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Worst 3D Zelda game?

  • Ocarina of Time

    Votes: 82 3.2%
  • Majora's Mask

    Votes: 160 6.2%
  • Wind Waker

    Votes: 205 8.0%
  • Twilight Princess

    Votes: 427 16.7%
  • Skyward Sword

    Votes: 1,260 49.1%
  • Breath of the Wild

    Votes: 219 8.5%
  • Can't decide

    Votes: 211 8.2%

  • Total voters
    2,564

Deleted member 47843

User Requested Account Closure
Banned
Sep 16, 2018
2,501
Not worse in a sense of it being bad as I still enjoyed it a lot, but BOTW is my least favorite.

I mainly love the series for dungeons and it's lacking on that front and exploring open worlds and messing around in sandboxes does little for me.
 

Shiranui93

One Winged Slayer
Member
Mar 7, 2018
429
BotW for me. I prefer the classic Zelda formula, not a fan of open world games at all.
 

Deleted member 3208

Oct 25, 2017
11,934
Worst game overall is Skyward Sword. Even when it was released, it was a bad game.

Ignoring Skyward Sword, it is a tie between Windwaker and Ocarina of Time. I mean, they are awesome games, but Ocarina feels so bland compared to the recent entries and Windwaker, while beautiful, is a chore to play because of the Great Ocean and the Tingle quest.
 

Puggles

Sometimes, it's not a fart
Member
Nov 3, 2017
2,861
Skyward Sword. All I remember is 10 hours of tutorial until I stopped playing.
 

Deleted member 864

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
17,544
Probably Skyward Sword out of the 3D Zelda's.

My least favorite in the entire series (out of the ones that I've played from start to finish) is Phantom Hourglass.
 

Firebrand

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,714
Haven't played SS, so toss-up between OoT and MM. *dodges flying rocks* Gonna say MM because I could never be bothered to finish it. Maybe I'll give it a fair shake the next time it gets remastered.

I'm a bit torn about WW. Like, parts of it are really, really good and I felt the complaints about the sailing were overblown (pun intended). But there's a substantial amount of copypaste in its overworld, and it was really disappointing how small and insignficant most islands were. They really missed the opportunity to complete it with the remaster (plus they totally killed the clean look of it with all that bloom).

I probably enjoyed TP more than OoT on the first playthrough, but OoT's pacing is definitely better for re-playing it, even with all that Kokiri crap at the start.
 

Big G

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,605
It's The Wind Waker for me, easily. It has very little going for it outside of its visual style and music. The dungeons and overworld are among the worst in the series, and the game design overall was significantly dumbed-down compared to the N64 games it followed; "style-over-substance". I've never been more disappointed by a video game.

1. Ocarina of Time
2. Majora's Mask
3. Breath of the Wild
4. Twilight Princess
5. Skyward Sword
6. The Wind Waker
 

Arthoneceron

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,024
Minas Gerais, Brazil
When I think about Skyward Sword, I think in "Old Nintendo fighting against the New Nintendo" in a game which has flaws overall, but it has a cute atmosphere and a fantastic soundtrack.

Sadly, the thing that I said above could be ignored if the controls weren't awful. Then, that's my choice.
 

Unknownlight

One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 2, 2017
10,566
I was really worried that Era would have terrible opinions again and Skyward Sword and BotW would be tied or something.

Thankfully, no. People with unpopular opinions tend to post more often about those opinions, but poll results show the truth.
 

Aniki

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,794
For me it's Twillight Princess. When i played it the first time i got bored of it pretty quickly and just stopped my playthrough. But i never had any ill feelings about it. But after giving it another try i can definitely say it's my least favorite Zelda game by far.

One of the main positives fans of the game always put forward are the dungeons. Many think it has the best dungeons in the series, i don't agree. I didn't have a good time with most of them and thought they were nothing special. The only dungeon that i thought had a cool mechanic was the Arbiters Grounds dungeon, but only the last 20% of the dungeon when you obtain the spinner.

I really liked Midna and Zelda in this game. Midna is certainly in the running for being my favorite sidekick character. Overall i thought TP was just trying too much to be like Ocarina without ever achieving its quality.
 

VZ_Blade

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
1,338
None of them are bad per say, but out of the Zelda games, it's Twilight Princess. Way too derivative of OOT, boring art style.
 

SweetVermouth

Banned
Mar 5, 2018
4,272
Wind Waker is proof that a rushed game can be better than a game that was in development for way too long.

I'm glad Skyward Sword leads this poll.
 

Deleted member 36578

Dec 21, 2017
26,561
A bad Zelda is still a good game. (No cdi though, those don't count!)

I voted skyward.
 

Kirksplosion

Member
Aug 21, 2018
2,465
Skyward Sword. I actually quite liked the Wiimote combat, but didn't love the quest design or some of the level designs. Still good, just definitely my least favorite.

Wind Waker is the best (I still haven't played Breath of the Wild...yeah...)
 

Deleted member 56580

User requested account closure
Banned
May 8, 2019
1,881
Breath of the Wild closely followed by Twilight Princess. Could never bring myself to finish the later due to how boring it was
 

GarudaSmiles

Member
Dec 14, 2018
2,552
I don't hate any of them, but Skyward Sword is my least favorite. It doesn't help that I had to constantly recalibrate my wiimote. Second worst is Twilight Princess. The 2 with the most story padding. I like my Zelda's to have tons of side content and Dungeons, not fetch quests.
 

Captain of Outer Space

Come Sale Away With Me
Member
Oct 28, 2017
11,328
Twilight Princess, easily. It proved that the series needed major changes that took over ten years to happen when Breath of the Wild came out. Poor design, boring story, and it was underwhelming coming off of Wind Waker.
 

Wes D. Mess

Avenger
Aug 11, 2018
1,553
Chicago
Was between TP and SS but voted TP.

Skyward Sword was ok, and I didnt even have much of an issue with the controls (tho I'm still not much of a fan)...but it had some really bad moments that almost ruined the game for me (frrakin tadpoles, the reoccuring antagonist who is just crappy joker).

But I voted Twilight Princess cuz its the only time in a Zelda game where I reached the final part of the game and had to force myself to finish it due to how immensely bored I was by everything.
 

criteriondog

I like the chili style
Member
Oct 26, 2017
11,108
Wind Waker. Beautiful art style, but man, it just feels rushed and isn't that fun to play compared to the other 3D games. Had some cool mechanics though.
I don't get the immense hate for Skyward Sword over some of the awkward motion controls.
If the tutorial was reworked and the motion controls were reworked or less everywhere (highly doubt they'd be completely removed), I think people's perception on Skyward Sword would be different.
 

eXistor

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,290
The poll is gonna be predictably lopsided, but for me both Twilight Princess and Wind Waker are worse than Skyward Sword. Twilight Princess has a dreadful artstyle and barren overworld, the dungeons are great, but that's about it. It doesn't even have proper towns. Wind Waker is better, but it has too few dungeons and a few of them are pretty weak. The world feel copy/pasted in a lot of areas too and it lacks challenge. Skyward Sword may not be perfect, but it had a great central town, fantastic soundtrack, great dungeons, great NPC's, great controls. Just about everything about it was better than Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. My main issues are the linearity of the overworld; it needed to be interconnected. The skyworld is barren and feels like an afterthought and Fi is a terrible sidekick.

/edit: It's Twilight Princess btw.
 

L176

Member
Jan 10, 2019
772
Can't decide between Skyward Sword and Majora's mask. Not fond of the empty overworld, sword mechanics and multiple Demise battles in Skyward Sword. Still, I've never gotten past the first dungeon in MM. The time mechanic is simply horrible. Stresses the fuck out of me.

SS at least has the great dungeons, quirky characters and a strong story as high points.
 

Deleted member 8860

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
6,525
Voted "Can't Decide".

TP had enjoyable dungeons, WW had great style. Every other 3D Zelda game has been awful for me (and even those two weren't great).

Give me OG TLoZ, LttP, LA, or ALBW any day of the week. Even AoL, MC, 4SA, or the Oracle games, honestly.
 

Scrooge

Member
Oct 25, 2017
633
It's a tough battle between Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. Incredibly boring games.
 

Deleted member 8593

User requested account closure
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Oct 26, 2017
27,176
Easily Wind Waker and it's not even close. The people that voted for BotW instead of Wind Waker which actually has an empty world and sorry excuses for dungeons must be absolute jokers.
 

Glass Arrows

Member
Jan 10, 2019
1,414
Skyward Sword is the worst.

Ocarina of Time can come across as a bit basic nowadays, but it's still a solid game and probably has the meatiest and most broadly satisfying campaign and content, with a good amount of varied dungeons. It's still fun to play even now.

Majora's Mask is a bold, creative game with probably the strongest storytelling and setting of any Zelda, with a strong central theme and mechanic that complement one another. It has a short amount of dungeons and some underwhelming boss fights, but that's about all I can think of in terms of big downsides, the time limit thing is mostly down to personal taste IMO.

Wind Waker is a game that seems to have been rushed and originally had some rather tedious/annoying gameplay elements, notably the triforce shards quest that really bogged down the pace of the game. Nevertheless, it had a charm and energy to it, complemented by its strong visuals and music, that made people much more forgiving of these downsides.

None of the three aforementioned games are in contention for the worst, so it has to be between Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword.

A few years ago, I probably would have said it was TP. It's not a HORRIBLE game by any means; it has its flaws, but overall it's competently made....which is the problem, it's competent but not a whole lot more than that. It just feels kinda "there" and lacks the creative energy and uniqueness of the previous games.

Skyward Sword at least, tries to do something different in a multitude of ways. When I first played it, it stuck out more to me than TP did for sure.

The thing is, looking back on it, I feel that SS and TP are kind of lacking in really big high points, but ultimately SS has bigger and more aggravating flaws that weigh it down. It has worse bosses, a worse overworld, worse enemy variety, it has a worse helper character, the list goes on. SS has a better story but I wouldn't say that story is good enough to be a reason to play the game.

What it comes down to, it's much easier for me to revisit TP and have a fun time than SS, so that's why I think it's the worst between the two. I have never considered it a bad game, but it's just lacking.

Breath of the Wild I have only played for a few hours and as such don't have an informed opinion about it.

Also, maybe it's been too long since I played any of the games in question, but while I can get complaining about Wind Waker or TP's overworld, Skyward Sword's is easily worse than either. It's one of the worst parts of the game.
 

greekappi

Member
Oct 26, 2017
380
Can't decide between Skyward Sword and Majora's mask. Not fond of the empty overworld, sword mechanics and multiple Demise battles in Skyward Sword. Still, I've never gotten past the first dungeon in MM. The time mechanic is simply horrible. Stresses the fuck out of me.

SS at least has the great dungeons, quirky characters and a strong story as high points.
My god so true for me as well. I never could get my 13 year old self to get through in on N64, I was too frazzled! I started it on 3DS with the remake a couple years ago and it is better but I never made it too much further than I did back as a kid. Maybe I should give it another go.
 

Slushimi

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,549
Something I want to bring up is that it's insane that Nintendo can maintain this quality throughout the games, that there isn't really a bad to even mediocre game on that list. All the games are amazing with one being slightly worse than the other.
 

Karateka

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,940
Voted windwaker i thought it had bad dungeon design and an annoying fetch quest
I barely even consider botw a zelda game
 

Unknownlight

One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 2, 2017
10,566
I don't get the immense hate for Skyward Sword over some of the awkward motion controls.
If the tutorial was reworked and the motion controls were reworked or less everywhere (highly doubt they'd be completely removed), I think people's perception on Skyward Sword would be different.

I dunno about that. I liked the motion controls in Skyward Sword, it was the rest of the game that I couldn't stand.

The memory from that game that sticks with me the most was navigating my way to the next location marker on the minimap while trying to ignore the incessant loud beeping because Fi wanted me to douse first so that I would know what direction to go—the direction I was already walking.
 

iksenpets

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,490
Dallas, TX
I think even the worst of them is good, but it's hard for me to choose between Twilight and Skyward. Twilight is perfectly competent in everything it does, but a bit bland. Skyward I think has a lot of character, but tries a lot of things is really fails at.
 

Glass Arrows

Member
Jan 10, 2019
1,414
I dunno about that. I liked the motion controls in Skyward Sword, it was the rest of the game that I couldn't stand.
I don't hate Skyward Sword but I agree. The complaints about the controls are, IMO, way overblown. They were perfectly functional for me like 95% of the time. There were only a few instances I recall being actively annoyed at them. When I think of SS's problems the controls don't even register.