Need Some Help with Ranking the Zelda Games...

[Forlong]

I'm going to write an article on the Zelda games ranking them from "most average" (sounds better than "worst") to best. I intend to write it after playing "Skyward Sword" so that I can assess it properly, but I need help with ranking some of the other games. I'm confident on LoZ, LttP, LA, OoT, MM, FS, WW, MC, & TP. I've finished most of those or came very close to finishing them. I'm not as sure about AoL, OoX, FSA, PH, & ST because I haven't come close to finishing them (I haven't even played FSA), and have to depend on word of mouth. I want to be sure that I have considered as much information as I can and have been as objective as possible. Anyway, this is how I rank the games right now:

14: Adventure of Link
13: Four Swords
12: Phantom Hourglass
11: Four Swords Adventure
10: Spirit Tracks
9: Legend of Zelda
8: Minish Cap
7: Oracle of Ages/Oracle of Seasons*
6: Link's Awakening
5: Link to the Past
4: Twilight Princess
3: Ocarina of Time**
2: Majora's Mask**
1: Wind Waker

* Since the Oracle games are so integrally tied, I ranked them together.
** OoT and MM nearly tied, but I already let two games share a rank and couldn't do it again. Consider MM ranked higher by a very small margin.

 

[Wolf Sage]

If you don't mind me asking. By what means do you intend to accomplish this? Would you like that we rate the games based on our opinions, and you average out the scores of each game? Would you prefer that we give commentary...or am I missing something?

I'd be glad to contribute, but I am a bit confused...

 

[Forlong]

If you don't mind me asking. By what means do you intend to accomplish this? Would you like that we rate the games based on our opinions, and you average out the scores of each game? Would you prefer that we give commentary...or am I missing something?

I'd be glad to contribute, but I am a bit confused...

Sorry, I didn't mean to confuse. I rank a game as good based on how broadly enjoyable it is. In other words, I'm saying that I believe that "Wind Waker" is more fun for more people than all the other Zelda games and "Adventure of Link" is predictably the least fun for the majority. So your objective or subjective opinion would be helpful. Commentary isn't necessary at this point. A bit of feedback on why you think what you do would be helpful, but no extensive information.

 

[MW7]

Well I think that overall you did a very good job. I love Majora's Mask (my favorite Zelda) but I think in terms of broad appeal you have overrated it. I would drop it below Link's Awakening. Also I'd put OOT #1 since it is the highest rated game of all time, dropping WW to second. Finally ranking the original game is tough but I think you placed it fairly well by your criteria.

You may also want to drop 4 swords and FSA since some people don't like to count them, and they are near the bottom of your list anyway. One thing you may want to take into account is popular polls like the favorite zelda poll at the top of this forum itself. If you look at it, you may want to reconsider my input on MM though. Keep in mind that it's not a perfect measure because it only takes into account a person's #1 game- so a poll that required people to rank the all the games and gives points based on the rank would be more relevant since you are looking for broad appeal. The problem I've noticed (anecdotal though) with MM is that some people really hate it (usually because of the timing system). A significant portion of people rank it as their favorite zelda, but it might not be consistently liked by everyone.

 

[DeletedUser9]

Not to totally shoot down your idea, but the concept behind your article sounds a little flawed. Judging something objectively is tricky because an objective opinion is still an opinion; people disagree on objective opinions... though it's possible many of such cases are actually cases where some or even all of the people are not being truly objective. Regardless, attempting to come up with some kind of final decision on which games are best and which ones are worst is an impossible venture.

With that in mind, there's basically only two ways you can approach an article like this...

1. You write this purely as your own analysis. In this case you will need to mostly disregard other peoples' opinion except for gathering insight needed in order to make up your own mind, and you will also likely have to wait until you've played all the games you intend to order before writing the article. IMO this is the best way of going about it, and if you intend to see this through I'd very strongly recommend this.

2. You actually survey people and try build your article more like a popularity poll, only with the questions being directed toward objective quality and not personal preference. Three problems here, though. First off, the average person has trouble differentiating their personal preference from analysis of objective quality, and/or might not understand the concept of doing so. Second, people still disagree frequently about what is actually objectively good or bad, including for the aforementioned reason. While theoretically not impossible, organizing something like this is going to be such a mess and would take an extreme amount of effort at the risk of not turning out anything that compelling. The third issue is you'd have to survey a /lot/ of people. A forum thread wouldn't do it. A few forum threads across a couple of sites wouldn't do it. This would be a massive project that I don't think ZD in its entirety really has the resources for.

Clearly #2 isn't a good idea, so if you intend to go ahead with this idea at all, I'd do #1. #1 could make for an interesting article, though you need to realize it would have a lot of opposition from conflicting opinions, although such a thing isn't necessarily bad if you don't mind it... Just don't expect to change anyone's mind.

 

[Fred Flintstone]

I would put FS at the very bottom since it is only playable by linking up so just by that most people are cut out. AoL is good at 13 seeing it was torture to me (the gcn controller didn't help). Although I love MM it would likely go much lower in general opinion. I have not yet gotten to OoA but I hear there is some large changes from OoS. I don't see WW at #1 since people always complain about the sailing which isn't that bad but it adds a lot of time to commute apposed to regular overworlds. It is hard to rank all the rest. OoT at top?

 

[Links Brother]

Well, it's not bad I can tell you that. But the countdown of Zelda games are based on your thoughts, not the public. Therefor as an article it would not do very well, an article is about a Zelda topic that you can give your theories and facts about it. A list of Zelda games is not an article, and these are not what the public thinks. Most people would rank Wind Waker and Twilight Princess much lower and Ocarina of Time as the best, you would also find the 2D games higher than you put it. I would suggest you change a bit if what this thread is about, maybe the thread asks you to say your favorite games? But sadly this is not an article.