Tetra has been a favorite, even with her role being reduced at the latter half of the game. Would have preferred if she had still been an active participant, but it feels to me an ok enough justification for her not to be when it’s come as a shock to her and the king didn’t expect Ganondorf to look for her there. Might have lost focus on the two remaining dungeons with too many other characters involved I guess, and I think the final battle made up for it.
As generic as I found OoT’s story, I think Sheik was a neat aspect of it. Still kinda wished we got some spin-off with her being taught all those skills and doing what she can for Hyrule, but I guess a happy ending wouldn’t necessarily be possible to fit before Link wakes up. Maybe there could be some alternate version of events, or another incarnation of Sheik from another point in time that had their own adventures.
BotW Zelda I really enjoyed, felt like they finally found a fully realized characterization for her that fit well with the overarching themes of the game, even if they sort of took much more needed time from the underdeveloped champions and their future counterparts. TotK…I don’t feel it was done as well, maybe due to their being a better balance, but what I did like about it was that it seemed to show that Zelda really did attempt to restore Hyrule as she said she would, in what ways she could. Things like that you can just find, whether it’s from NPCs or diaries or whatever, I find to be an excellent example of storytelling in an open ended world.