Enjoy it! I was super-impressed with the experience of playing it in the same room with friends. It's still a laughably misguided concept, but there's really nothing quite like it in the right environment.

Did you grow up with NES games? I wonder if that's the difference, since anyone that I know who grew up with those titles (like myself) tend to move around game worlds in distinctly non-cinematic fashion.

I know I've harped on it elsewhere around here, but be aware that your experience may vary from others. I went into Link To The Past expecting to really enjoy it, but found it one of my least favorites in the series. And that's not even being willfully iconoclastic or anything - I still think Link's Awakening is…

I actually think its brevity is a virtue - I found that Link To The Past overstayed its welcome. Funny enough, Wind Waker is perhaps the only Zelda game that feels strangely abbreviated to me.

Yeah, good call. I'm lucky that the marathon got started for me back at the tail end of 2014 with Ocarina of Time 3D. There have been a few lengthy gaps between games, but I've had a few going simultaneously at times. I think part of what makes it work is that I've been willing to drop ones that I found entirely…

I think Lost Woods is where I quit my one and only playthrough of the game about a year ago.

I think it might be one of the more approachable titles in the series. I could be wrong, but it seems slightly less vertical than some of the other 3D entries, while not requiring the player to think of geometry in an artificial top-down view like the 2D entries do. It's also beautiful to look at, like some kind of…

I think it's fair, and it seems to be coming out of a school of design that looks at the manner in which players interact with a virtual world as "verbs." You can encounter it on Youtube with stuff like Mark Brown's design videos or the PBS Game Design video here.

Funny enough, I played through Zelda: Minish Cap in 2016 and was really impressed by the Wii U's ability to upscale the visuals for my HDTV screen. It actually looked better than a Wii game on there!

Believe it or not, I've never seen it outside of this very discussion page. Not even on other AVClub discussion pages. I mean, I'm laughably illiterate when it comes to culture, but I have no idea what y'all are talking about, haha.

I'll say that, having played both almost simultaneously in the recent past, Minish Cap is easily my favorite of the two. It's not as revolutionary, but its pixel art is actually more detailed/expressive than LTTP, and the hitboxes aren't designed to utterly wreck the player. It's not easy by any means, but it's fair.…

It's funny how frustrating that aspect is, isn't it? I've been playing through Oracle of Seasons recently, and the visuals/world-building hold up very well, but that swapping items control scheme becomes increasingly maddening as the hours wear on.

I don't know which console you have, but I'd strongly recommend taking a browse through the Zelda back catalog if you have access to it. Up until 2015, I had only played a couple games in the series, but have since then played through virtually all of them. It's gone from being a well-respected institution to being…

That may be the one redeeming feature from Zelda II, aside from the sometimes-compelling swordplay. Having played it recently (after not having played it since I rage-quit after five minutes back when I was 5), it doesn't have a lot going for it, but the sense of scope and the towns give it a little bit more scale…

For the reasons you mention, I do feel like Link to the Past was really the first "classic" Zelda game. The first sets up the franchise, the second is bonkers, and the third is really where it gels. Metroid is pretty similar, and I sometimes feel that Mario Kart wasn't really there until Mario Kart 64. It's heartening…

I'm kind of between the two perspectives. Zelda games tend to offer both rock-solid visuals and gameplay, and while the latter is more valuable, the former can make or break the player's experience; the N64 titles, in particular, are shockingly ugly from a modern perspective and benefit significantly from their 3DS…

I've beaten that game several times over the years, and I had no idea about this!

I had a Genesis rather than an SNES also. The only plus is that folks like us are still playing these games decades later as though they were new. It's funny in retrospect how clearly superior the SNES is, when at the time it felt like they were serious competitors.

You are entirely correct - I meant to write these helper animals, as Epona and the Loftwing are both major components of the games in which they appear.

Playing through Skyward Sword, I've been downright shocked at the repeated implementation of its tools (aside from a few clunkers like the slingshot or whip). I don't think a dungeon has gone by that I haven't used the li'l steampunk beetle or the gust bellows.