Question about Zelda

I haven't played Zelda since the Nintendo 64, mainly due to that being the last Nintendo product I had purchased. I however decided to buy the Wii U Zelda Wind Waker Hd bundle. Among other games I purchased with the bundle, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword were games I sought out to find.

My question to all Zelda players is does it matter which game I play first or if there is an order in which I should play these three games. Any help and opinions would be greatly appreciated guys! Loving the Wii U!

Honestly, play Wind Waker HD. The motion controls of Twilight Princess/Skyward make them unbearably annoying and cumbersome. In my opinion, they suck. Just not fun to play.

I believe all those 3 Zeldas are totally separate, unconnected entries, too.

It doesn't matter. Most Zelda games have stand-alone stories, but reference other Zelda games. The references are not major. Even the sequels can be played at any order without having difficulties of understanding the plot. The official Zelda timeline was made to please the fans for the 25th anniversary, but the timeline is pretty loose and can occasionally not make any sense. Skyward Sword's plot is considered to be the start of the timeline, but in all honestly you can pick a random Zelda game out of a hat and still enjoy it without following a specific order.

To clarify motion controls:

Twilight Princess' motion controls are not unbearably annoying and cumbersome. It's just a wagglefest and unnecessary, but still easy to play with a flick of our hand. They basically mapped out the button controls to waggling the controller when porting it to the Wii.

Skyward Sword uses more precise motion controls, which has led to some divided opinions. People either loved them and had no problems at all or people hated them and had all the problems in the world. My advice for Skyward Sword: do not waggle and take your time with attacks. Aiming the bow is COMPLETELY different from Twilight Princess. Twilight Princess used the infrared pointer and you have to point the remote to the screen. Skyward Sword uses motion plus and you have to hold the remote up, backside facing the TV, as if you're holding a real bow. Give yourself a bit more room for Skyward Sword.

While there is a time line for all the Zelda's you can play them in any order and probably wont even notice lol. I have played almost every Zelda game. You will be in for a different thing each time. While Windwaker HD is the only HD Zelda right now if you start with that you might find you don't like Skyward Sword or Twilight Princess as much. As for the motion controls, sure it wasn't amazing with Twilight Princess but with Skyward Sword using Wii Motion Plus I LOVED IT. I want to be able to play EVERY main Zelda game from now on with Wii mote and Nun chuck. Just feels better to me. I still want the option of course for using the Gamepad and or whatever the future controllers are, but swinging my arm and swinging the sword was just fun for me.

Wind Waker is the best of those three games, so play it first (or last, depending on how strong you want to finish your run). I'd say Twilight Princess is second, and Skyward Sword is the worst, although it's still a solid enough game. Skyward Sword is supposed to be a kind of "origin story" for the series, but I'd say the plotlines are all stand alone even though there is technically a timeline. The only thing you'll really miss by playing out of order is a reference here and there to other games in the series.

If you've already played OOT, Twilight Princess feels pretty similar to that. I thought Skyward Sword was a much better game with a far more original setting. Wind Waker is in a class of its own, though.

@PurpleMan5000: Skyward Sword felt like a gimped Wind waker, simply because the sky setting had huge potential for "islands" like in WW. But it didn't deliver at all.

Yeah. I really liked everything that took place outside of the sky world, though, and I even kind of liked the sky city. The puzzles, dungeons, and bosses were the best in the series, and that is what the games are really about, imo.

@PurpleMan5000: I'll admit, most of the bosses were great (ESPECIALLY the four armed robot guy whose name eludes me) adn the level designs really are superb. My issue is everything outside that. The overworld didn't feel very significant (the regions didn't hold the same value that other worlds in the series did, like Wind Waker's ocean, or Termina from Majora's Mask) and the tasks inbetween dungeons just felt like filler to the point of nausea. that, and Fi was an insufferable tw@t that was a million times worse than Navi EVER was. Like I said, it's overall a good game, but it's the most obviously flawed 3D Zelda game yet.

True, the overworld was among the worst in the series. It's not like Twilight Princess' was amazing, either, though. It was nearly empty. It also had the annoying sections where you are a wolf and have to collect orbs, and the game was incredibly easy, even by Zelda standards.

Every game in the series is great. I think I would have really liked TP a whole lot more if I hadn't already played OOT. TP just felt too much like the same game remade on a larger scale. I really liked how SS had on overworld, a second overworld (underworld?), and temples. Every other game has just been an overworld and temples. That second layer of environment was full of enemies and puzzles, and to me that was much more fun to play through than just riding your horse around an empty Hyrule field on your way to the next town/temple. Hopefully Nintendo expands upon their ideas with SS and makes the overworld bigger and better. Having a few areas in that second overworld like towns would also be nice.

I'm not a big Zelda expert ( I love the franchise btw), but I don't believe playing Wind Waker will mess up any of the timeline. As a matter of fact, do yourself a favor and play Wind Waker, because It is an awesome toon version of link.

Out of all games you mentioned though, Zelda Wind Waker came before all of them in the stores. (Not talking about chronology here).

@PurpleMan5000: You know Link to the Past had a massive underworld thing right? Don't expect Nintendo to build on SS, which does it in a very iffy manner, when they went away from it for ages :P

Yeah, but that's not quite the same thing. It was more similar to OOT having a future world than the way that SS handles it. The games don't really have to have two separate overworlds, but it would be really nice moving forward if there continue to be large areas outside of temples that are full of puzzles and enemies.

That's not true. I did have all the problems in the world during the first 15-20 hours (that was the learning curve for me before finally getting ALL aspects of the controls working for me), but I still loved the game and the controls once I got it down pat....

I feel like I am completely all alone in thinking the Wind Waker is the worst of the series. I loved the graphics (best in the series), loved the combat system, the dungeons were great, and had an amazing story (again best in the series). But oh god how I hated that damn ocean. I know the HD version introduced the new sail, but back on GC, having to play that damn song everytime you needed to change directions, then you had to come to a complete stop to fire a shot with the cannon, the whole thing just felt very poorly executed to me. The ocean was empty and lifeless. The game also felt incomplete, it was obvious there were dungeons cut from the game. Finally that whole fetch quest at the end, collecting the charts, having them interpreted, finding the triforces. It was such a huge boring chore that for me ruined the game.

I would like to hear some other points of view on this. Why don't these things seem to bother anyone else?

the wind waker is the best Zelda game, TC. Once you've played that one, you have played the best on of them all.

only Four Swords with 4 GBA's comes close.

These 3 Zeldas you mentioned are probably my least favorites. I didn't like: Twilight, Skyward, Spirit tracks, or Phantom hour glass purely because of the horrendous handling and motion controls. They are pretty much unplayable if you ask me. (Controlling link with a stylus? Holy shit). I just couldn't take Wind Waker seriously because of the toon link. Also, the triforce piece hunt was horrendous. What a game breaker.

I'm being a downer here- but those 3 Zeldas you mentioned I just don't think are what you should be playing if you've never played Zelda.

I hated Wind Waker. And Twilight- and Skyward. Wind Waker was annoying, cumbersome, and bloated. The triforce piece hunt? Holy shit, what horrible game design. How tedious. The sailing sucked. The ocean was boring and slow. I'm hating hard right now, but I have hated the past like 5 Zelda entries before Link Between Worlds.

@Shmiity: I feel ya bro. Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword are the three worst console Zelda games. I did very much enjoy A Link Between Worlds although I will say I felt it was the easiest Zelda game. The two DS Zelda games were also pretty bad, but Wind Waker is far and away the one I dislike the most. Hopefully A Link Between Worlds is a turning point that brings Zelda back to its former glory that made me a Zelda fanatic back in the 90s.

I wouldn't say I hate Wind Waker, but most of the things you pointed out definitely hindered my experience with the game, especially the sailing. My biggest gripe with the game was the constant need to stop the boat in order to change the wind. If it wasn't for that, maybe the other annoying parts of the game (Triforce shard/chart hunting or needing to use that leaf (I think) item in order to glide through certain parts of the game) wouldn't have been nearly as tedious than they really were. Also, like you said, the world felt exactly like TP, with being large and empty. There were only, what three decent sized islands with a decent population? The rest of the islands didn't offer much exploration aside from the ones that had dungeons. And even when I first played it at the age of 14, I STILL thought the game felt a little...half done. Missing things because of the limited disc space GC had with its mini discs...

spoiler

I remember when I first returned to Hyrule under the sea. After I returned Hyrule back to normal and realized I could actually LEAVE that temple, I was so damn giddy/excited that I may get a chance to see Hyrule kingdom in all its cel-shaded glory. I can't express how utterly disappointed I was when I found out they created a cut off so you won't venture too far. I was under the impression that Wind Waker may just had a Light World/Dark World theme going with Hyrule and the Sea of Time (I think that's what the big ocean was called.) I think it would have been a great idea. Too bad it wasn't implemented though...

Twilight Princess is the worst Zelda game ever made.

Well ok, Twilight Princess on the Wii is the worst Zelda game ever. On the Gamecube it's one of the worst

They added a dog to make children happy and they made Link goth to appeal to children who want to be teenagers. It's a mess.

Just skip that one.

@PurpleMan5000: That's what I'm saying. It has potential to be amazing. They just need to add more into the sky.

@tocool340: I thought the very same thing when I went down to hyrule under the ocean and it turned out to be another disappointment. Also, I don't hate the game. It did have some highlights, but overall its not what I expect from a Zelda game. Especially after Majoras Mask. That game was awesome. If I had to rate WW on a scale of 1-10, I would probably go with a 6. Still, worst of the series.

Seems legit

that one is classic

@muller39: You are in for a real treat. I would recommend you to play The Wind Waker first, and then go with Twilight Princess. The reason for this is that Skyward Sword improved a lot the motion controls featured in the Wii version of Twilight Princess, so you won't be experiencing a step backwards in gameplay mechanics if you go first with Twilight Princess. That being said, though, I do prefer Twilight Princess over Skyward Sword. As you've been told already, don't worry about the story or the timeline, you won't miss anything.

I thought the wolf aspects was great idea. It was just poorly executed/implemented, just like many things featured in Twilight Princess....

Just play whatever you feel like. There is no real order to play them in (with the exception of a few Zelda games, but you didn't mention them so don't worry about it).

I would suggest Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and then Skyward Sword. However, be prepared for a very slow start to Twilight Princess and a lot of hand holding in Skyward Sword. Both games require several hours of play before they actually let you go to enjoy the games on your own.

Control wise, Twilight Princess is not annoying unless you have an aversion to flicking your wrist more than mashing a button, and Skyward Sword can be an amazing experience unless you lack coordination.

If we're talking about story line, then it does not really matter. Most Zelda games aren't direct sequels to each other. For example, the Wind Waker is not a direct sequel to Ocarina of Time. It may be the Zelda game that takes place after OoT (in that timeline, anyway), but it's not an actual sequel to it.

They're all great games.