General Zelda New to Zelda... Tell Me What to Do Next.

[Shadow Blade]

Links awakening and the Oracle games are good solid fun, Twilight Princess is one of my top favorites (I almost love it as much as OoT) it shouldn't be too difficult or too easy for someone relatively new to the series but some parts can be pretty hard if your memory isn't great and you stop playing for a while as some hints and directions in the game aren't repeated but talking to characters will more often than not clarify things, A Link Between Worlds is an awesome game not very difficult but a lot of fun, it does have hero mode which offers a much greater challenge, A Link to The Past is also a really good choice.
The Legend of Zelda, Links Awakening, Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons or all available on the 3DS eshop Zelda II Adventure of Link is also on there but I wouldn't recommend it at this point or possibly ever its kind of the black sheep, for a 2D game I would recomend Links Awakening or A Link to The Past or both as in my opinion their both awesome, A Link Between Worlds could also work as a 2D game but it technically isn't a 2D game, if you seek a true challenge then The Legend of Zelda is probably the way to go, as for a challenging 3D Zelda, Majoras Mask would likely offer a sufficient challenge.

I hope this helps you with choosing your next Zelda experience.

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

A Link To The Past is a really fun game, but what I really recommend is Majora's Mask, you can download it on Virtual Console, it is a sequel to OoT which you are about to finish so I highly suggest it, or play WW HD its a lot of fun.

 

[GreenT]

Sorry I haven't responded to thank everybody for their input. THANKS! It looks like the most popular recommendations are to play Wind Waker HD, Majora's Mask, or A Link to the Past. Since I have WW and ALttP, I'll probably pick one of those. Thanks again for the advice.

This could probably have its own thread, but I'll just ask it here:

I just finished OoT 3D. (Couldn't play for a few days, and only got back to it today.) I went through Ganon's Castle, which was all I had left, saving the game at various points. The problem is, when all is complete, after the credits roll, when I try to return to the save file, it's like none of the final battle stuff happened. I'm returned to the game with nearly everything complete, but I have to fight Ganondorf, escape the collapsing tower with Princess Zelda, and defeat Ganon all over again. It doesn't seem to matter where I do a save game, it keeps returning me to the point just prior to the final battle(s). Is there any way to get it to save later than that? Or is it just not possible to have a later save state?

 

[Shadow Blade]

No you have to restart the fight with Ganondorf/Ganon no matter what you do.

 

[GreenT]

Shadow Blade -- thanks for your reply. I had been hoping to be able to return to various locations within the game to see how Hyrule looked post-Ganondorf. From a story/plot perspective I think that would have made for a nice payoff for some players. Would also give them an opportunity to complete side quests or try to improve their scores in minigames, etc. No big thing for me, since I completed the game 100%.

If anybody cares, I started playing Wind Waker HD a day or two later. I'm doing it without a walkthrough, and so far, so good. I don't have a lot of time to play each day, so my pace is probably a bit slow overall. But I just finished Tower of the Gods, got the Master Sword from Hyrule Castle, and defeated all the enemies in the castle. I haven't been trying to 100% the game, which I'm thinking would be pretty difficult/time consuming to do without a walkthrough. But I have completed some side quests and found enough heart pieces to significantly increase the damage I can take in battles. I did figure out how to get the swift sail, and so I was able to do the withered tree/forest water side quest with a few minutes to spare.

For some reason I was kind of obsessed early on with getting every square in my sea chart filled in by the fish helpers, so spent a bunch of time just sailing from square to square with bait. (The next part contains spoilers... figured I should tag it just in case somebody who hasn't played WW is reading.)

Spoiler

It really frustrated and annoyed me that I couldn't find a fish in that one square (where Tower of the Gods rises), and I probably wasted a half hour or more just sailing in and out of it, looking for an island or fish. After a while it occurred to me that it might be like a treasure chest in a dungeon that is invisible until you complete some task, and then appears. But I didn't like that I was missing that one chart square for so long...

Not sure whether I ought to bring this up, as I'm sure it's not a popular opinion... but so far I'm liking Wind Waker more than I did OoT. I admit that might be because of the two different approaches I took with them... using a walkthrough for a lot of OoT, and not for WW. Or maybe it's because some of the tasks/dungeons in OoT seemed more tedious to complete (Water Temple and... Shadow Temple? The one that requires using the lens of truth for almost everything.) Of course, I haven't gotten through all of WW yet, so maybe the upcoming dungeons will be tedious too... but so far they've been enjoyable.

Maybe after I complete WW I will go back and re-do OoT without the walkthrough, just to see what it's like without crutches.

 

[Shadow Blade]

You can always go back and get things and complete side quests you missed in OoT but because of how the story ends it would be impossible to see what happens to Hyrule after Ganon's defeat do to link being sent back to his time and stoping Ganondorf before he could complete his plans meaning that point in the time line never happened at least not in that time line.

 

[Hunter_Gatherer]

If you are looking to get a game for DS, go Spirit Tracks. It was the game that got me into the series and I've been addicted ever since. A Link Between Worlds is a great 3DS game. It isn't super hard, but it isn't super easy. Plus, you get to pick the order you do the temples. It doesn't have the typical item system since you have to either rent or buy the items. Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword are also good games for the Wii. Skyward Sword is a great game that really has all the elements of a typical Zelda game. Ocarina of Time was definitely a great place for you to start as I have started several of my friends there as well. I hope you can figure out which ones you want and hope you enjoy them as much as everyone else has!