Best Legend of Zelda Games

Nintendo's first 3D Zelda landed on the Nintendo 64 in November 1998 and still carries a 99 on Metacritic, a score no other game has topped there. Z-targeting locked the camera onto an enemy and solved close-quarters 3D combat so cleanly that the wider industry copied it.

A Nintendo Switch launch title on March 3, 2017, it took Game of the Year at The Game Awards and repeated at the DICE and GDC awards. Its Hyrule swapped a fixed dungeon order for 120 shrines and four Divine Beasts, with a physics system players broke in ways nobody scripted.

Sales passed 10 million copies in the first three days after the May 12, 2023 release, the quickest start any Zelda game has managed. Ultrahand and Fuse turned Hyrule into a build-anything sandbox, while the Depths added a second full-size map beneath the surface.

The 1991 Super Famicom entry, released in North America in April 1992, introduced the Master Sword and the Dark World, a parallel Hyrule players flipped between to solve puzzles across two overlaid maps. It also handed Link the spin attack.

Developed quickly on Ocarina of Time's engine and released in 2000, it traps Termina in a three-day loop that resets each time Link plays the Song of Time. Masks turn him into a Deku, Goron, or Zora, and the Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak was required to run it.

Cel-shaded art revealed at Spaceworld 2001 drew a loud fan backlash before the GameCube game reached Japan in December 2002 and the West the following spring. Sailing the Great Sea replaced a walkable overworld, and the 2013 Wii U HD version trimmed the late-game Triforce shard hunt.

Delayed a year so it could launch beside the Wii on November 19, 2006, it saw its GameCube version follow that December, with the Wii build mirrored to make Link right-handed. Grim colors and long stretches as Wolf Link answered complaints about Wind Waker's look head on.

Started as an after-hours side project by Nintendo staff, the 1993 Game Boy game left Hyrule and Princess Zelda behind for Koholint Island and the sleeping Wind Fish. A Switch remake in 2019 rebuilt it in a toy-diorama art style.

Wii MotionPlus was mandatory for its one-to-one sword swings, which enemies block by angle rather than by timing alone. Released in November 2011 for the franchise's 25th anniversary, it sits at the earliest point of the timeline and accounts for the Master Sword's origin.

Set generations after A Link to the Past on a near-identical map of Hyrule, the 2013 Nintendo 3DS sequel lets Link flatten into a painting and slide along walls. Ravio's rental shop hands over nearly every item early, so dungeons open in almost any order.

Puzzle design carries the other half of the 2001 Game Boy Color pair, sending Link across Labrynna's past and present with the Harp of Ages instead of the combat emphasis in Seasons. Linking a completed Seasons file unlocks the extended finale against Ganon.

Capcom's Flagship studio built it alongside Oracle of Ages for a simultaneous 2001 Game Boy Color launch, weighting this half toward combat and the Rod of Seasons that flips Holodrum between the four seasons. Finishing one game yields a password that carries into the other.

Flagship and Capcom developed this Game Boy Advance entry, out in Japan in November 2004 and North America in January 2005, where the talking cap Ezlo shrinks Link to Minish scale. Kinstone fusion with townsfolk opens secrets, and the plot traces the origins of Vaati and the Four Sword.

A direct sequel to The Wind Waker, this 2007 Nintendo DS game routed every input through the stylus, including movement, item use, and notes scribbled onto the sea chart. The timed Temple of the Ocean King, revisited repeatedly, remains its most argued-over structure.

Rail lines across New Hyrule replaced the open ocean in this 2009 Nintendo DS follow-up, with Link driving the Spirit Train between destinations. Princess Zelda travels along as a spirit who possesses Phantom armor, making her a second character the player controls directly.

Four players could join at once on GameCube in 2004, each plugging in a Game Boy Advance by link cable to serve as controller and private screen for caves and indoor rooms. Stage-based levels replaced the connected overworld the series usually builds around.

Three-player cooperative play drives this 2015 Nintendo 3DS entry, where the Links stack into a Totem to reach ledges and hit switches no solo player can. Costumes sewn in Hytopia grant specific abilities, and playing alone means juggling two lifeless Doppel puppets.

Gold NES cartridges reached North America in August 1987, eighteen months after the Famicom Disk System original, carrying battery-backed saving that was uncommon on the console. The overworld imposed no fixed route, and clearing it unlocked a rearranged, harder Second Quest.