Hated Zelda game

[CyborgElfStephanie]

What is the most hated Zelda game you actually played? No CDI unless you did play those.
For me I hated Triforce Heroes, the story was stupid, the online play sucked, not worth it. I kinda want to burn it now.

 

[Turo602]

Don't think I ever really "hated" a Zelda game, but I certainly didn't care much for Adventure of Link, the Oracle games, Majora's Mask, and Spirit Tracks. The latter 2 being games I'd like to give another shot sometime. But none of these games ever made me feel like the Zelda series was ruined or like they deliberately made an awful game they can't come back from. The overall health of the series has been consistently good, so I don't got much to complain about the way I would other video game franchises.

 

[Bowsette Plus-Ultra]

Skyward Sword and it ain't even close. I don't think any game has damaged my overall perception of a franchise with its quality like Skyward Sword did. Even trying to play it in 2023 on my PC feels like an arduous task. If I could call something like Borderlands 3 aggressively unfunny then I would call Skyward Sword aggressively unfun.

 

[Ashley the Witch]

I've never really hated any game in the series, there are some that I think ranked lower than others, but not by much. All of the games in the series has been consistently good for one reason or another. I may bash on the games I think are my least favorite, but all of them are ranked highly in terms of how much I like them. Though I hate the art style of Skyward Sword, and I'm not good at the combat. Not to mention, I think wireless Bluetooth headsets nowadays got their loud battery low warning every 5 seconds from Fi, and the exploration in Skyward Sword isn't really that great. The only thing that has it going for it in my opinion is side quests. Which there's a lot of in Skyloft. But even then, there's a lot more side quests in Majora's Mask. But the peak of Skyward Sword comes with the easy access for casual gamers who doesn't know anything about Zelda games or gaming in general.
Every game has its flaws and strong suits, but none of the main series Zelda games are bad in my opinion.

 

[thePlinko]

Screw Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Actual garbage that people just pretended was good because it has the word “Zelda” in the title and “innovates” purely by copying things other games had already been doing significantly better for decades at the expense of what made the series so great to begin with.

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

oracle of seasons is the closest one I can say I hate, just a slog of a game to get through with a disappointingly bare bones story

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

I can't say I hate twilight princess because I don't. The middle bit is pretty good, I just always get bored by the third act and can't finish it

 

[TheGreatCthulhu]

I don't hate any Zelda game really, as I've always been a fan of the series.

Hate I feel is a strong word. There are some releases that I think are better than others. I think Spirit Tracks is my least favorite, but I don't hate the game. I think it's still alright, but don't let my opinion dissuade you from enjoying it.

It's all a matter of taste and opinion, and that will differ.

I only truly hate a game if it's fundamentally broken, like delay in inputs, Power Point levels of frame-rate, unflattering graphics, crashes, or no care or hard work was put into making the game great.

So, an idea, Super Mario 64 compared to Bubsy 3D. The former is great, the latter is absolute, ****ing dog****.

 

[Azure Sage]

Twilight Princess is easily the worst game and I probably do still actively hate it. The characters, the dungeons, (especially) the item usage, and story are all bad and poorly executed, moreso than any other game in the series that it's actually weird how poorly they did everything comparatively.

 

[Dizzi]

Botw and tears are my personal hated games.....couldnt finish them properly... they werent zelda!!!

 

[VikzeLink]

Botw and tears are my personal hated games.....couldnt finish them properly... they werent zelda!!!

I don't hate them, I actually think they're great games! But they're not good Zelda-games

 

[Farore's Chosen]

Skyward Sword is the only Zelda game i ever hated and its legitimately bad. It's got an over- reliance on bad controls, the stamina meter, bad pacing, a crummy, fragmented over world, the silent realms, and it treats players like morons.

 

[GZ Zelda]

Hate I feel is a strong word. There are some releases that I think are better than others. I think Spirit Tracks is my least favorite, but I don't hate the game. I think it's still alright, but don't let my opinion dissuade you from enjoying it.

Yeah, I don't like combining "hate" and "art" except when talking about AI.

But I hate Triforce Heroes and Spirit Tracks. A Link Between Worlds and Phantom Hourglass are such masterful followups to their original masterpieces, and then Triforce Heroes and Spirit Tracks add nothing to the world, lore or characters of those games. Maddening.

Botw and tears are my personal hated games.....couldnt finish them properly... they werent zelda!!!

Zelda is combat, puzzles and exploration (power, wisdom, courage). BotW and TotK have these three elements in SPADES, more than almost any game every created; what is this Joseph Anderson-tier argument?

 

[Dizzi]

Zelda is combat, puzzles and exploration (power, wisdom, courage). BotW and TotK have these three elements in SPADES, more than almost any game every created; what is this Joseph Anderson-tier argument?

i played them i didnt feel like i was playting a Zelda Game i was playing an elder scrolls....its my hated Zelda....

 

[Apple34]

Botw and tears are my personal hated games.....couldnt finish them properly... they werent zelda!!!

Zelda is combat, puzzles and exploration (power, wisdom, courage). BotW and TotK have these three elements in SPADES, more than almost any game every created; what is this Joseph Anderson-tier argument?

Well, I agree with both of these, even though they are contradictory. 4 days ago I was thinking about how BotW and TotK were Zelda in name only, trendy blandified limp actiony games with poorly integrated massive scapes that just confuse and rearrange the core game into many parts.

Then I thought about how why I got an N64 instead of a Saturn even though I liked Sonic and Mario, I wanted to play Zelda. I think Zelda originally overthrew the barriers to always having to be alert and react to everything and just get immersed in the world more in A Link to the Past and Ocarina, and that overcame any sharply defined fun reactive arcadey experience other games could make in the 90s. It's also why I played a lot of PS1 RPGs, big interesting things where it just felt open.

Now, I'm a millennial so I didn't play NES Zelda really, my only vague memories are getting as angry as possible at Zelda 1 and watching a neighbor beat it for me and Zelda 2 being just unplayable, but I think many older fans saw A link to the past and the era of kind of "theme park" zelda as contrary to the weird hardcore exploration mode of the original Zeldas.

Miyamoto doesn't really seem to be hands on with any games anymore, but Wikipedia at least says he was involved with TotK and BotW, and it feels like they tried I think not to make a trendy bland big game, but just a modern Zelda 1 game. It's still packed with action, but it's presented in a highly immersive big universe.

It's the same with Breath of Fire vs Dragon's Dogma, I couldn't really stand Dragon's Dogma but now I feel like I get it there's something to just having a really exploration, unsure/unclear method to the game. It's an opportunity to relax and just have things happen, and it scales with the story being more Disney and expansive.

So considering most of Zelda has been a theme park kinda Zelda, Breath of the Wild doesn't really belong, I feel like it was made for like Gen X fans of Zelda 1 who can make sense of it, but as a game it seems it's actually quite an achievement in terms of scale and softening the game to make it appealing to all players. If Nintendo was known for making games more accessible in the 80s, then Zelda in the 90s and 2000s was even more accessible, and BotW and TotK are max accessible, it's the "correct" path so to speak, that's what's been proven to win in the marketplace.

So I guess if I stop thinking in terms of, how video gamey addicting fun is this game like a Mega Man for BotW, and more, is this some kind of enjoyable artistic experience? I think it's really good. Also, Sony games like Final Fantasy and Souls games are even more open ended IMO than BotW or TotK. If there's hope for classic gaming or classic Zelda, it's to actually want a very un-classic comparatively more straightforward action game like BotW to succeed, since Sega and Capcom and the others aren't as much at the forefront anymore.

In no universe do I feel like the classic action elements of BotW (dodging, aiming, the actual puzzles) are actually done very well at all compared to like any modern game, but that's just not the point. There a light very supplementary addition to the main point of getting into the big universe, in which case they are sort of nice to have actually.

So BotW and TotK betray the spirit of Zelda and are a shock to the system, but given a fair judgment in terms of "how badly do I want to play and finish this" they are quite good I guess somehow, only a recent feeling I have.

Well that was all not the topic question, but it was a way for me to actually explain somehow what I think about Zelda as a whole anyway.

So most hated is a strong word, don't really hate any, but I got some distance in Majora's Mask for 3DS and I basically don't get it, I don't hate it, but it's pretty confusing and frustrating in a lot of unsatisfying ways.