5 Legend Of Zelda Games That Have Aged Like Milk

Very few franchises in gaming have the staying power of The Legend of Zelda. Nintendo delivers time after time with each new entry in the beloved series. One could argue it's the best formula in all of gaming, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been done wrong before. No game in the franchise is totally worthless. There are still things to love about the weakest entries, but Nintendo’s relentless creativity means some experiments go over better than others.

The games at the bottom of this mixed bag are simply bogged down with one or two unconventional features that squander a bit of that greatness we’ve all come to expect. That's also what makes ranking the series so difficult. Nintendo rarely misses because of a lack of ambition. Zelda is known for pushing the envelope. However, an overreliance on innovation has bitten the series multiple times before.

5 Phantom Hourglass

The dawn of touchscreen controls in gaming must have been irresistible for Nintendo. Phantom Hourglass is entirely centered around the gimmick of using a stylus to move Link throughout the adventure. On the surface, it was a fun, new way to enhance the puzzle-platforming parts of Zelda after the jump to a new generation of handheld technology. Unfortunately, it also kneecaps the entire experience.

Link walked wherever you tapped. Attacks needed quick flicks of the stylus, and puzzle-solving revolved around drawing routes for items like the boomerang. Every few seconds, you were dragging the stylus across the screen instead of simply holding a direction on a D-pad or analog stick. What was once fresh and innovative now feels like trying to play a game on one of those newfangled restaurant tablets. It’s a headache and distracts from everything good about the game.

There’s still charm to be found in the story, world, and inventiveness, but the DS-era stylus controls aren’t enticing at all in 2026. With the advent of Nintendo Switch Online and the preservation of other old Zelda titles, the opportunity is there to bring Phantom Hourglass to a new console and give it a second chance. As it stands, there's not much reason to double back and revisit this era of Zelda's handheld history.

4 Spirit Tracks

Zelda’s DS era continued with Spirit Tracks, and all the same complaints apply here. Link controlling a train added some novelty to the stylus-centric movements, but there’s not enough meat on the bone to justify a second game in the spirit of the first. Everything about Spirit Tracks feels like a Phantom Hourglass redux. That wasn’t a bad thing in 2009, but it’s way less flattering today.

Spirit Tracks gets a little love for taking a much bigger swing at embracing the technology of the time. The train sequences are incredibly unique. Still, they wear out their welcome well before you reach the final station. All of Link's options feel so limited thanks to the reliance on pre-established train tracks. Avoiding enemy trains also quickly became a repetitive mess.

More than anything, the endless repositioning of the stylus interrupted the flow of the game every time without fail. It left the entire thing feeling a little undercooked all these years later. The on-foot gameplay also suffers from all the trappings of Phantom Hourglass. Overall, it falls way short of Windwaker's legacy, despite being the closeout entry of the trilogy. In a way, it's perfect that a game about being on rails feels entirely too closed-in compared to its predecessor, which is all about the open seas.

To the game's credit, it’s still one of the best the DS had to offer—but it’s forgettable in the grand tapestry of the franchise, and offers next to no replayability for anyone other than the most dedicated Nintendo DS enthusiasts.

3 Twilight Princess (Wii Edition)

This one hurts. The Nintendo Wii could have been revolutionary for Zelda. The potential was clearly there. Things just never quite worked out. Similar to the stylus controls of the DS-era games, using a Wii-mote for combat hampers Twilight Princess right out of the gate. It was an inspired concept. Technology just hadn’t made the necessary jump yet. It was common to accidentally swing the Master Sword with any waggle of the Wii Remote rather than dedicated striking motions. Games like Wii Sports got away with being enjoyably clunky. Zelda fans expected better and were severely let down by the overall experience.

There’s also the problem of the entire game being mirrored on the Wii to make Link match a predominantly right-handed player base. One silver lining: the unmirrored GameCube version of Twilight Princess was excellent and remains one of the best Zelda games to date. It's the best way to play the game. No need to bother with unnecessary motion control nonsense.

2 Skyward Sword (Wii Edition)

Second verse, same as the first. There was a much heavier reliance on motion controls in Skyward Sword as opposed to Twilight Princess. If that’s a deal-breaker, then the original Wii release is one to steer clear of entirely. I love this game and wouldn't even dream of going back. There's simply no reason to put someone through that.

The debate over motion controls truly stunted Skyward Sword’s success in the 2010s. Many gamers opted to skip the entry entirely until Skyward Sword HD for the Switch. A larger focus on button controls removed the biggest barrier to entry—and, along with some fidelity and quality-of-life improvements, shaped a frustrating experience into an absolute gem. That re-release has become the definitive edition of the game, and has flipped the narrative for one of Zelda’s most imaginative adventures ever. It’s so good it makes the original feel wholly insufficient in retrospect. Anyone who hasn't played Skyward Sword should give it another go on the Switch. It is well worth the time and money.

1 Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Almost all the charm of The Legend of Zelda is lost in its immediate successor. The map is more cramped and difficult to navigate, making exploration more of a chore than a rewarding journey. Combat also often spikes in difficulty from zone to zone thanks to an RPG-esque leveling system that the series has never opted to revisit.

It’s a confounding experience compared to almost all other games in the series. There is also a Mario-style lives system, which, when exhausted, will reset the player back to the Northern Palace spawn point. That one feature alone slows the game down enough to make it the most grueling game to get through and a bit of a snoozefest among its peers. Backtracking is rarely fun in any game, and there's an extensive amount of it.

The one redeeming quality is the darker tone to the world—which is refreshing and sets the stage well for more mature stories like Majora’s Mask and Twilight Princess. That’s not enough to save the game from being decidedly disappointing in comparison to the all-time great games surrounding it.