Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda franchise is largely considered to be one of the very best video game franchises of all time. In fact, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has the distinction of being the highest-rated video game ever, with an astounding 99 rating on Metacritic. But even though The Legend of Zelda games are genuinely considered to be top-tier gaming experiences across the board, they sometimes have some frustrating moments.
The 3D Zelda games especially are guilty of things like adding features that seem like they’re simply there to pad out the game’s length, or forcing players to do some mundane task to advance the story. While none of these drawbacks are really enough to bring the games down in any significant way, they are notable for being blemishes on what many consider to be near-perfect gaming experiences.
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Here are the most frustrating quests in The Legend of Zelda games.
Ocarina of Time has a trading quest that players can do to get their hands on Biggoron’s Sword, which is the most powerful sword in the game. The process to acquiring the Biggoron’s Sword is a rather long and grueling one, with players subjected to a time limit for part of the journey. And ultimately, the reward isn’t even worth the headache, as players should be able to defeat most of the enemies in the game with just the Master Sword at their disposal.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the Wii U and Switch features a large open world for Link to explore, with plenty of secrets to discover. Like most open world games, Breath of the Wild‘s open world is dotted with collectibles that players can find – in this case, Korok Seeds. Players have to collect a staggering 900 Korok Seeds in Breath of the Wild if they hope to find them all, and they don’t even get a worthwhile reward for doing so. For taking the time to hunt down every last Korok Seed, Breath of the Wild players get what is literally golden poop.
The gimmick in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is that the world is going to end in three days, and so Link has a very limited amount of time to do everything he needs to do to save the world. Luckily, Link can use the Ocarina of Time to travel back in time, in turn giving him another chance. While this gimmick has its merits, especially in regards to giving Majora’s Mask its signature creepy atmosphere, it does have some drawbacks. Notably, it makes many of the game’s side quests needlessly frustrating. And while players get to keep whatever rewards they get for completing the side quests, rewinding time still undoes whatever Link managed to change, which can leave players with a hollow feeling.
Some Zelda games have a bad habit of including repetitive tasks that seem to just be there to extend the playtime. One such example is the Silent Realms in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on the Wii. During these sections of the game, players have to stealthily make their way through an area and collect Sacred Tears. The Silent Realms have players retread ground that they have already covered, and that combined with the especially tough stealth mechanics can definitely jam up the game’s pacing. It will be interesting to see if Nintendo makes any changes to the Silent Realms if the Skyward Sword Switch port turns out to be real, similarly to the changes it made to Wind Waker‘s Triforce quest.
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Perhaps the most notoriously frustrating quest in all of The Legend of Zelda is the hunt for the Triforce shards in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. This rather tedious quest has players zipping all over the rather large game world, collecting charts, having them deciphered by Tingle, and then heading to the next location to repeat the process over and over again. In response to fan feedback about this quest, Nintendo shortened the Triforce Quest in the HD remake of Wind Waker that launched on Wii U, and the game is much better off as a result.
The Water Temple in Ocarina of Time was made infinitely more tolerable in the 3DS remake, which lets players swap items without having to sit in an inventory screen. However, it’s still a frustrating experience in the Nintendo 64 original, forcing players to open and close their inventory screen numerous times to equip and unequip the iron boots. If that weren’t enough, the Water Temple’s layout is generally confusing, and players also have to deal with a lot of backtracking.
When attempting to reach the Water Temple-equivalent in Majora’s Mask, players are tasked with collecting seven Zora eggs and returning them to a lab located off Great Bay Coast. However, there are a few factors that make this quest frustrating. For one, the eggs are located in the Pirate Fortress, which requires stealth or else players end up getting kicked out (unless they have the Stone Mask, anyway). For two, the eggs can only be carried in empty bottles, and collecting empty bottles in Majora’s Mask requires players to complete side quests. And three, players are under a time limit, and going back in time forces them to have to collect all seven eggs over again.
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