Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is EXTREMELY overrated

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It is conceptualized to be quite overrated, but I honestly don't really care anyhow. I like the games, but just as anything else that I enjoy: I don't obsess over them.

I could never get into OoT when the N64 came out in 1996 (at which time I was 12 years old). I liked Mario 64 and Star Fox 64, though.

At the time, my favorite Zelda games remained LttP and Link's Awakening, and yes I do remember how the latter was a lot more melancholy than other Zelda games. Recently, I enjoyed and beat Phantom Hourglass (which had really good gameplay, some of which was pretty interesting and even novel for the series).

I sorta parted ways with Nintendo around the late 90s, as I switched to PSP to play Final Fantasy on. (I started playing Final Fantasy at age 7 or so, starting with the game that had the U.S. title of Final Fantasy II, actually the fourth installment of the series.)

In terms of story, I do think LttP had a fairly interesting story; the whole Darth Sidious thing in the Star Wars prequels would actually end up being fairly similar. Basically, what happens is that many sought the entrance to the Golden Land so they could acquire the Triforce, but only a band of thieves who had Ganon as either the leader or a member was able to make it that far and Ganon killed a whole bunch of other thieves to get a hand on the Triforce, a wish-granting device. Under Ganon's newfound power, the Golden Land was corrupted into the Dark World, a kind of twisted mirror image of Hyrule, or the Light World. Ganon created a dark army and tried to conquer Hyrule with it, but the Hylian knights managed to keep them at bay long enough for the Seven Wise Men to seal Ganon in the Dark World.

Then Hyrule after a number of years got hit with plagues, drought, and famine. A mysterious Wizard named Agahnim appears and seems to solve all the problems, causing the King of Hyrule to appoint him as chief advisor. Working from within Hyrule Castle, Agahnim slowly corrupts the Kingdom. The soldiers within the Castle fall under Agahnim's control, with the soldiers on the walls of the Castle and outside of it wondering how much longer they're going to last before they too fall under Agahnim's control. Agahnim eliminates the King and prepares to send 7 maidens, descendents of the Seven Wise Men, into the Dark World to free Ganon.

At the beginning of the game, Princess Zelda communicates by telepathy to Link and Link's uncle saying that she has been imprisoned in her own Castle. As Link, you must rescue her and then take a secret passage to the Sanctuary. Unfortunately for Link, after he rescues Zelda, he is made a wanted man for "Kidnapping the Princess." The Hyrule Castle soldiers are now on the lookout for Link and they become a very frequent enemy in that game.

On gameplay, the Hyrule (or Light World) <-> Dark World dynamic was interesting. The two worlds were not completely symmetrical and slight differences between the worlds are exploited to get to otherwise unreachable areas. You need the Moon Pearl from the Tower of Hera dungeon so as not to turn into a pink bunny rabbit when you enter the Dark World (the bunny form also prevents you from wielding your equipment). The Magic Mirror can be used to jump from just about any spot on the Dark World world map back to the corresponding spot in Hyrule. Going from Hyrule to the Dark World, however, is a bit more difficult. You need to access one of (I believe eight) magic portals to enter the Dark World. Another way of going to the Dark World only works if you've already gone and come back since loading the game; basically, you can reenter the Dark World from where you leave off when you exit it. Another way is used only once when Agahnim teleports you directly to the Dark World; a related method is moving through Hyrule Castle's front gate after beating Agahnim for the first time, which also teleports you to the Dark World.

I still need to beat that one, and Spirit Tracks. It seems like a cool enough game (though the graphics look a little cheap in places), but the awful controls always throw me off...and the d-pad control AR codes are alright, but a little wonky sometimes.

I think I left off on the Goron island where you have to memorize facts about the island...which doesn't help because it's been so long, I don't remember a thing =)

Awful controls on the Phantom Hourglass? If I recall correctly, I just used a touch pen on the touch screen of my DS. I was able to adjust to it pretty well.

Yeah, I didn't like being forced to use the stylus, they should have made it optional like in Animal Crossing and Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland. I have trouble keeping my eyes on the action when my hand is covering up half the screen.

I still haven't played the DS Zeldas, and frankly I hate the idea of using the touchscreen to control everything. If I were to play them, should I try the touchscreen controls the first time around, or get an Action Replay and use the dpad codes?

Try it. When I played it, it was the first time using touchscreen for me and I got it pretty easily. What's really cool is the way you can draw the boomerang's path before you throw it.

Nevertheless, I think I stuck with using the dpad for FF4 DS.