Ok, clickbait title. I’m going to play every top down Zelda game in a random order.

Some commentary:

Top down - first of all, excluding 3D games massively reduces the scope of this challenge, and I’ve always been more of a 2D/top down Zelda fan. Secondly, phrasing it as “top down” rather than “2D” is some slight of hand which lets me justify including some things I want (DS/3DS titles) and excluding some I don’t (Zelda 2, cdi games).

Random order - based on experience this makes things more fun. I won’t have to start with Zelda 1 which is likely to be one of my least favourite titles, and I get some monkey brain gacha fun between each game.

Completion - I’m going to go for 100% but I may bail if I feel I’ve hit a point of extreme diminishing returns on content. I’m thinking of the Oracle games which have some pretty extreme hoops to jump through for a full 100% completion, but there may be other things that come up.

Prior art - this is in many ways the latest iteration of my GBA and DS challenges. I finished the GBA challenge and I should probably admit to myself that the DS challenge won’t ever be finished. The main learnings here are keeping the scope somewhat sensible and the average quality of the games much higher. Should lead to more fun, unless I get burnt out on 2D Zelda.

Versions - if it needs to be said, Ages and Seasons are separate games with separate entries. I’ll pick a version of Link’s Awakening and Link to the Past to play, probably LADX on GBC and the SNES version but I reserve the right to change my mind.

Multiplayer - I’m planning to exclude the multiplayer only games but I might go back on that and do them anyway if I can organise it/find a victim or victims to play with. I think I could play some of them solo but I just don’t think it will be that much fun.

Spin-offs - I thought about including the Tingle games and Cadence of Hyrule under the umbrella of this challenge, but I decided not to in the interests of keeping the scope somewhat sane and not having to work out if I’ll play the second Tingle game in Japanese.

Without further ado, here is the full game list:

  • The Legend of Zelda
  • A Link to the Past
  • Link’s Awakening
  • Oracle of Seasons
  • Oracle of Ages
  • The Minish Cap
  • Phantom Hourglass
  • Spirit Tracks
  • A Link Between Worlds

The end result of this should be a series of fairly involved blog post reviews of each game in the series. Watch this space. And finally the first game to be played is:

First Roll

A Link Between Worlds

Time to dust off the 3DS.