The Legend of Zelda is 28 years old with many titles in the franchise, but it wasn't until recently when Nintendo officially ties every (canon) title into a single split timeline.
The Zelda franchise has been beloved since day 1 and by god anyone who criticizes this thing is usually burned to the stake by the "hardcore" Zelda fans, but why?
Has The Legend of Zelda gotten stupid? Has Nintendo made some major flaws to hinder the enjoyment of the series? No, but it has gotten really stupid when trying to tie it all together. I'm going to share some reasons why LoZ has gotten pretty silly over the years...
15 generations of Zelda, This one became obvious as Ocarina of time points to Twilight Princess, 100 years in between each other leaving rough 2 to 3 generations in between, you get Grand-daughter Zelda who looks completely identical to her Grandmother except a Brunette and has pretty much all of the same traits, I know the Repetition is a regular thing with Nintendo but come on! when all you hear about this "royal family" is a line of Zelda's who all look alike and occasional nameless Kings, you can't help to think it's getting idiotic, a simple solution is have a few Queen Marys and Prince Johns to expose a larger family so the whole Zelda thing could be seen as Tradition, also would it kill anyone to make these Zeldas look more apart from each other? Skyward Sword did this with a Genuine feel and Fleshed out it's Zelda to make her unique from the others.
The Legend of Zelda should have stayed as a Legend, not a chronicle. To me, this franchise is still much more digestible in the point of view that the player is being told a story, a Legend of a Hero who saves the land, as time passes the player hears more stories from different people on to what happens next. A multiverse approach is also a more technical, more accurate term. Having a single timeline just seems stupid when given that Link 1's adventure had more beneficial items than Link 2, why settle for a master sword when you can get the job done much quicker with the four-sword? it raises the question of who keeps setting up all these dungeons and putting the Master Sword back? Does every Link have a duty to put everything back after every adventure?
The Strongest reason on to how this franchise has gone at least a little bonkers... The Fan-base, oh God the fan-base is cancer!
When a new game releases, They usually buy it on impluse, and the majority argues how it's never as good as Ocarina of Time which is better than sex apparently.
When a fanboy "versus" happens, Link is always decked out with every piece of equipment from every title as if all Links became one, Death-Battle shared some of that.
It's the mixture of overly defending the Franchise while simultaneously bitching about how not perfect it is just so they can say it's perfect later on (Wind Waker).
28 years later, has Nintendo be tarnishing this franchise? Honestly, I won't matter really, Nintendo is neither going to stop making the games nor experiment with the series to a further extent. I love/hate the series as some games I absolutely love and some I find reasons to dislike them, but would it really kill Nintendo to make something new and non-gimmicky happen to the franchise? a Change of Setting, Time Period, Role reversal, or even a game that doesn't feel like you've already done this a few hundred times?