Daily Debate: Which Zelda Games Are Best Played on Their Original Hardware?
Posted on October 16 2023 by Nick Miller
With an almost forty-year legacy, The Legend of Zelda is no stranger to remakes, remasters, and ports to newer consoles. These allow the older titles to be experienced by a newer audience and help preserve the games so that they aren’t lost to time. Newer doesn’t always mean better though. Many games were made with specific hardware in mind, so they are inherently a better fit for their original consoles. In some cases, a game’s controls may not translate well onto different controller, so doing a direct port can feel clunky. Maybe the original game just has certain charm to it that feels better on the original console. Whatever the reason may be, I want to know which Zelda games you think play better on their original hardware.
There are two Zelda games in particular that are so intrinsically tied to their hardware that I find it hard to play them any other way, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. These games were designed with the Nintendo DS in mind, so much so that they might as well have been expanded tech demos because they use every feature the console has to offer. Almost every action is performed using the touch screen, including combat, sailing, and even walking. Some items require you to use the microphone to blow or yell (my favorite is the flute in Spirit Tracks that you actually have to play by blowing into the mic). You use the touch screen to take notes on your map. One section in Phantom Hourglass requires the player to close the DS’s screen in order to transplant an image from the top screen to the bottom. Needless to say, porting these games over to another console would be unnatural at best because everything about them was designed around the Nintendo DS and its hardware features. We did get ports of these games on the Wii U Virtual Console, and it’s a fine way to experience them if you had no other option, but the whole time you are playing, you are constantly reminded that they were not made for the console you are playing it on, and developers had to really stretch their creativity to fit some features onto the Wii U.
Two other Zelda games I felt were better on their original hardware were The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. The Nintendo 64 controller is such a unique piece of hardware that doing a straight port of almost any game made for that console is going to feel clunky. In the case of these two games, using the c-stick to play the Ocarina in the GameCube ports just doesn’t feel good, and using the Z-button for an item slot took some getting used to as well. The Wii Classic Controller and the Switch’s various controllers (except of the Switch’s N64 controller) all suffer from the same issues. The games may perform well enough on newer consoles but when you change the controller, something is always lost.
I did feel that way until both of the Nintendo 64 titles were remastered for the Nintendo 3DS. Developers remapped the item slots so that they are now assigned to the X- and Y-buttons, as well as on the touch screen, which works great for items like boots that are toggled on and off rather than seeing active use like a Slingshot or Boomerang. Though using buttons to play the Ocarina takes some getting used to, I would still consider these game to be the definitive way to experience Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask because they were able to take everything the original games did and make them feel at home on the new console rather than just porting them with little to no change. However, I understand that some people aren’t fans of the extensive changes Majora’s Mask underwent in the remaster process, so hopefully we can strike up a good conversation about that in the comments.
So, let me know, what Zelda games feel play better on their original hardware? Maybe you didn’t care for Skyward Sword‘s controls on the Switch? Maybe you felt the style of the Link’s Awakening remake was too far a departure from the original’s intent? Are there any games that you feel were improved on newer hardware? Whatever your thoughts are, I want to hear them in the comments.
Nick is a writer for Zelda Dungeon and a longtime fan of the Zelda franchise. In his free time, he enjoys fishing, archery, skateboarding, and some good ol’ fashioned family time. He’s an advocate for physical media and an avid video game collector. His favorite Zelda game is Ocarina of Time, though Breath of the Wild and the Link’s Awakening remake are close contenders. His other favorite video games series include Kingdom Hearts, Fallout, and Ratchet & Clank.
