Summary
The Legend of Zeldafranchise has resisted the pull of time, attempting to make it outdated constantly over the years. Moving from top-down dungeon crawler in the 80s to the 3D updates in the 90s and the various jumps in the artistic style of the 00s. This franchise refuses to die or wilt away from every new release being a massive moment for the gaming community.
With the recent release ofTears of the Kingdom,The Legend of Zeldafranchise has once again shown that it is atop the world of gaming. But over the years, one thing that has shifted and changed is the difficulty of the games being released. While modern adventures in the franchise are incredible, many fans still believe that the hardestLegend of Zeldagames are past entries.
Updated on October 13th, 2024, by Chris Harkin:The Legend of Zelda franchise is moving ever forward. Whether it’s through another massive release, like Tears of the Kingdom, or the slightly more intimate ones, such as Echoes of Wisdom, there are a huge number of exciting developments always on the way for Link and Zelda. Fans of the franchise want to keep up with all the latest challenges, even though many of the most difficult games remain long in the past. Fans continue digging through the history of this series and are often shocked to see just how hard some of the puzzles and bosses were to take on, making articles like this important to update regularly with more of the classics, and the new series entries as well.
Known not just as the threequel toWind WakerandPhantom Hourglass, and a game that used the Nintendo DS’s capabilities incredibly well,Spirit Tracksis also known for being aZeldagame where Princess Zelda herself was an actual companion to Link.
A very fun game that nonetheless picked up the difficulty of handheldZeldagames afterPhantom Hourglasswas considered too simplistic.Spirit Tracksleft a lot of players frustrated with its boss fights, and the puzzles brought a lot of challenge to the train-based game than it might otherwise have had.
The mainLegend of Zeldarelease for the Nintendo Wii brought a lot of challenges to it. In spite of making good use of the Wii controls,Skyward Swordtroubled many players throughout with challenging dungeons and the unusual style with which the controls for certain areas and mechanics were handled.
Once players got used to the controls, they were able to control Link much more intricately than with most previous entries in the series. However, the Wii remote did add difficulty for aiming with weapons, and many of the puzzles inSkyward Swordwere real head-scratchers that introduced a lot of unexpected challenges.
Of all the many different titles that have been released inThe Legend of Zeldafranchise, there are few that have achieved the level of legendary success thatOcarina of Timemanaged,inspiring so many other games. Having one of the most ambitious stories in gaming, which was so expansive for its time that it ended up defining the very strange timeline of theZeldafranchise,Ocarina of Timeis one of the best games ever.
Ocarina Of Timewas the firstZeldagame in 3D, and this meant that it was the first to try out a completely different style of controls. While it did a great job, the controls were more difficult as a result than some of the later games in the franchise would provide.Ocarina Of Timealso boasted an impressive list of bosses like the Death Hand or Volvagia, raising the difficulty for players by another few notches.
TheHyrule Warriorsspin-off franchise featuresLegend of Zeldacharacters and settings mixed with the gameplay of Koei’sDynasty Warriorsfranchise. While the first game was a lot of fun, the sequel adds a fascinating story as well as more difficulty to the proceedings.
Becoming a prequel spin-off ofBreath of the Wild,Age of Calamityis set 100 years earlier during the events of the Great Calamity. Players have to take part in strategic actions, as well as engage in hack-and-slash combat during massive battles, which is really fun and completely different from mostLegend of Zeldagames, while also being a real challenge, which some hack-and-slash games don’t manage to balance so well.
A Link To The Pasthad it all. It was the first great story in aZeldagame, there was a much more open feel to it, and it was still in the early era when gamers weren’t always told what to do or where to go explicitly. This in itself helped to increase the challenge of the game by a significant amount and made gamers feel like there was a lot of real reward in defeating the game.
A Link To The Pastwasn’t afraid of making gamers feel the challenge of wandering through hordes of enemies with nothing but a sword and hope. Gamers have taken to this with a large speed-running community because there are just so many dungeons and secrets that keep the difficulty raised, even for experienced players who have been through it all before. All of this has led togamers continuing to revere this gameeven today.
Taking on the visual style ofA Link Between Worlds, this online game features up to three players working cooperatively as three different versions of Link as they attempt to solve puzzles and survive a variety of dungeons. The biggest challenge of this cooperative experience is life, as the hearts are shared by all players in the game.
That means that there is no way to continue with one or two players if one takes a lot of damage, the whole group goes down together. While the challenge of many puzzles isn’t too severe, the reliance on other players can make this a frustrating experience at times, as with many cooperatively focused games.
Although it is arguably —and only slightly — the easier of the two,Oracle of Seasonsis one of the twoOraclegames released as handheld entries where the overarching story would only be revealed once the player had finished both games consecutively. This fascinating idea led to many challenging puzzles that utilized the Game Boy’s very different capabilities well.
Oracle of Seasonsis an older game, and an early handheld game, which came with its own set of difficulties. In addition to this, the puzzles were a big focus, since they were easier to put together on the Game Boy than huge fights, which madeOracle of Seasons, and the accompanyingOracle of Ages, two of theZeldagames with the most challenging puzzles to date.
The most recent entry in the franchise has added some difficulty back into the series, earning a place among the hardestLegend of Zeldagames in the process.Tears of the Kingdomis a direct sequel toBreath of the Wildand managed to give players some shocking level of challenges at times.
The open-world nature of the most recent entries in the franchise is often paired with the capability to level quickly in order tobeat main missionsmore easily. However,Tears of the Kingdommanages to be challenging, between puzzle work and immense boss fights, keeping players fascinated even after their first victory in the game.
Something interesting aboutOracle of Agesis that, despite being released simultaneously for the Game Boy Advance withOracle of Seasons, the game is different enough that it can easily be called the more difficult of the two.
While Nintendo’s similar efforts withPokemongames being simultaneously released almost always end up with a similar level of difficulty across the board,Oracle of Ageshad one massive point going for its difficulty. This was the sheer complexity of some puzzles, which many fans point at as the hardest overall game for puzzles in the entireLegend of Zeldafranchise.Players are still finding tricks to helpwith the high difficulty of these games today.
LikeHyrule Warriors, this is a spin-off from the mainLegend of Zeldafranchise which features the characters and world of the series mixed with the gameplay of a different franchise. In this case,Crypt of the Necrodancerbrings its brand of rhythmic action to Hyrule.
Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the Necrodancer featuring The Legend of Zeldais a fantastically fun adventure, but it is surprisingly difficult, especially for players not used to rhythm game style, to stick to the beat and be as effective in combat as they need to be to survive and save Hyrule by making it through all the randomly generated dungeons.
