Okay, rant time bitches.
Look, I can support most kinds of prejudices you can name, but gaf's Ocarinaphobia sickens me! It's perfectly fine if you're not happy with OoT being the no. 1 Nintendo game. It's also fine if you're not happy with it being even the best Zelda game. But what I find absolutely vexing is the sheer dismissal of all the adulation it gets on the assumption that it's mostly (or even entirely) based on nothing but nostalgia.
I'm certainly not going to deny that nostalgia has played a role in my own judgement of the game. It was the game that actually got me into 3D gaming, and also was the first Zelda I managed to complete. But at the same time, it's also possible to divorce yourself from said nostalgia and critique the game in an objective manner.
As much as I love OoT, I will the first to say it's not without its flaws. The original N64 game had fairly primitive graphics, a hub world that was rather barren and not all too interesting, and compared to more recent Zeldas, probably had stiffer controls. Most, if not all its major issues are primarily due to the hardware it was based on at the time.
But despite the technical limitations, OoT still does many things better than its sequels. The dungeons, the music, story, pacing, a sense of cohesiveness. It's not nostalgia that I was disappointed with the limited dungeons in MM and WW. It's not nostalgia that I can hum dozens of tunes from OoT, while barely recalling any tracks from TP or SS. It's not nostalgia that caused me to become continuously frustrated with MM's 3 day time system, or TP's aggravating initial three hour slog, or SS's obnoxious motion controls. Sure, subsequent Zeldas may be superior in certain areas, but as a whole? No Zelda has come close to wrapping all these traits in a neat little package. Not to mention that OoT's sequels also tend to be drastically different in fundamental ways.
Which is why the criticism from the Majora's Mask side, that it supposedly improves on OoT in every way, is particularly baffling. Even if you think it does certain things better than OoT, the 3 day repeating time system is a very polarizing game mechanic. Not to mention if you prefer more dungeons, less side quests, and a more traditional Zelda experience, then you might not really enjoy Majora's Mask as much. None of this is to say that it's "wrong" to prefer less/more dungeons or a more/lesser traditional Zelda experience, but rather to point out that such differences are concrete, legitimate reasons why someone might prefer one Zelda to another.
Now there are examples of games where the criticism that subsequent games have surpassed them in most (or all) ways is a bit more legitimate. For example, games like the original Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. Both these games are incredibly primitive, and have both been improved upon in nearly every way by games like LttP and SMB3. Controls, music, graphics, level design, enemies, bosses, etc. I can't think of a single specific thing the originals do better.
Such complaints are better suited to these games rather than OoT.
/endrant
)
