I voted for Ocarina. By far my favorite. I didn’t own A Link to the Past until my 20’s and I enjoyed it but never delved too deep. TBO I was never a huge fan boy of the series, but Ocarina was ground breaking for me. I never experienced anything quite like it. You guys will probably troll the living heck out of me but I loved Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Something about it was enchanting. It was not popular due to the side scrolling approach, but I have completed it and still play the cartridge on occasion.
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I am Error.
Man, I love the Adventure of Link. That was a difficult game when I was a kid (it probably still is). It was pretty unforgiving. I’ve noticed that it is in a bit of a renaissance, with people starting to appreciate the uniqueness of the game. After all, aspects of Shovel Knight are directly borrowed from The Adventure of Link, so we know that the Yacht Club devs enjoy the game on some level.
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Zelda II was actually the first Zelda I ever played. I liked it back then. I have no idea how 8 year old me beat it, but I did. I’ve tried to play it a couple of times since then, and it doesn’t quite hold up for me anymore. It’s so different, and there’s some infuriating obscureness. Overall I still think it’s a great game for its time.
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I’ll admit there are a lot of “that’s stupid” moments when you die over and over again. I mostly like the dungeons. And good old Error, that trusty, walking typo.
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I admire Adventure of Link mostly because it’s an artifact from a time when Nintendo genuinely didn’t know how to handle sequels. It’s so interesting now to think back to a time when they would be unaware of which elements to bring back, which to discard and which to build upon, and would earnestly try something that’s such a departure. Adventure of Link was truly adventurous in that regard.
I also can’t really knock its gameplay compared to its predecessor, because while I appreciate them both historically, I find either title nearly unplayable without mods or cheats. 
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You would think that the die hard Souls crowd would love The Adventure of Link, no?
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The Adventure of Link makes the top ten list of generally accepted most difficult games to play ever, does it not? At least those from the 8-bit and 16-bit era? Contra, Battletoads The Adventure of Link, Ghosts N’ Goblins, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Ultra 1989 version), etc…
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Totally! (I remember TMNT breaking my childhood heart, though its comparatively breezy sequel made up for it.)
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That game was stupid hard. It’s amazing that anyone had the patience to stick with games considering how many of those during the 8-bit era were so brutally difficult.
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I mean, Ninja Gaiden! Those birds in lots of the levels killed me so many times. I couldn’t get past one of the later bosses. When he kills you, he sends you back to the beginning of the level which takes a ton of patience and perseverance just to get back to him. And he kills you again. Still haven’t finished it.
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Yup, totally. That’s another one.
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So I guess I might need to update this poll soon 
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Oh yeah because Breath of the…remembers that I’m broke oh…no… Zelda…
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lol i came in expected a buncha posts about breath of the wild, was not expecting discourse on zelda II! 
Try as i might zelda ii still remains a mystery to me. i dont really like it. i’ve played it a bit gotten through some of it. it just doesnt cut it for me. i still dont get how it came to be…
First, it’s an overhead to sidescrolling 2d translation, it’s actually a pretty impressive translation considering how many elemnts were captured. some of hte perspective looks cool (pseudo 3d) Also, you had two camps going at once, first in the classic japanese market all those adventure games looked like zelda 2 for msx, pc88, etc. and second, 2d games were arcade like rage for the us market. (you had companies like LJN who made action games based on movies, or acclaim or data east, each with their own flavor and signatory hooks) It’s my interpretation that this was a nice compromise but what i dont understand was 'if it aint broke dont fix it!" this was a major overhaul and it took a big effort to make this game (and especially those dungeons) in this kind of context. Back in the day when this game came out would anyone have been dissapointed in something more or less like a run of the mill rom hack you might happen upon that piggybacks off the original engine? tough to say, and i was there 
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I voted “A Link to the Past”. It was released when I was 12, and it made a huge impact on me. But choosing the best Zelda seems impossible. I honestly love most of them, for different reasons, and could easily have gone with OoT, MM or A Link between Worlds. I’m really enjoying Breath of the Wild. I kind of hope the next Zelda will be like Breath, but with big, intricate, “old school” dungeons added. That would probably be the definitive Zelda in my opinion.
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It is hard, isn’t it? There is so much to love that this poll is almost an exercise in futility. But it is interesting to see what people will say where forced to pick one. A Link to the Past gets a lot more love than I expected, even though I love it to death.
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A Link to the Past is the only “REALLY GOOD” Zelda game I have yet to play. All of you voting for it as the best Zelda are raising my expectations of ALTTP. I really hope that it delivers.
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It is actually my favorite zelda :3
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16 bit games have aged so well. I think alttp was when nintendo really figured out the best direction for the series (at least for that time), and almost created a perfect game with that design. All games after that built on that solid foundation. When considering the importance of the different games in the series, it’s hard not to put the first Zelda at the top. It started it all and was truly an “openish” world adventure without hand holding. Alttp was just so…polished, and I guess more accessible. At the time, and for many years, for me it was the formula perfected. I guess it could be criticized for being the game that began with hand holding, but it made sense at the time. That makes Breath of the wild super exciting. It feels like a return to the roots, and open world without much hand holding, much like the first game.
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Ocarina of Time is the best one for me. First Zelda I played and I still go back to it from time to time.
The next Zelda I played was Twilight Princess on Wii U. And although I liked it, I didn’t love it. I might go back to the HD version though.
After that I played Majora’s Mask. I loved it, but still haven’t finished it.
Then came Wind Waker HD. This one I loved, but there isn’t much to go back to for me. So I sold it.
The last one I played was Breath of the Wild. I loved it, but I had some mixed feelings about it. The towers for instance. Although towers in a game as a concept was new for me at the time, I couldn’t understand why they didn’t simply have a pedestal at the bottom that activates it. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the puzzles of climbing them. And I liked standing on top of them and jumping off them. And I get why it would make sense to get a sense of the environment when standing on top of them. But the technical implementation was somewhat unbelievable for me. And then there were the shrines. The don’t make any sense to me. Why would they be out there? I liked the puzzles though. What bothered me also was the samenes of the stables. Why do they all look the same? I notice it especially, because there are so little buildings in the world. What didn’t bother me though were the giant beasts. I actually liked them.
I will probably go back to this game after I have played some more Zelda games, namely Skyward Sword and A Link to the Past.
I have played some Skyward Sword before and didn’t like the motion controls. But I will have another go this year.
And finally, A Link to the Past. Over the years, I have tried to finish this one multimple times, but often gave up. Most recently I got very far. But still gave up. At this point, I leave it like that. It isn’t my favorite Zelda and my only regret is that I didn’t play it at the time it came out. I think I would have enjoyed it back then.
But then, I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed Ocarina of Time as much as I did, so I have no regrets.
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