midna become so popular. I think if she didn't have the ending that she had, she wouldn't of been as popular as she turned out to be. That said, I liked Fi better. I think it was her voice. I liked her voice, and it's calming effect. I got into that. She had a good story too. But yeah, overall, I liked Fi better than Midna, and found Fi to be the least annoying "sidekick/guide" in the franchise.
I thought about getting back into The Wind Waker last year, but I held off as there were a lot of games that I was still trying to beat. But then, immediately after I thought about replaying The Wind Waker, that's when they announced the HD remake. and I was like, wow, I was just thinking about playing that game again. It's a good thing I didn't start it back when I first thought of doing so. I almost did. I have the retail version with the Ganondorf statue on pre-order. So I'm waiting for my copy to finally release. Then, it's just a matter of time before waiting for the official Wii U Zelda HD game. That game is one that I'm waiting for just as much as I am to the A Link Between Worlds 3DS title.
I get the feeling that A Link Between Worlds and whatever the title is to the new Wii U Zelda HD title (whenever that comes out), will both fight to get into my Top 5 list. We'll see what happens. But The Legend of Zelda is my favorite franchise. So I always look forward to their games.
