So what's the best handheld Zelda game, then?

Handheld Zelda games have always been pretty darn good (the series' DS ventures notwithstanding), and a case can be made for them being more consistently good than the console entries, which often seem to suffer from identity crises. But which handheld Zelda game is the best, really?

To be clear, these are the games that qualify:

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (GB)
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (GBC)
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (GBC)
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (GBA)
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS)

I actually like all of these, except for Spirit Tracks (yes, I really liked Phantom Hourglass as well), but if I had to rank all of them, here is how I would do it:

1. A Link Between Worlds
2. Link's Awakening
3. The Minish Cap
4. Phantom Hourglass
5. Oracle of Ages
6. Oracle of Seasons
7. Spirit Tracks

How would you rank the handheld Zelda games? And why?

Phantom Hourglass was horrible.

The Best Handheld Zelda before Ocarina of Time was The Oracle games.

A Link Between Worlds is both the best handheld and the best overall Zelda game. It's not as ambitious as Ocarina or Twilight, but sometimes less is more.

I really liked Minish Cap.

Ocarina doesn't count.

@charizard1605: Neither does Phantom Hourglass because that game was garbage.

I've only played Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks and between those 2 I'd pick Phantom Hourglass.

This.

Though I've played very few of the handheld Zeldas.

Link Between Worlds, aka the only good Zelda game.

Ocarina of Time sucks, Minish Cap is annoyingly simplistic, and I haven't played the others

No, it exists, is a mainline Zelda game, and was made for handhelds.

Ocarina is a port to a handheld of a console Zelda game. It does not count for the same reasons that A Link to the Past on GBA does not count.

Play Link's Awakening.

Minish Cap all day.

I still stand that it's one of the weakest Zelda games to date.

With that said. The Two Oracle games were the best. Minish Cap would be close to second because that game was also tight.

I am not arguing against it being weak, man. I am saying it's a handheld Zelda game and counts by any reasonable objective criteria. Ocarina is not a handheld game, and therefore it does not.

The Oracle games were sick. Which one did you like more?

@charizard1605: No

Why not?

ALBW followed by Minish Cap, with Ages, then Seasons in third/forth place for me.

I actually liked PH, but everything done on the touch screen ruined it for me. ( and the BACKTRACKING)

Minish Cap. That's my favorite anyway.

Behind A Link to the Past (GBA), that is, but I guess that one doesn't count.

Minish Cap is the best one.

Haven't played the latest one though.

Phantom Hourglass over both Oracle games?

Phantom Hourglass, with it's shitty controlls and water temple, over the Oracle games?

@deadline-zero0 said:

Phantom Hourglass, with it's shitty controlls and water temple, over the Oracle games?

I liked the controls and the temple (sans the backtracking, it was probably the best designed dungeon in the game).

The thing is, with all its flaws, Phantom Hourglass was fun, and it had novelty going for it. Good enough for me.

Definitely Minish cap.

@charizard1605: eh, I couldn't pick one over the other. I always played them both as 1 game.

Controlling Link with the stylus isn't good. End of story. Why not simply allow normal pad usage? Oh right Nintendo go freaky with the touch screen and microphone. And the watter temple was extremely repetative. The backtracking kills it.

PH has some cool ideas, but when the base controlls are so terrible, it ruins the whole game. And i played on the DS. When i returned on the DeSmume emulator, just imagine how it feels to controlls with a mouse. Yeah.

1- ALBW

2- Minish Cap and Oracle of Seasons. They're both 2D zeldas, so are most similar. MC has a better world and quests, but OoS has better and more dungeons. Plus the Season Rod is a far better mechanic than the Cap shrink. They even out.

Haven't played Ages

3- Link's Awakening. Great game, but felt very basic compared to the other ones. It was the first one after all. And the "twist" at the end was meh IMO, in how they handled it.

4- Phantom Hourglass because shit controls.

I liked what I played of Links Awakening a lot more than A link Between Worlds. I dont get the praise for A Link Between Worlds.

Pretty sure the DS games are known to be excellent games in their own right.

Of the ones I played:

1. A Link Between Worlds
2. Oracle of Ages
3. Link's Awakening DX
4. Oracle of Seasons

All great.

Without counting remakes and re - releases the gb version of link ' awakening. The Oracle games were brilliant as well. It' too bad nintendo didn't pursue more 2 d zelda games, especially since both the Minish cap and link between world's are a disappointment( to me at least).

So right now, the tallies are:

A Link Between Worlds: 6 votes
Minish Cap: 6 votes
Phantom Hourglass: 1 vote
Link's Awakening: 2 votes

...????????

I mean, I am okay with Minish Cap and ALBW being disappointing to you, that's fine, but how can you say they didn't pursue 2D Zelda games after the Oracle ones... when they did, in fact, do so? You just named two 2D games they made after the Oracle games yourself, one of which is barely a year old. You finding them disappointing does not negate their existence, which in turns makes your first statement meaningless.

Minish Cap.

I actually find Link's Awakening really frustrating, stopped playing it after about 5 hours.

For me, PH and ST are the lowest points in the franchise.

And I haven't gotten to play Oracle or Seasons. But I loved the Minish Cap and ALBW

I'd give it to ALBW by just a bit

A Link Between Worlds, followed by The Minish Cap and the Oracle games.

1. Minish Cap
2. Seasons
3. Links Awakening
4. Link between Worlds
5. Ages
6. Spirit Tracks
7. Phantom Hourglass

I guess I have to give it to ALBW, but Minish Cap is 2nd.

There's only one real answer, @charizard1605 :

OoT 3d for me. IDC if it doesn't count. Don't count it. It's the best, though.

A Link Between Worlds is no doubt the best handheld Zelda game ever made.

Next to it, i have to go with Minish Cap, the game might not been hard nor anything, but it was quite fun.

Spirit Tracks is another one of my favorites, despite hating Phantom Hourglass i found Spirit Tracks to at least have a lot of charm so i ended liking it a lot more.

Links Awakening for me! Followed by Oracle of Seasons :)

Probably Links Awakening.

Link's Awakening.

So right now, the tallies are:

A Link Between Worlds: 10 votes
Minish Cap: 8 votes
Phantom Hourglass: 1 vote
Link's Awakening: 7 votes

The top two are easily Link Between Worlds and Links Awakening.

As much as I love that gameboy sound, I think I got to go with Link Between Worlds. Game was incredible.

A Link to the Past (GBA)

I'm not asking for ports of the console games to the handhelds, I am asking for the actual handheld games. It's right there in the OP, guys, come on.

A Link to the Past trumps them all even if it is a port, sorry.

Sure, but it's a console game, not a handheld one.

Fine, give me the second best one. If your second best one is Ocarina 3D, give me the third best one.

@charizard1605:

A console game that can be played on a handheld. I'll give you the third best on February 13th.