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Was kinda hard to tell if you were talking about Four Swords or Four Swords Adventure.

I assume the latter since you talked about story where the former doesnt really have as much. (I'd even put GBA FS dead last despite having fun with the game).

Zelda II for me moves up a bit higher. Regardless of how it's played I enjoyed it. The sidescrolling aspect was pretty fun with a simple but easy combat system that gets better once you utilize the full potential of it (ik that sounds crazy but there are techniques to make the combat smoother for players). It introduced possibly some of the best aspects of later entries such as towns, magic meter, magic, villages and villagers, actual fetch questing, new sword techniques, the full triforce, dark link, a backstory of the past etc.

While everyone has their own opinion on the matter I do feel Zelda II gets too much unnecessary hate but thats just me.

Uzumaki Yeah but the chunin exams saved the story and increased its popularity. It was a necessary evil at the cost of sacrificing any potential world building at the time.