All of Nintendo’s Zelda Games, Ranked

In one form or another, practically every gamer has some experience with the Legend of Zelda franchise. Once the industry’s longest-running and most influential series, its reach spans generations with releases on practically every major Nintendo console or handheld for over 38 years (we don’t talk about Virtual Boy).

With 21 mainline games, alongside countless spin-offs, remasters, and ports, the breadth of its legacy is vast. Like Star Wars, everyone has their first, their favorite, their hot take. Frankly, it would be easy for the series to feel a bit long in the tooth, but the secret to Zelda’s longevity is Nintendo’s knack for reinvention. No two games in the series feel exactly alike; there’s always some innovation or twist to make what’s old new again. More often than not, The Legend of Zelda makes what’s new new again, delivering outside-the-box concepts that fans never knew they needed and rival developers instantly begin to ape.

That spirit of reinvention also applies to the series’ narrative. The beauty of Zelda is, well, the legend. There is no wrong place to start, no dense lore to study. Each game functions as a complete reimagining — technically a reincarnation of its hero, Link, and the titular princess. There’s generally a new world to explore and journey to take, free from hamstrung continuity and readily accessible to kids and adults alike. Sure, there’s some retroactive timeline shenanigans courtesy of the IP Police at Nintendo HQ, but it’s all just a convoluted attempt to appease the fans. The series is at its best when it’s seemingly simple, yet deceptively deep in gameplay and story alike.

But with so many entries, there’s bound to be some hit-or-miss titles. While some games are genre-defining, once-in-a-generation epic, others function as stopgaps that pull together the scraps of ideas from the cutting-room floor to satiate players until the next big thing. Truthfully, there’s no bad games in the series, but when your schtick is making multiple “greatest game of all time” contenders, the whiffs can hit particularly hard.

In celebration of the latest installment, Echoes of Wisdom — the first Zelda game to actually star Zelda — we’re breaking down the series piece by piece and determining which games were the most legendary of all. This list was devised with the input of Rolling Stone staffers, gaming journalists, as well as (mostly civil) debate from our community.

With that, it’s time to answer the call with a definitive ranking of all mainline games in The Legend of Zelda. Hey, listen!

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