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What is Legend of Zelda's best over world?


Cure Naga
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Toss up between BotW and Skyward Sword. BotW for how massive it is and how much there is to find in it, though it does have underwhelming dungeons imo. Skyward Sword for having the neatest places and dungeons to see and coolest characters to meet in it. Its only flaw imo is the sky being a bit empty.

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11 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Toss up between BotW and Skyward Sword. BotW for how massive it is and how much there is to find in it, though it does have underwhelming dungeons imo. Skyward Sword for having the neatest places and dungeons to see and coolest characters to meet in it. Its only flaw imo is the sky being a bit empty.

BotW would be mine if I played it. Hopefully soon!

SS is awesome but yeah, the sky needed more. And I think by "overworld" the OP meant just that, not including dungeons or characters.

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6 minutes ago, Dragoncat said:

SS is awesome but yeah, the sky needed more. And I think by "overworld" the OP meant just that, not including dungeons or characters.

Dungeons and characters make up part of the world though. So I think they should be counted.

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Breath of the Wild is beautiful and vast, if a little empty and lifeless.

Wind Waker had a strong exploratory element, until BotW, if too much water.

Skyward Sword went in the opposite direction BotW would. SS dungeon-ified the overworld, on the surface that is. Whereas BotW has small dungeons and a vast world, SS made the overworld more compact.

I think I'd pick A Link to the Past or A Link Between Worlds. Large, yet dense, with the Dark Realm and Lorule to double things.

Shoutouts to the Oracle games and how the seasons and time traveling were integrated.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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1 hour ago, Dragoncat said:

Twilight Princess. I'll go with that.

I'd argue that one has the worst. It has the least going on, and a good 90% of it is total dead space. There's no real exploring to do, and all it ends up doing is making getting from point A to point B that much more tedious. It's just a worse version of Ocarina's.

And it isn't even pretty to look at like Wind Waker. It's just... drab and lifeless.

People can say shit about how there aren't any dungeons on BotW's map, but there's always something around, always something to do.

I might be tempted to say A Link to the Past over even BotW.

Edited by Slumber
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40 minutes ago, Slumber said:

I'd argue that one has the worst. It has the least going on, and a good 90% of it is total dead space. There's no real exploring to do, and all it ends up doing is making getting from point A to point B that much more tedious. It's just a worse version of Ocarina's.

And it isn't even pretty to look at like Wind Waker. It's just... drab and lifeless.

People can say shit about how there aren't any dungeons on BotW's map, but there's always something around, always something to do.

I might be tempted to say A Link to the Past over even BotW.

Hmmm. Good point. Overall TP is my favorite with SS in second though.

And TP's Hyrule Field music, especially the orchestrated version, makes it so worth it.

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Easily Skyward Sword which I would even argue is the best 3D Zelda game period.

For 2D Zeldas A Link Between Worlds has the best over world and is the best game in the series 1v1 me mate

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BotW, no contest. I love how big it is, and how much freedom you get once you finish the tutorial on the Great Plateau. As for it being a little empty...well, it makes sense - it's very slowly recovering from Calamity Ganon. I also love its little throwbacks to OoT, TP and SS.

Another stand out is the fact that it has wild horses dotted around Hyrule, alongside the deer, bears and boars. It's just full of nature, and it's beautiful.

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I'm not sure. I liked the Great Sea in Wind Waker (though it could've had a bit... more) and I really like the overworld in BOTW. It's big, there's a lot of freedom, and it doesn't feel underutilized.

In the next 3D Zelda Game though, I would like more buildings. Enemy fortresses, Hylian fortresses that have been overrun, ancient ruins and temples, villages, towns, maybe a Castle Town comparable in size to an actual medieval city (think the size of Novigrad from Witcher 3; maybe a bit smaller though). It would be a good change of pace from BOTW. 

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I liked TP's. The Warp system leads many players not to notice, but it's extremely interconnected and you can ride Epona through every single zone except for the snow area - which definitely addresses one of my major complaints with OoT's addition of a horse. The secrets are also competently baked and spread out among environments. I also love the optional tasks to create and repair bridges as well since it's not just for your benefit but for the people living there. Saying Botw has the best overworld sounds technically true but only in the sense that 90% of that game is the overworld and so doesn't feel fair to traditional Zeldas that see the overworld as the connective tissue between the fun stuff.

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In terms of the best overworld in Zelda, it would probably be Breath of the Wild. It's huge, and there's a ton of stuff to do, even after you "finish" the game. That game kept me busy for a solid three months until the DLC came out, which gave me about another month of content to mess around with. I haven't even played through hard mode yet.

In terms of my favorite overworld, I would have to go with A Link Between Worlds since I almost know it like the back of my hand at this point. It's also my favorite Zelda game, so there's that, too.

I haven't played Minish Cap or Spirit Tracks in a long while, but those had been standout overworlds to me.

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I'll agree on the point of TP's map being almost fully traversible with Epona, that's a big plus, even if it is a little barren 

I haven't played BOTW yet, just watched my cousin play some of it, so I can't vouch for it yet. Just to be the wildcard though, ill rep majora's mask; even though it's really small, it's really busy, with lots of stuff to do everywhere (except ikana canyon, it's just spooky which is still good)  and I appreciate that 

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Link to The Past has my favorite over world. its just the most fun to explore and traverse for me.

I also have reasonable fondness for GBC Zelda, but Seasons/Awakenings habit of putting "mini-dungeons and puzzles" in between the actual dungeons on the overworld is taken a little too far in Ages, which is needlessly obtuse. I kind of feel like Ages reflects back onto the other games and helps see the dangers of their design. You start to notice it makes them a lot less conductive to revisits for heart containers / secret shells , etc, since they mostly feel like linear sections designed for the previous dungeon item. I think Majora's Mask is probably the most successful with using "overworld as mini-dungeon" to connect the real dungeons, since it does so without losing the flavor of an over world or preventing you from wanting to backtrack on it for exploration.  

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Oh man. I've just realized that I have not played a Zelda game in over a year. Going off memory, I'd say that my personal favorite would either have to be Skyward Sword or Spirit Tracks. The locations of both are beautiful to look at, and I never minded how they can be linear at points. The time puzzles alone make the desert areas of the former one of the most unique areas I've seen in a video game, and despite being on a train (not that I mind) the overworld of Spirit Tracks has a surprising amount of things you have to be aware of while travelling, and I can only dream about what it would look like with an HD remaster.

I like the island designs for both Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass, and they're definitely fun to play through, but I'd say that sailing on the oceans, while not exactly boring, does last longer than it should at times.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Favorite one to traverse is Breath of the Wild's, despite the fact that I can just warp anywhere I want; you can go pretty much anywhere in any way you want, which means you also don't have some silly "order" you have to do things in.  Wind Waker's is an honorable mention, despite the fact that it's mostly just sailing in a straight line from place to place; there's just something so liberating and cool about seafaring.

Most aesthetically pleasing/nostalgic one is A Link to the Past/A Link Between Worlds.  The view from the top of Death Mountain in the Light World of Hyrule - just seeing the Lost Forest and the light overcast on top of it amid the peaks of the world - has always been breathtaking for me.

My favorite world in terms of lore/inhabitants is Majora's Mask.  Never in this series of games have I been more invested in the sometimes menial lives of people as I have in Majora's Mask, and all the little stories you hear about the locations are neat.

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