If you know rpg maker games i can preffer you hell gates one here hell gates 1
I haven't played the first one yet,it's without words and can be played by anyone and is zelda like even though i haven't played any actual zelda games.Heard that it's very addictive.
Otherwise i did play hell gates 2 valadurs erbe and it's a real treat and superb addictive game.
Though it's only in german language the 2nd game.
And also you will probably need to download a run time package for rpg maker 2000 to make it work i think.

Shovel Knight reminds me a lot of Zelda 2, which is very different from all the other Zeldas out there. So... Yeah, it is "Zelda-style", but not really Zelda-style :P

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La-Mulana. You find unique equipment and items like in Zelda, and there are many puzzles. It is a platforming game, but much better than Zelda II.

High Wang's review of La-Mulana

God of Thunder. And it's been released as freeware (you'll need DosBox or an old PC running DOS):

http://www.adeptsoftware.com/got/

Darnit!
It made me think of another game, at least I think it's another game.
I think it was made by one German dude, because when you got the sword early in the game it played an audio file that said something like "You got the sword of power!" with a thick German accent.
I tried Googling it, but I can't find it :(

Darksiders is Zelda with a dark twist. Really fun, but I'm not crazy about the combat. I still have to finish the second 1. Blood Omen (the entire Legacy of Kain series, even) is a GREAT analogy to Zelda, with the first 1 being much like early Zelda titles with it's top down perspective, and the latter ones being a lot like Darksiders, actually. Both series are great, and I'm really kind of sad we didn't see any more darksiders games beyond 1 and 2 since THQ went and died.

I think I've found the game I was thinking of, it's called 'Shadow of Power'.
It didn't immediately run through DOSBox for me though and I'm off to bed so I'm not 100% sure.
I am 99% sure though, so people can stop Googling ;)

you'll never stop people from googling, google owns everyone's souls
MWAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAhahhahahahahhahahahhhahhhahaa

There's Guardian of Paradise, which is a pretty good quality freeware Zelda-like:
http://www.reloaded.org/download/Guardian-Paradise/293/

I've struggled with the first Soul Reaver, too, and that's always kept me from trying the other games in the series even though I already own them ... Would you say it's okay to skip Soul Reaver and play Soul Reaver 2 instead?

If you PC can handle (and you aren't against emulators):

DEFINITELY.
DEFINITELY.
DEFINITELY.
D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y.

Play Okami on the PS2 emulator.

You won't regret it, I can guarantee it (well, you might still regret it, but you will be wrong u.u).

Soul Reaver 2 may begin directly after the end of Soul Reaver 1 (like, a second later), but the most important part of the backstory you need to know from the first one is in the intro movie of SR1, so you can skip it if you want to play a game with less frustration, I highly recommend the German voice acting though, which unfortunately is not available on GoG. If I remember correctly, Raziel is spoken by the German voice of Kevin Bacon and Kain by the one of Nicholas Cage in some of the games. Maybe there's a patch for those somewhere.

Even if you play it in reversed order, finishing Soul Reaver 1 later may be a good idea, since it's a really good game and just way more difficult and confusing than all the other games in the series.

PCSX2 can run Okami perfectly in widescreen HD even on my silent 2009 office machine.
It is like Zelda as a wolf yes. I've played it about 25 hours into the game and at some point got so annoyed with the tons of unskippable, slow and really bad dialogues, that I stopped and never managed to get into it again.
I'd have to start new now and even the thought of WAITING through all this horrible unskippable and unacceleratable dialogue puts me off and I've heard this from many people.
Too bad, because it's really not bad in many other aspects apart from this stupid post-processing blur.

Did you played on PS2 or on a PC? On a PC you can up the resolution to a level you can be comfortable with. But again, you PC have to be able to render it. Also, I've heard that the PS3 re-release is quite sharp aswell.

Yes, the unskippable dialogue can be a bit of a drag. And some bosses being reused also detracts from some battles aswell.

But I think that everything that it does right surpasses it's flaws. The world, the dungeons, the characters, the setting, the battle system, the art, the music, and the overall presentation. And as a totally not biased Zelda fan, I was blown away by how it captured everything that I liked in the series (even some of the flaws hehe).


Okami and BGaE are the best zelda-like games for me.

Defiance is the most accessible I'd say.