Never played a Zelda game before other than Oracle of ages/seasons,

>>383379873
Minish Cap

Ages so you can fight Ganon with the super cape in Seasons

A link to the past

ALttP established the formula that would last up until BotW. That's a good place to start. You can play the original for a bit if you want, but I don't personally think it's that good of a game beyond establishing the series and its general concept.

>>383379873
if you wanna get on the lore and most common modern tropes of the series, Ocarina of Time is a brilliant starting point, and truly the cornerstone of the series. Many of the modern Zelda elements are directly rooted to OoT's innovations.
Majora's Mask is a direct sequel to it, and totally worth it too.

I personally never liked LttP. I'd say it's even one of the worse 2D Zeldas.

>>383381498
>I personally never liked LttP. I'd say it's even one of the worse 2D Zeldas.

I'm with you on this. Oracles are actually far better games, especially Seasons.

The Hero of Time games are naturally the best entry point for the 3D games.

>>383381609
true that, though Oracles are based on Link's Awakening (DX), which IMO is one of the better games in the series.

Also, Ages > Seasons.

>>383379873
Link's Adventure

Of course you need to start with Spirit Tracks, nothing ever beats Spirit Tracks.

why were these games so good
anime cutscenes and everything

>>383382279
>anime cutscenes
you (don't) watch very weird anime m8.

Anyway, to answer your question: high quality production values, with gameplay first attitude. Great audio-visual presentation helps a lot too.

File: Legend of Zelda, The - Oracle of Ages-170610-134657.png (352KB, 1440x1080px) Image search: [Google]

352KB, 1440x1080px

>>383382279
Ages was pretty meh with some outright bad segments. These games have always been overrated.

>>383379873
How did you like them?

Link's Awakening is very similar.

2d:
A Link to the Past
Link's awakening
A Link Between Worlds
Minish Cap

3d:
Ocarina of Time
Majora's Mask
Wind Waker
Twilight Princess
Watch skyward sword gameplay to see if it's for you. I liked it but it's not for everyone.

>>383385247
Why would you recommend TP at all?

>>383385379
Not that anon, but TP has always gotten far more shit than it deserves, and with how much /v/ complains about gimmicks like sailing in WW or the waggle shit in SS it's amazing TP isn't loved more for being a much more "core" game than the others. Great soundtrack, characters are funny and expressive, and it has one of the best multi-part Ganon fights of the series.

The Wii U remaster also fixes pretty much all of the complaints I've had about the original, and hero mode actually makes the game pretty damn fun.

I tried replaying these on the 3DS when they were on sale.

They feel so limited by the 2 button set-up

>>383385680
>TP isn't loved more for being a much more "core" game than the others

I'm sorry, but it is absolutely not. It completely betrays Zelda's focus on exploration and experimentation, which is the actual core of the series and which both WW and SS actually pull of better, while it has barely any content that is both original and good. So much if it is shit that it ripped off from previous games that did the same thing better. Even if you like it (which I'll accept if your talking about the remaster), there's little reason to play it over most anything else, as its one of the most unoriginal games in the series.

>>383386857
This was inexcusable even back in the days, the game had content that could only be accessed when playing on a GBA yet it doesn't utilize the triggers in any way. What the fuck? The constant inventory opening and item swapping adds hours to the gameplay.