Recently, I've been playing through 3d Zelda games (pre-botw) for the first time, because of Griffin McElroy's Trial by Fieri.
Ocarina of Time - stone cold classic. Does so much right, despite being the first, it's ridiculous. Played it using a fan PC port called Ship of Harkinian, which provides tons of options and fixes, reducing the friction caused by the game's console of origin. I came up with a weird control scheme that allowed me access to both the modern twin stick camera (thanks to the PC port) and C-buttons. It worked well, and I had a pretty good time, only having to use a guide a couple of times, to my surprise.
Majora's Mask - skipped this one for now, because I'm waiting for the memories of Trial by Fieri to fade, so I can experience it properly.
Wind Waker - played the WiiU version in Cemu. Great aesthetic, fun writing ("Your gods destroyed you" and stuff like that), very expressive and scrungly Link. I was into it for the first two thirds of the game, then it kinda started dragging. That Wind temple especially. Still, it's a great game.
Twilight Princess - the furry one. Played the WiiU version in Cemu. This one is my least favorite. It's still a good game, just not my thing. I liked the cool character designs, but not the turn to a darker aesthetic. It could've been something, if they fully committed to it, I think, but it ended up being safe and a little bland, in my opinion. Same with Link in this one - he just stands there, smiling, or he's a wolf. Which is cool, but not when it's forced on you, as it is for a large chunk of the game. The game is also very long, which is great when you're into it, but not great otherwise. I recognize that it's a good game though, but, again, just not my thing.
Skyward Sword - the one I knew almost nothing about. No one seems to talk about it, especially Nintendo, which is kinda wild, considering how much of its DNA is in BotW and TotK, seriously. I played the Switch version in an emulator. Aesthetically, it's very cute, even cutesy at times, with an expressive, talkative, and occasionally traumatized by the reality of his involvement in his quest Link. You get to choose a lot of dialogue options, and there's always at least one jerk option, which is fun. It's a somewhat smaller, more accessible game that originated on Wii. The Switch version tries to map Wii's wacky controls onto a gamepad - with mixed results. It's definitely a bit of a barrier. I disagree with some of the mappings, especially with having to hold the left bumper to look around. Also, they messed up gyro aiming, somehow (it's fine in handheld mode, but not with a separate controller (it uses a different axis for horizontal movement)). Despite these technical difficulties, I almost 100%-ed this game, which is rare for me. It's my second favorite out of the four games I've played, right after OoT.
Having played those games, I now understand why some Zelda fans dislike BotW and TotK. They are pretty damn different in format from the previous games, lol. For one, the controls are good, and that's sacrilege-- I'm just kidding, don't kill me, I have two cats
Anyway, I tried playing Phantom Hourglass (a DS game) on my phone, because it's a touch controls game, but had some technical problems (audio distortion in one emulator and visual glitches in another), so I gave up. Also, it's just kinda annoying to use a stylus on a small phone (and you gotta use a stylus, because fingers obscure the screen too much).
Started playing Darksiders 1 today, since people say it's a lot like a Zelda game, and I can see technical similarities, but it really doesn't *feel* Zelda-ey with all that hacking and slashing. So I'm not sure if I'll stick with it, but we'll see.
