ZD Top 5 – Worst Collectathons

“Collectathons,” long quests to collect a large amount of a certain item, run rampant in the Zelda series. Some people hate them; some people love them. But most people agree that not all of these quests are created equal. This week, we asked Zelda Dungeon staffers to rank their Top 5 least favorite collectathons of the entire series.

Which collectathons did you find unbearable? Which did you actually enjoy? What do you think makes for a good collectathon, if such a thing exists? As always, leave your own lists and thoughts in the comments after the jump.

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Jon Lett – www.zeldadungeon.net/wiki/User:Colonel-Majora

5. Power/Courage/Wisdom Gems (Phantom Hourglass)
4. Stray Fairies (Majora’s Mask)
3. Force Gems (Spirit Tracks)
2. Gratitude Crystals (Skyward Sword)
1. Poe Souls (Twilight Princess)

I must say, this is a bit of a tough one, as I really dislike a number of collection quests in the series. Sure, Stray Fairies were a real time-consuming, and Gratitude Crystals were a lot of work for little payout, but MAN, Poe Souls drove me insane. Like Heart Piece collection in every game, there is no indication of where to find individual souls, but unlike Heart Pieces, collecting them all does not give you much of a worthwhile reward. 20 lands you a bottle full of Great Fairy Tears, which is useful, I suppose, but 60 gets you an infinite source of rupees. Great. Thanks for that offer when I’m basically almost done with the game. They were obnoxious to find, they were not worth finding, and I thank the goddesses for the new Poe Lantern coming in Twilight Princess HD.

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Kevin O’Rourke – https://www.zeldadungeon.net/wiki/user:kevin

5. Stray Fairies (Majora’s Mask)
4. Bug Collection (Twilight Princess)
3. Bug Collection (Skyward Sword)
2. Poe Souls (Twilight Princess)
1. Gratitude Crystals (Skyward Sword)

It seems like I’m showing a lot of negativity towards Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess, but the collections in these games were very tedious and not very enjoyable. There wasn’t much fun to collecting the bugs in either game, especially having to wave the Wii remote around in Skyward Sword. Finding Poe Souls takes the cake for me because of the nature of how it was laid out. It was a pain to keep up with your progress and the Poes were scattered around some very strange areas. I found the payoff for these quests unsatisfactory, and the frustration built up over time. I’m hoping that Twilight Princess HD makes the Poe collecting more enjoyable.

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Alexis Anderson – https://www.zeldadungeon.net/wiki/Alexis_Anderson

5. Goddess Cubes (Skyward Sword)
4. Gold Skulltula Tokens (Ocarina of Time)
3. Poe Souls (Twilight Princess)
2. Stray Fairies (Majora’s Mask)
1. Triforce Charts/Shards (The Wind Waker)

Oh, the tedium! I loved The Wind Waker, it was fun exploring the sea and discovering new islands. What wasn’t fun was sailing the seas looking for rupees so that I could pay Tingle to give me Triforce Charts so that I could once again scour the sea but this time look for Triforce Shards. It was an uncharacteristically slow and constricting roadblock in an otherwise exciting game. And I’ve got a bone to pick with Gold Skulltulas, because sometimes you could hear them but not see them, and other times they would stare you right in the face but you didn’t have the right equipment to snatch ‘em up at the time. It was quite painful– so close, yet so far.

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Alasyn Eletha – https://www.zeldadungeon.net/wiki/User:Alasyn_Eletha

5. Stray Fairies (Majora’s Mask)
4. Skulltulas (Ocarina of Time)
3. Nintendo Gallery (The Wind Waker)
2. Big Poes (Ocarina of Time)
1. Poe Souls (Twilight Princess)

Here’s the thing about the Nintendo Gallery: it’s actually my favorite collection to complete in the series. However, I think it has some flaws that make it unnecessarily difficult to complete. For one thing, you have to get the color pictograph instead of just having the standard black-and-white version. Then, you have to get the right angle of your subject or else the sculptor, Carlov, can’t use the picture to create a figurine. Another thing is that some characters or creatures are impossible to capture a picture of and have to be purchased or found in a Tingle Bottle (in the Wii U version). Lastly, and probably the most annoying feature, there is a limit on how many pictures Carlov will accept per day. In the Wii U version it’s 12. If I remember correctly, in the GameCube version it’s only one. I’d choose the Nintendo Gallery as my number-one least favorite collectathon, except that everyone knows how absolutely obnoxious the Poe collections are in both Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess. Nintendo has yet to come up with something more frustrating than those, in my opinion.

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Kira Koneko – https://www.zeldadungeon.net/wiki/User:Kira_Koneko

5. Gold Skulltulas (Ocarina of Time)
4. Stray Fairies (Majora’s Mask)
3. Bug Collection (Skyward Sword)
2. Triforce Charts (The Wind Waker)
1. Poe Souls (Twilight Princess)

It’s funny how I lined up my selection: I worked my way backwards, because instantly what came to mind was how insanely tedious it was to find all of those darn Poe Souls! After that and the Triforce Charts it was really about which collectable gathering annoyed me the least. I am all about the collectable games, no matter how tedious or annoying they might be, but they have to have a meaningful reward of some sort if they are going to border on a game of controller chucking, and the this is definitely why the Poe Soul collecting landed in the number one spot! At least with all the crazy wandering around the sea I had to do in The Wind Waker I was rewarded with another adventure to find all those darned Triforce shards. I truly believe these types of games are created to torture the completionists in all of us!