The Legend of Zelda 🐼is regularly consid🎉ered one of the highest quality franchises in the medium. Time and time again, Nintendo uses Zelda as a means to reinvent how we understand gaming. The ꩵo꧑riginal Zelda introduced save states, Ocarina of Time set the found🦩ation thℱat all modern 3D action-adventure games followed, and Breath of the Wild presented an open world that went beyond the surface-level “open” worlds the genre had been p🍬lagued by.
As great as The Legend of Zelda is, however, the series has been outdone by imitators in the past. More often than not, the🎉se so=called “Zelda clones” are dead on arrival, but a few take the bas༒ic Zelda formula and ♑add a spin that Nintendo never could, or simply won’t.
10 Better: Alundra
At a time when Nintendo was embracing 3D and The Legend of Zelda’s next 2D entry wouldn’t see release until into the 21st🐈 century, there was a 2D action-adventure void in need of fꦉilling and no Zelda to fill it. The first game developed by Matrix Software, it𒐪’s almost astounding just how good Alundra is.
With better combat than Zelda usually has and a much better story, Alundra was the mature Legend of Zelda fans had been clamoring for. To this🐟 day, it holds up as one of the best action RPGs on the PlayStation. Anyone who likes Zelda n🌊eeds to play Alundra.
9 So Much Worse: Darksiders
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Darksiders was an admirable attempt at trying to capture the magic of 3D Zelda, but ripping off The Legend of Zelda wholesale does this game more harm than good, especially considering how well-defined the core identity is. Dungeoneering and puzzle solving just doesn’t fit Darksiders, especially since the combat distinctly doesn’t ape Zelda.
And for the wors🌼t at that. The second game is a bit better, but Darksiders really is just discount Zelda at the end of the day. It’s an interesting franchise with some very cool lore, but the𒁃 first game is too derivative, the second game is too uninspired, and the thജird game is its own mess.
8 Better: 3D Dot Game Heroes
A PlayStation 3 exclusive, 3D Dot Game Heroes is almost something of a parody of the original Legend of Zelda, but at the end of the day it becomes very 𝓰clear the ga𒀰me is more of a love letter. It honors the original Zelda in every way it can, constantly referencing the game. At the same time, it has its own mechanics♓ that keep the game highly addictive.
Character customization, pl🐽enty of swords to choose from, and excellent dungeon design, 3D Dot Game Heroes outdoes the majority of Zelda’s 2D catalogue. It’s also in🍬credibly har🔯d, far harder than any Zelda game, which is important to🦩 keep in✱ mind before starting it up.
7 So Much Worse: Dark Cloud
Level 5’s first game, Dark Cloud is really, reꦓally mediocre. Almost ag🍒gressively so. To its credit, its Legend of Zelda connections were more inꩲ its marketing than anything else and the game is fairly unique, bu🐎t Dark Cloud still isn’t a fun playthrough. Thanks to a host of aggressively unfriendly mechanics (thirst, weapon durability, and procedural gene🐼🍌ration), this is a hard game to go back to.
Worse yet, despite this being a Level 5 game, 🏅the story is a complete and utter mess. The script is a disaster, the localiza🌺tion is even worse, and Dark Cloud 2 is just so much better, that most players will 𒈔want to drop the fﷺirst game the moment they hit their first roadblock. Which they certainly will.
6 Better: Dark Cloud 2
What a comeback story. Dark Cloud may be a poor example of an early PS2 game, but Dark Cloud 2 is still one of the best games on the system and a much better attempt at ༒not only capturing Zelda’s magic, but twisting it into something wholly unique. C🙈alled Dark Chronicle elsewhere, this is a game that’s easy to sink a lot o﷽f time into.
Between weapon crafting, weapon leveling, the city building, dungeon crawling, fishing, photoꦕgraphy, and mini-games, Dark Chronicle really nails that ﷺsense of exploration the better Legend of Zelda games share. With more experience, Level 5 also presents a much strong🌃er narrative 💮for Dark Chronicle.
5 So Much Worse: Star Fox Adventures
The beginning of the end for Rare, Star Fox Adventures was a misguided attempt at giving the GameCꦛube a 3D Zelda, a new Star Fox game, and some high quality Rare content. It’s not great. Not too bad, granted, but the game has no real identity between its un🌠ique Dinosaur Planet, a gameplay style that does not suit its own franchise, and a distinct lack of almost anything Star Fox.
I🐎t’s almost🃏 baffling Nintendo would allow Rare to develop a game so derivative of The Legend of Zelda — and to then slap the Star Fox moniker on it. It’s frankly baffling. Doubly so since the Star Fox Adventures' few Arwing sections aren’t bad and would have ma♑de for a much better gam𒆙e.
4 Better: Final Fantasy Adventure
Released as Seiken Densetsu in Japan, it seems almost unfair to call Final Fantasy Adventure a Zelda clone, but it does share a decentꦫ bit of mechanical and conceptual similarities with both The Legend of Zelda and A Link to the Past. That said, you most likely won’t see any connections on a firsဣt playthrough, if only because of how well the game asse♋rts its own identity.
An incredibly fast-paced action RPG where death is quick and levels are quick🍸er, Final Fantasy Adventure manages to tell a ♛surprisingly emotional story with plenty of great combat throughoꦿut. The puzzles aren’t half as good as in The Legend of Zelda, but they’re pretty advanced f🌌or t🍨heir time, and the music is out of this world.
3 So Much Worse: Songbringer
This has been🐬 a great generation for indie games as a whole, but it’s also seen plenty of indies try to get by on a mix of procedural generation and homage. Songbringer is the original Zelda with procedural generation thrown i🍃ntꦍo the mix and it’s a total mess. The combat’s already lackluster, but the overworld is just not fun to explore.
Hyrule was a geographically realized world ꦦwith thoughtful level design. Procedural generation cannot pull that o꧑ff by any means necessary and Songbringer ends up having some truly dreadful level design as a result.💞 It’s a cute idea in theory, but it’s one that wa💎s pursued very poorly.
2 Better: Ōkami
The game The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess should have been, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ōkami is a must-play for everyone even remotely interested in video games. Amazing puzzles, level design, bosses, art, combat — it’s all here. Ōkami blows the majority of Zelda titles out of the water and it ꦕfra🌜nkly isn’t close.
Of course, Ōkami as a series isn’t even half as good as The Legend of Zelda, but this one game is just a masterpiece. You’d be hard-pressed to find any real flaws in Ōkami. The slower pace may not mesh ♔with everyoꦰne right away, but it only bolsters an already luscious experience.
1 So Much Worse: Alundra 2
The original Alundra was released before Ocarina of Time and therefore couldn’t capitalize on any concepts it brought to the table. Even then, thouꦐgh, the game was clearly designed to fill a 2D niche that had been left empty for quite a long t🐽ime. Naturally, a sequel should only follow up on that notion, but Alundra 2 released after Ocarina and it shows.
Now 3D, Alundra 2 is much lighter and plays like a bastardized v👍ersion of what you’d expect 3D Zelda to play like. It’s worse than the first game in just about every way imaginable, failing to capture🔯 any of the mag꧑ic of either its predecessor or The Legend of Zelda. It’s no wonder Alundra 3 never came to be.