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Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess. Which is the greatest Zelda?

Pop quiz. In your opinion, what is the greatest video game ever created? I'll bet most of you said The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Since it's release on the N64, people everywhere looked up to Ocarina of Time as the greatest video game ever, bar none.

For quite some time now it has occupied the #1 spot at Game Rankings.com with an average score of 97.7% An amazing accomplishment with sources such as IGN, Electric Playground, GameSpot, and GamePro all giving it perfect scores.

With Twilight Princess now released for the Wii, many believed it would surpass OoT and take the "best game ever" title. Many reviewers have held true to this saying things like "The greatest Zelda game ever? Yes" (CVG), "Best Zelda ever" (G4's X-Play), and that it "surpasses Ocarina of Time" (The Wiire). While some complained of "tacked-on" Wii controls and dated graphics, as was the case with GameSpot which gave the game 8.8 out of 10.

Currently at Game Rankings, the games are one and two in rank and OoT has a slight edge with 97.7% vs. Twilight Princess' score of 96.4%. So what's happened to what Reggie Fils-Aime called "by far the best Zelda game we’ve ever made." Now don't get me wrong, Twilight Princess is an amazing game but I was expecting an average score of around 98% on Game Rankings with all the hype that's been attributed to it (but then again hype means nothing. Take a look at Red Steel).

First of all, you need to realise that it's impossible to improve on perfection. Meaning, sites that gave OoT a perfect score, can't (logically) give TP something higher, even if they believe it's a better game. However there's always room for someone to lower the score. Whether it's a 9.9 or a 7, you've really got no where to go but down.

IGN's review of OoT ended in a 10/10 score, but they weren't quite as amazed with TP, giving it a 9.5. GamePro game both games a perfect 5/5, while Nintendo Power graded both games evenly with a solid 9.5. However the largest drop off, that has Zelda fanboys in a frenzy comes from GameSpot. It's 8.8/10 rating shocked many people since they expected a repeat of OoT's 10/10 from the site.

All this is open to discussion as it's a matter of personal opinion. You can't fault GameSpot for giving it 8.8 if that's what they felt it deserved. And remember that review scores can reveal a lot, but you could miss some great games by simply looking the scores. Red Steel is a good example since it's been getting scores as high as 8/10 from Nintendo Power and CVG UK, and scores as low as 5.5/10 from GameSpot. I've also heard varying stories from friends where some say it sucks and others say it's great.

So it be a while before we come to a unanimous decision on which 3D Zelda is truly best, but for now it remains Ocarina of Time. And it makes you wonder, all the people who had complaints about the Wii's controls should logically score the GameCube version much higher. This means that once Twilight Princess is released we could see a new leader at Game Rankings.

Excellant read. I enjoyed it. Ocarina of Time (being a classic) is still the best Zelda. I dislike how the Zelda fanboys reacted to Jeff's review at Gamespot. I may be a Zelda fan but I can see where he is coming from. I mean, it is a GCN game at heart, so the visuals aren't up to Wii standards but there is nothing wrong with that.

This Zelda really should have had an orchestrated score, it would have improved the games soundtrack a hell of alot but instead Nintendo has stuck with MIDIs... why? Who knows... but the next Zelda had better not. But the biggest thing is I am hoping that Twilight Princess, while giving Ocarina a run for its money also sets itself apart from it. But from what I read it has temples similar to that of Ocarina, the places of Hyrule sound like that of Ocarina and in fact the game itself sounds alot like Ocarina. Again, there is nothing wrong with this, but I am just expecting something different for Zelda.

Also, I do not like reviews where is scores high "just because its Zelda", thats reason to buy it... not give it high scores.

But anyway, I enjoyed reading that Kindrik.

you should give TP a try before you say that.. Just lke redsteel, i finally had the opportuitiy to finally try redsteel and i loved it... i dont know what all the fuss is about. and i prolly gona buy it now XD

(for the record i played almost all the zelda's except for windwaker since no GC and Loved OoT to death but i uno i think TP is going to give it a run for its money!! i hope.. )

I didn't take zelda out of the box until today (tuesday), and I must say, I never imagined a Zelda game to be that incredible. If that isn't praise, I don't know what is.

Concerning the lack of an orchestrated soundtrack... is it just me, or weren't there MANY reports (from several months ago) that "confirmed" that Twilight Princess would have a fully orchestrated score? I could SWEAR that I read that in a number of articles on IGN and elsewhere... oh well. I think that it's especially lame that they still stuck with a MIDI soundtrack when they had shown promos for Twilight Princess with that beautiful orchestrated Zelda tune. They taunt us. :-P

Absolutely everything else about the game still looks amazing though, I can't wait to get my hands on it!!

i personally like zelda TP better so far for sheer size of the game!

the 8.8 on gamespot seemed to be based mostly on things that are linked to TP being a GC game.
like the lack of orchistrated music and speech and lower res textures.
all these are due to the lack of storage space on GC discs.

i've read all the reviews and most of the points people have against TP are vaild, but it is still the best zelda ever made. but it doesn't re-invent the genre like OOT did.

I'm going to stay up too late playing it again tonight!

I haven't played much of TP and I'm enjoying it, except for one thing: the lack of voice acting.

Usually, I really don't care about voice acting. The only reason it bothers my in TP is because the game has wonderfull animations and incredible facial expressions that you completely miss because you're too busy reading the text. I usually have to end up watching the animations first and then reading the text just so I can see those great expressions.

I never really got to far in Ocarina Hope to play it again to see if I actually really like it but Since I only got to the Second dungeon I cant really say which is better but TP looks great.

I didn't liked the lack of orchestrated music either, but let's face it, would a better soundtrack make the game better? in which way?

Yeah, probably the immersion would be, at the most, Slightly better. But I wouldn't take that as such a drastic thing.

Also, from what I have seen of the game, the only thing I don't like is Link's hair, that's all, everything else looks AMAZING IMO, when the day in which Nintendo makes a Photo-realistic Zelda comes, I will commit suicide.

About Voice acting... I don't know why people are even suggesting this, Link must NEVER talk, NEVER, that's the Link we all know, if they change that then they better change his name or the whole character. And I'm not excited about hearing the NPCs talking, It's a game, I don't need those Americanized VA or Japaneses weird voices. That's not Zelda.

Now that I think about it, I think I remember reading about the orchestra too.

Yes I remember reading about the orchestrated score, hence the disappointment of not being there.

Twilight Princess looks epic, therefore imagine how amazing an epic orchestrated soundtrack would have been? But no, MIDI. Well hopefully the next Zelda doesn't make the same mistake.

Orchestrated scores ftw! FF has learned, why doesn't Zelda?

I am withholding my real opinion until I play TP. But I wont play TP on the Wii persay..... I will buy the GCN version and play it on the GCN... then once i buy my Wii... rent the Wii version and compare it.

Since it is originally a GCN game it might actually be better. Plus it would fit more on GCN. On the Wii its a port and our true Zelda Wii experience won't be for a few years probably.

Mabye The Wii version will have some extras.

Wii version of TP? No it doesn't. Its just a port with a new control scheme (Which isn't a bad thing) but I'm just gonna be hanging out for the true Zelda Wii.

right now OoT is #1 in my book, but prolly cuz i havent played twilight princess yet! god i cant wait to get my hands on a copy of that.

ratatatata! I NEED this game!!!!!

I hate fish. Today I had fish. It sucked.

I may get it today at blockbuster to rent if they have it in stock PLEASE!