General Zelda Which Link Faced the Hardest Quest?

[sonseray]

I don't mean which game is the hardest, I mean which one faced the strongest opponents and challenges on his journey.

My list would go:

1. Majoras Mask/Ocarina of Time Link (The Hero of Time): Less because of Ocarina of Time and more because of Majora's Mask, which would warrant this spot alone. Link gets his ocarina back from skull kid in the last minutes before the world ends, and then has to repeat those 3 days over and over to finally stop Majora. Canonically Link has the Deity mask too, which isn't exactly easy for him to get either.

2. Skyward sword Link: Because he had to get all three pieces of the triforce and fight a Demon King who basically fought to a draw with a goddess.

3. Oracles Link: Because he has to save two entire lands from two separate formidable villains before he gets the pleasure of fighting of Ganon.

 

[Seth]

The Oracle Links are also the same Link as ALttP and LA, so that Link saved 3 lands and 'awakened' another so to speak. Four different quests, four different bad guys, he had quite the journey.

 

[Link Floyd]

Definitely OoT and MM Link. He had to save all the sages, Hyrule, and Termina from a falling moon. That's some hardcore challenges right there haha.

 

[Shiek]

Ouch i'd say oracle of the seasons has the hardest into it. Because there are very holy difficult bossfights in that game.

 

[Mask-Salesman]

You can put this in two perspectives; the fysical journey and the emotional journey. Both are different things and would impact Link in different ways. Both are also dangerous in their own ways; collapsing from exhaustion or going insane over mental problems. Which one is worse?

I'd say the hardest fysical journey would be Twilight Princess. First of all, Hyrule has never been bigger. Link has to travel way more than in any Zelda game ever. He also has to survive some of the harshest terrains we have yet seen in a Zelda game. A freezing ice wasteland (in nothing more than his tunic!) or a scorching hot desert. Or what about getting shot into the Sky with a giant cannon? Don't think that will do wonders for your back. The TP bosses are some of the toughest I've seen in Zelda games. Two epic 'final' bosses with Zant and Ganondorf, a giant skeleton, a huge dragon, a enormous seasnake... I mean seriously, the game is only one hour underway and Link already gets knocked out by a dude with a giant bat!

More interesting in my opinion is the emotional journey however. There can be only one Zelda game that takes the title for most emotionally challenging Zelda and that is offcourse Majora's Mask. There are so many reasons why this journey would drive a little boy insane. First of all, you have the weird, trippy looks of it all. Like Link didn't even fall in another dimension but just ate a large portion of magic mushrooms . When he finally wakes up after losing his one and only friend Epona he is instantly turned in one of the things he had to fight all his life; a Deku Scrub. As a tiny little monster he instantly becomes the outcast of Clock Town. When Link first enters the world of Termina after another acquintance with one crazy individual (Happy Mask Salesman) he finally sees the Moon. Seriously, that face even gave me nightmares when I was little, imagine what it would do to Link. How paranoid would you get if you knew you had only 3 days to live and even save the world? And all of that while being a helpless little Deku Scrub. Knowing that everyone you meet and see will simply die in 3 days?

Then Link recovers the Ocarina and gains the ability to travel back in time. He is able to escape the destruction, but what about all the other people? Link travels further through the land of Termina and comes face to face with more suffering than he ever experienced before. A desperate father falling to his own gruesome death, leaving his own son to save him and his people from freezing to death. Or what about a brave guitarist that dies while trying to save the kidnapped, unborn children (WTF?! Nintendo?) from one of his closest friends? And we haven't even talked about the little girl who's father turned into a monster in the midst of one of the most haunting places ever seen in Zelda. Or the creepy dancing guy that can't stop dancing. Or the falsely accused monkey that would be burned alive. And all of this while that creepy moon is constantly coming closer, the clock ticking away untill everyone's final doom.

Seriously guys, there isn't even a discussion. Majora's Mask would drive every normal person insane.

 

[Emma]

Majora's Mask. I'm gonna cheat and say that most of it is described by:

You can put this in two perspectives; the fysical journey and the emotional journey. Both are different things and would impact Link in different ways. Both are also dangerous in their own ways; collapsing from exhaustion or going insane over mental problems. Which one is worse?

I'd say the hardest fysical journey would be Twilight Princess. First of all, Hyrule has never been bigger. Link has to travel way more than in any Zelda game ever. He also has to survive some of the harshest terrains we have yet seen in a Zelda game. A freezing ice wasteland (in nothing more than his tunic!) or a scorching hot desert. Or what about getting shot into the Sky with a giant cannon? Don't think that will do wonders for your back. The TP bosses are some of the toughest I've seen in Zelda games. Two epic 'final' bosses with Zant and Ganondorf, a giant skeleton, a huge dragon, a enormous seasnake... I mean seriously, the game is only one hour underway and Link already gets knocked out by a dude with a giant bat!

More interesting in my opinion is the emotional journey however. There can be only one Zelda game that takes the title for most emotionally challenging Zelda and that is offcourse Majora's Mask. There are so many reasons why this journey would drive a little boy insane. First of all, you have the weird, trippy looks of it all. Like Link didn't even fall in another dimension but just ate a large portion of magic mushrooms . When he finally wakes up after losing his one and only friend Epona he is instantly turned in one of the things he had to fight all his life; a Deku Scrub. As a tiny little monster he instantly becomes the outcast of Clock Town. When Link first enters the world of Termina after another acquintance with one crazy individual (Happy Mask Salesman) he finally sees the Moon. Seriously, that face even gave me nightmares when I was little, imagine what it would do to Link. How paranoid would you get if you knew you had only 3 days to live and even save the world? And all of that while being a helpless little Deku Scrub. Knowing that everyone you meet and see will simply die in 3 days?

Then Link recovers the Ocarina and gains the ability to travel back in time. He is able to escape the destruction, but what about all the other people? Link travels further through the land of Termina and comes face to face with more suffering than he ever experienced before. A desperate father falling to his own gruesome death, leaving his own son to save him and his people from freezing to death. Or what about a brave guitarist that dies while trying to save the kidnapped, unborn children (WTF?! Nintendo?) from one of his closest friends? And we haven't even talked about the little girl who's father turned into a monster in the midst of one of the most haunting places ever seen in Zelda. Or the creepy dancing guy that can't stop dancing. Or the falsely accused monkey that would be burned alive. And all of this while that creepy moon is constantly coming closer, the clock ticking away untill everyone's final doom.

Seriously guys, there isn't even a discussion. Majora's Mask would drive every normal person insane.

In addition, Link is explicitly told Terminia is destined to end. He quite literally invokes divine intervention himself, to save it. He stumbled into that nightmare and he chose to save it himself, rather than it being his destiny. None of the other games have the same emotion to it. His destiny was complete, his actions were his own and he was on his own and there was constant pressure and constant reminders of what failure would mean. It was by far the most intense experience any Link had gone through.

 

[AncientPoe]

This is hands down so easy to call it's not even funny. Original Legend of Zelda Link because he not only faced punishingly potent foes in LoZ, but then he went through the gauntlet that is Zelda II: Adventure of Link. I know OP said that we're not going by game difficulty, but the lengths he had to go through to get there were staggering. Also, you can't find more dangerous enemies, if we're going by what percentage of your total health can be depleted by a single hit. Even OoT's Iron Knuckles don't pack quite the wallop that some of the enemies in those two games did, and you only ever fight a few of them in Ocarina.

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

I'd say OoT/MM link, but I also think Link from AlttP, AlBW, LA, and the oracle games had a pretty tough quest when combining all the stuff he did, so really I'd say its a tie between those incarnations of Link.

 

[Kylo Ken]

Skyward Sword. He had to skydive without proper equipment multiple times, time travel, gather the Triforce, and forge the Master Sword. Now that's a quest.

 

[Farore's Chosen]

The Oracle Link probably wanted to take a nice long vacay after saving two very different lands. Plus he had to deal with thieving lizards and snooty dance snobs. poor guy

Skyward Sword Link-he had to deal with Captain Obvious, Sir Pompador, be the unpaid therapist of Girahim and put up with those stupid Silent Realm trials, as well as a pissy water dragon and an ungrateful (but hilarious) Scrapper.

 

[Mask-Salesman]

be the unpaid therapist of Girahim

Lol, that was pretty gruesome indeed. Poor SS Link