well the game is set in its own universe, let's get that out of the way. there's no way to bind zelda to the real world, even assuming that eventually magic becomes a thing.

now with that said, "past" and "future" are very relative terms, and you shouldn't bind technology with time, especially when discussing something like fiction lore. zelda isn't set in "the future" because someone before the current generation of hylians had more advanced (often erroneously called "futuristic") technology. what we can affirm is that before humans, there was an advanced civilization that was lost to time. that's a very common theme in both fantasy and sci-fi, the idea that before the current dominant race settled, there were others that had developed the technology and then either were driven extinct or just left, leaving ruins of their past as legacy. hell, even the chozo from metroid are like that.

the only differences when comparing this to our world are that 1- when looking at earth, we only see ruins of our own past, and as such the abandoned technology follows a somewhat linear progression; and 2- we haven't really found traces of any civilizations that aren't human in the whole universe, so it's not like we could have found something more advanced than us.

TL;DR: more advanced technology =/= the future.

oh and regarding twilight princess, let me remind you that both that cannon and the city in the sky were not built by human hands, so technically hyrule hasn't achieved that technology yet. still, zelda has a lot of magitech in its lore, spread throughout various games of the series. those laser-beaming eye-towers are not exclusive to skyward sword, and can be found even in buildings built after SS' time, like the tower of the gods in wind waker (which also feature giant robot totally-not-andross, elevators, and robot statues). in other words, it's too hard to judge technology advancement when magic is a factor.

i had a "that's brillant" moment throughout the whole game. the merging ability and the structure alone make up for any lack of challenge :P

and the desert dungeon was tons of fun, and had a really cool boss.

easiest in the series? play phantom hourglass and come back later :P

seriously, i had to force myself to stop playing the game, because i was about to finish it less than a weekend through.

well the way i'd use it, is i'd store all my pokemon in the bank, then restart the game, play it all over again from start to finish, and only then getting those pokemon back.

but i'd much rather be able to start a second file >.>

while they weren't hard, they weren't forgetable either. the dungeons were designed cleverly enough and were mostly aesthetically unique enough to make up for the lack of difficulty. i loved the desert palace, for example. kinda reminded me of golden sun.

yeah, i didn't have much problem with it. it wasn't a breeze, but i never felt stuck either. well, except during the puzzle to get the optional treasure in the dark palace >.>

hero mode is brutal though. made it to the dark world before succumbing to how harsh the damage was (granted, i was playing it because i had nothing else to play on the trip, so when i got back i just dropped it). when i get back to it, i'm probably heading straight for the blue tunic :P

i dunno. i never played it as a kid, then as a teen i tried it and really liked it, but didn't beat it.

then i tried again last year (sadly didn't get to go really far), and while it's fun, its story is definitely not enjoyable because of its quality. it's got that charmingly bad quality to its writing.

just went through the whole thing. i absolutely adored it. the job system reminded me of final fantasy tactics advance (another game i love), the combat system took some getting used to, but after learning the shortcuts to brave and default, and getting some nice class combos going on (swordmaster/knight and red mage/ninja are really fun), it was the most fun i've had with turn based combat in a long, LONG time. and the best part is that if you just want to grind or are in a hurry between places, you can breeze through fights against weaker mobs, so while the combat is deep and strategic, it's flexible enough that you can just steamroll the irrelevant stuff without cololateral damage (radiant historia, i'm looking at you)

my only annoyance was the time gated stuff on that village you can build yourself. thankfully, the demo has an exploit that lets you easily get as many villagers as you need (i stopped at 20), so i managed to build most of the stuff i wanted, enough to give me good gear to fight the dragon boss at the end. i don't think i'll ever streetpass a person that actually has the game, so transferring villagers from the demo is a godsend.

OH and i HATE how a party member won't get exp if it's dead. i just hate when JRPGs do it (and only JRPGs do it). it's like, i'm owning this boss, then he kills one of my characters on his barrage, and because of the turn order, i kill the boss before the character is resurrected. had to redo the minotaur like 3 times before i got all 4 members through, and not because i was having a hard time.

i find it kinda funny that of all 3 current gen systems, the wii u is the only one that seems to remember they should be doing 1080p by now.

i... think that's actually the first time. could be wrong though.