Ranking Every 3D Zelda Game

3D Zelda Ranking time.
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:50 Number 7
2:47 Number 6
4:26 Number 5
5:51 Number 4
7:54 Number 3
9:18 Number 2
10:51 Number 1!
Music Used:
Main Theme - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild
Lurelin Village - The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom
Title Theme - The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask
The Great Sea - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Midna's Lament - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Title Screen - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Boarding Divine Beast Vah Ruta - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild
Opening Theme - The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Knight's Academy Theme - The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Title - The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom
Zora's Domain (Day) - The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom
Hyrule Field - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Zelda's Lullaby - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
I'll give Majoras Mask another chance one day...

[@dogelove9967]

majora's mask at last place is an extremely hot take

[@user-gr1gn7mq2s]

This is one of the most interesting zelda rankings I've ever seen, seeing wind waker and majora's mask so low was strange but i enjoyed your reasonings and the video was very well made, keep it up!

[@instant65]

Amazing video, I haven't played oot yet but it's starting to sneak it's way onto my birthday list

[@RealHud]

It is completely worth playing. It's probably my favorite game of all time

[@Lxcxs18]

YESSS SKYWARD SWORD AT 3 WWW

[@wcmpgaming2363]

As someone who has twilight princess at #1 I can confirm this list is pretty good and appreciated. I find myself not enjoying wind waker as much as other people, and skyward sword is my #2 so I'm grateful people exist that like it too. I don't agree fully with the list but I'm glad your opinion exists!

[@DonaldGaron]

It's funny. MM is probably my favorite 3D Zelda, but it's your least favorite haha. I think WW is the least good 3D Zelda even though it has some strong qualities (so we agree on that one). And I think TP is probably a bit better than SS, but I agree SS is underrated. I think that, other than the flaws you mentioned, SS can be slow at times and that is one of the main reasons why people don't like it as much. TP is similar in that way, but maybe not as slow. TP and SS are very similar in the end though.

[@calvinbrinenestoris2357]

"I set out on a quest to beat every Zelda game afterwards, and now that quest has ended along with Skyward Sword and every other 3d Zelda" The 2d games would like to have a nice friendly chat with you. They're just carrying around that blood-drenched sword for safekeeping. I suggest you run, they are a ruthless killer.

[@RealHud]

Not much to worry about. The 2D games won't have many people rallying behind them

[@calvinbrinenestoris2357]

@@RealHud idk man, Vaati's a dangerous guy.

[@xeronamikaze]

You get a subscribe just for appreciating how good skyward sword truly is, big w

[@ViewtifulBeau]

I like that we agree on Majora's Mask 💪 Great video. Interesting takes.

[@CameronWangrud]

You deserve a lot more subscribers for your opinions and editing 10/10

[@ViewtifulBeau]

A'ight i gotta take a hit in defense of Wind Waker here. 🙏 I LOVE the story. Link isn't a chosen one, he's perfectly happy just living his life on Outset Island until he's thrust into the hero role by outside circumstances and even then, it's only to rescue his sister. Not too dissimilar to the Hero of Twilight actually. Then once his sister is saved you can see all the devastation and evil Ganondorf has wrought upon the land, you can't just go back to normal, not while this guy is a threat. You don't want what happened at Greatfish Isle happening to anyone or anywhere else. You gotta become the hero you know you are and take him down. For the time, exploring the Great Sea was AMAZING. Has aged poorly now. The music. Different strokes i suppose. Definitely a goldmine if you ask me. My only issue is there isn't more of it. Dungeons. Other than the Forsaken Fortress, for me, all bangers. Not Twilight Princess level but definitely on par with Skyward Sword. And Grandma's Soup bro. So much raw POWER.

[@ShadowWizard224]

Wind Waker is amazing and it has one of the best stories and arguably the most interesting version of Ganondorf and one of the best companions. If it wasn’t cut short due to time constraints it would probably be #1.

[@Dodgerbuilds-js3wu]

great ranking! i agree with your majora's mask opinion

[@Deeznuts-fc5oy]

It's got no flaws whatsoever - except for the water temple 💀

[@tarnw3301]

BoTW might be interesting for the exploration, but, it's boring exploration that leads nowhere. I remember TP, riding on Epona, just chilling around and bam, you find a place where you can use a temple item and get a Heart Piece, or maybe you find a glowing insect or a poe. Or just find enemies that would change the music theme. I loved when that happened. WW also had that sense of exploration, the unknown and how you found islands and figured out they would be important in the future (and they were). Majora's Mask world was interesting, but it truly shined with the diverse cast and the sense of wonder. If you used a guide and defeated the game with all the masks, you simply won't get that moment at the end credits where you only see the masks floating in the dark void, tempting you to find them and unlocking the whole ending. OoT is a masterpiece, beautiful world, an intricate lore, a powerful story and a variety of theme that intermingle with the story in such ways that they can't be taken aside. Just, a masterpiece.

[@AFUZZYPANDA]

Personally I'd have MM ranked higher and the wild games ranked lower, especially TotK, but happy to see SS getting respect.

[@davidcalado744]

wind waker on 6th? Underrated ngl

[@menoseloso119]

MM and WW have the most insufferable stans

[@Droobie03]

Ocarina of Time is my most favorite game in the series. I wish Tears of the Kingdom didn't mess with the story although it probably didn't.

[@jaswanthvardireddy2243]

No offense but the take on majora’s mask main quest is straight diabolical. The issue with it stems from the fact that you seem to only be pointing out the “boring” parts of it while completely ignoring everything else it does right. The temples all range from good to probably the best in 3d Zelda (stone tower temple). The “padding” you seem to have an issue with in the Zora eggs are actually an interesting way to incentivize exploration in a meaningful way. Rescuing the eggs from the trench was a super cool section and doesn’t even last very long, so if everything in between the dungeons and the introduction to the location count as “padding” to you, that’s just blatant ignorance. On top of that, the moment to moment gameplay for the main quest is extremely well paced to the point where the atmosphere shines a lot, especially in ikana valley where stuff like using the song of healing to get the gibdo masks goes to show the true despair around the area, with how the father was literally turned into an undead mummy. If you’re gonna call stuff like this as “padding” and “terrible”, you might as well call games like twilight princess and skyward sword some of the worst games ever made for the tears of light fetch quests and the horrible lead up to the city in the sky which literally requires like 5 different consecutive fetch quests and a mediocre hidden village that is hardly fleshed out after the stealth section. For skyward sword, all I need to point out is the 3 reused imprisoned fights and the tadpole fetch quest. Nothing in majora’s mask is this blatantly obnoxious or long. Also complimenting the game for its side quests and then complaining about the lack of dungeons is really contradictory. It’s like complaining that a horror game doesn’t have good romance, when that’s not even the focus of the game. Besides none of the dungeons are bad and all of them have complexity on the level of most OOT dungeons, and even woodfall is more complex than literally any twilight princess dungeon besides lakebed.

[@RealHud]

The problem I have with the Zora's Egg quest is the backtracking to the Pirate's Fortress, which can only be avoided if you find 4 hidden bottles by that point in the game. There is very little "exploration" in the Pirate's Fortress. All of the mini-boss encounters are copied and pasted and most of the rooms are identical. To me it just feels like a worse version of the Gerudo Fortress quest from Ocarina of Time. When it comes to the good parts of the main quest, they do exist, but I didn't enjoy most of it. Ikana Castle was amazing, so was Stone Tower Temple and Great Bay Temple. But I strongly disliked the entire quest in Snowhead, most of the main quest in the swamp, the Great Bay Zora Egg quest, and the bottom of the well "Mini-dungeon". I never felt passionate to go through the main quest like I did for many other Zelda games, and I only pushed myself through most of it because I wanted to have a fair opinion on the game after beating it. Majoras Mask does have highs, and they are very high highs, but I honestly didn't mention most of them because I was trying to keep the MM segment short enough, and it already felt too long for the video. When it comes to Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, I think "Worst games ever made" is a big stretch, but I did heavily criticize the things you mentioned. I made a review talking about Twilight Princess half a year ago, and I explicitly criticized the Tears of Light quests and the lead up to the City in The Sky and how they made the game drag for too long. The title of the video was something like "Twilight Princess: Great, but too long" because I found the padding to be a big detriment to the game. I also completely agree that Skyward Sword has some padding, especially with the Imprisoned boss fights. But the padding in Majoras Mask frustrated me far more, for whatever reason. Artistically I probably prefer Skyward Sword to a game like Ocarina of Time, but it's the lack of padding that made me love OoT the most out of any game in the series. As for the side quests, the game doesn't need a lack of dungeons to have good side quests, it isn't an either-or. Really it comes down to preference, because dungeons are my favorite thing about the Zelda series, and I was disappointed by Majoras Mask in terms of dungeons. I strongly disliked the first 2 dungeons in Majora's Mask, so we just disagree when it comes to those. It's completely possible that I didn't enjoy Majoras Mask as much because it was the first traditional Zelda I played, and a lot of the ideas were more foreign and confusing to me at the time. I'll probably replay it sometime this year and give it another chance to see if I enjoy it more, but I just didn't enjoy most of the game while I played it, which is why I put it at the bottom.

[@jaswanthvardireddy2243]

@@RealHud that’s understandable, I think playing this game first was probably the biggest reason why it was a turnoff at times. I had to drop it and then pick it back up after playing OOT to really understand what I was getting myself into since some of the stuff felt way too vague for me but that was kind of because I didn’t play any of the previous games. I definitely think MM is probably the game that best benefits from replaying the game, since you’ll know when you need something before hitting an annoying roadblock, such as the 4 Zora egg bottles. I personally didn’t mind it much because I found the fortress fun despite the reused “bosses” since the puzzles were kind of engaging and some of the sequences such as shooting an arrow through a vent to disturb a beehive was really charming, it also had some of the best music in the game which helped a lot lol. I feel like this game’s pacing is far more flexible compared to OOT but in general the pacing of OOT Is more stable in comparison, even though I do think a lot of things were improved upon in this MM such as the horse racing which has actual obstacles this time around. I think the positives outweighed so much of the annoyances for me (which was like 90% of the game) that I didn’t really get put off by the padding at times since I atleast felt immersed into weird fever dream nature of the world despite things not fitting very great sometimes, like the well section where you have to give a bunch of items to the gibdos is annoying in theory but I found it very enjoyable because the atmosphere of the whole sequence was really peculiar and most of the items could be found in the well alone, minus the blue potion, bomb, and the green beans. I’d say the game goes in an upward trajectory of quality which helped a lot, Wood fall section: like an 8/10 Mountain: 8.5 Great bay: 9 Ikana: id give this area a 10. The masks were enjoyable to get and it had the most amount of “mini dungeon”/minigame sort of areas which were fun all throughout the game. The only thing I don’t really agree with is snowpeak being bad. I found it really enjoyable especially the boss which was probably the best in the whole game lol, but I think it does come down to preference since I did find the dungeon very annoying on my first playthrough especially with how easily it was to fall all the way back down by messing up the goron roll.

[@jaswanthvardireddy2243]

@@RealHud I also think the fact that majora’s masks’s annoyance last far shorter, atleast from my experience, helped a lot in not really hurting the experience. When you have another imprisoned fight right before probably the best section in the game, it really REALLY hurts the experience because of how sharp the cut in pacing is. The good thing about MM is that it never really reuses concepts in its sequences before dungeons/mini dungeons, and it’s good parts balance out the annoying parts well enough for me to not get offput (zora swimming, atmosphere, music specifically)

[@ShadowWizard224]

Lakebed stays underrated 💯

[@SpenceMcloser]

I haven't felt more angry about a ranking in my life, which means sadly it's a good list. (Majora's Mask being lowest is a crime tho)

[@CameronWangrud]

I’m about to go to number 3 and I think it’s gonna go: Oot, skyward sword, and totk

[@yazeldafan]

Nice perspective for someone who only played all recently. My problem with Tears is that it was iterating on a concept that wasn't as interesting to me in 2024. Shrines in 2017 was a fine concept. In 2024 was a pain in the ass for me, especially after hundreds BOTW hours and multiple replays. Dungeons got a theme but mechanically they were a downgrade over BOTW. We got unique boss fights but BOTW skill based boss clicked more with me. The overworld activities felt more something to waste my time than something memorable. In the end TOTK was the weakest 3D for me entry for me with a big gap to BOTW.

[@ShadowWizard224]

Tears of the Kingdom borrows so much from Breath of the Wild which is why I can’t put it ahead of it despite its superior gameplay and combat mechanics. Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword have the best dungeons and soundtracks. Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, and Wind Waker have the best stories.

[@Losh-uk3bf]

LoZ has bounced back and forth between servicing their existing fan base and taking back creative freedoms to blow away the world at large on gameplay. OoT was the greatest game ever and birthed a generation of life long fans. MM was to offer that base something (anything) and being so rushed and weird it resonated a lot with the people who really attached themselves to that world. But it was too weird and unpolished for those that didn’t grow up to have triforce tattoos. WW was an attempt to switch it all up again but simultaneously failed to grab an outside audience and pissed off the fanbase before the nostalgia set in for it among fans. TP was an overcorrection to win back their dying fanbase and by god I will die on the hill that it worked as it’s my favourite title. SS finally offered a great origin story and the whole 25th anniversary thing and timeline offered closure to a quarter century of speculation and theories. Unfortunately faster than you can read Hyrule Historia nintendo said “Lol jk we don’t care about that” and I think that’s where a lot of the hate to SS stems from. The following few years were full of feelings of betrayal. Also, motion controls. BoTW was the first success since OoT to reach praise outside the existing fanbase but for the love of god I can hardly call it a Zelda game. ToTK I believe is in that same ealry state as WW when everybody hated it - it will never be the best but a fondness will grow over time once we get a break from exploring the same hyrule for a decade. But that’s where the Zeldaverse is. It was created by a fanbase of people who are actively being ignored and left in the past as the teams move forward with the Open Air era and a whole new fanbase waaaayyy bigger than the previous one. I don’t think there was a single bad take here. I appreciate the viewpoint. Helped me stop shaking my fist at the sky for 12 minutes.

[@jaredekelman4229]

I Love Each 3D Zelda Game Except Majora's Mask. Not Because it's a Bad Zelda Game But Because it's Not My Type of Zelda Game. But Even in Majora's Mask I See and Acknowledge Alot of Great Things, the Music, the Masks, Great Side Quests, Etc.The Other 3D Zelda Games are Just More My Type of Zelda Games. I Also Don't Care for Every 2D Zelda Ether. I Like The Original NES Zelda and A Link to the Past, A Link Between Worlds, Link's Awakening and I Only Kind of Like The Minish Cap. But that's it.

[@gpt6]

I like your opinion

[@benjthewhite]

Love all 3d Zelda games but ranking for me goes: 7. Wind Waker 6 Twilight Princess 5. Majoras Mask 4. Breath of the Wild 3. Skyward Sword 2. Ocarina of Time 1. Tears of the Kingdom

[@notchristianhodges8123]

I would rank BotW and TotK a bit lower. To me, a good Zelda game has good dungeons, and these two games have the worst dungeons in the series. I hate the "find four terminals locked behind very easy, completely disconnected puzzles" formula that all the dungeons follow. Sure they have some of the best exploration in the series, but I also like when some of the exploration is locked behind dungeon items so you can gradually explore more and more when you unlock bombs or a hookshot.

[@robertgamer3112]

My list could vary a lot depending on the my mood, right now I would say 7 Tears of the Kingdom 6 Wind Waker 5 Skyward Sword 4 Breath of the Wild 3 Majora's Mask 2 Twilight Princess 1 Ocarina of Time

[@drinkswatere]

What makes you put botw so far above totk? As someone who hasn’t played totk yet everyone just says it’s a better botw which is why I’m waiting to play as I’m a bit bored of the botw formula.

[@robertgamer3112]

@@drinkswatere I am not a fan of the BotW formula, but I still enjoyed my first playthrough of BotW because it was a new kind of experience for me. Once the novelty wore off, I began to notice a lot of issues I have with BotW, but I still want to credit it for being fun the first time through. TotK is a rehash of BotW so it has all the same issues, but without the novelty factor to save it. They made some changes to the overworld, but I did not find it very engaging to revisit the same overworld. It just doesn't feel that adventurous to go back to a location I already know even if there are some updates. There are 2 new areas, but they were both underdeveloped and less important than I thought they would be. If you are bored of the BotW formula then I would not recommend TotK unless you find the Ultrahand ability very appealing.

[@brandyjohnson9272]

I had to FORCE myself to finish TOTK, and that game had a lower playtime for me then almost any other game I've completed, only 30 hours, because I played it a bunch when I still had hype. Then I learned it was like someone make a bunch of bad mario maker levels but in 3d and called it zelda.

[@pbgamer115]

Do not agree with majoras mask it’s S tier Zelda game, top 3

[@santi27o]

Top 1 mind u

[@kylehickey8656]

Weird list but I respect it, I definitely would have botw higher however I agree that Majoras has a lot more issues than people let on.

[@emorybalding6053]

I feel like in the 2000s Majora's Mask had almost no respect online but Ocarina has always been beloved. I think the love of Ocarina caused a lot of people to take an interest in Majoras and the sudden rush of people talking about it inflated its praise a little more than it deserves. It went from being not talked about much at all to being praised by just about everyone. I love Ocarina but find Majoras tedious.

[@dellstrike]

Here’s the right order: 1. OOT 2/3. WW or TP (idc which order) 4. MM 5. SS 6/7. BOTW or TOTK. TOTK is better alone, but because it’s so similar to BOTW, it doesn’t have that same discovery factor BOTW had. Either way both are horrible Zelda games.

[@ViewtifulBeau]

I can admit Wolf Link is not fun for me. I like the Twilight Realm but Link turning into a wolf is definitely a wth idea. I DO like tears of light and being able to understand animals it's just the wolf combat... idk. But for me, about as perfect of a Zelda game as you can get.

[@ShadowWizard224]

Brilliant idea but terrible execution 🐺

[@kevisaur9889]

69th like. Nice 👌

[@Jasonandkimberly]

‘Skyward sword is better than BotW’. Wow. Ok. I’m out.

[@ShadowWizard224]

It’s actually not that bad of a take. I do prefer Breath of the Wild because of its superior gameplay but Skyward Sword has better dungeons, music, characters, and story.

[@hatxa9742]

@@ShadowWizard224so basically botw might be the better video game but skyward sword is the better zelda game

[@ShadowWizard224]

@@hatxa9742 Yes you could look at it that way

[@RealHud]

It all comes down to whether or not you like the traditional formula enough to love a game like Skyward Sword. I do.

[@Jasonandkimberly]

Ocarina of Time was my favorite game for decades. I HATE Skyward Sword. Absolutely sucks