Basically the Zelda series went to shit incredibly quickly. Link to the Past was designed from the start to pander to casuals and it really shows. There are some more experimental games after it, Link's Awakening is like "a parody of Zelda" in the words of someone who worked on it, and Majora's Mask is somewhat fatalistic. Both of those have great influence from Yoshiaki Koizumi, who also helped develop Z-targeting in Ocarina of Time and for some reason has been exiled to the Mario franchise. Aside from those, the Oracle games on GBC are considered the best, made back when Capcom hadn't degraded as much as it has today. Minish Cap is less good but it's alright by Zelda standards. The first Zelda is a must play, and Zelda II is alright if you don't mind it being an entirely different game. Ironically for how much everyone here shits on BotW it actually has a lot of good concepts and mechanics, but much like Wind Waker before it, it lacks actual content and the DLC doesn't really help. Pirate BotW if you want to fuck around with it, but you're better of waiting for a game with actual content coming out.