zelda is indeed one of the best series' ever. i have to agree with chelfelf and zelda 2 is a crap game, i played for about 30 mins then couldn't bring myself to carry on, but one day i shall carry on playing it. i have played all of the other games, my favourite being ocarina of time. this game was truly a masterpiece, it is one of my favourite games ever made, and easily the best zelda game to date.
wind waker was also very good, a very close second, the graphics did not bother me, i found it very oot-style which i enjoyed, however anyone who has completed it will agree that searching for the 8 shards was a shit and boring part of the game. i also found this game rather depressing (not disappointing, just very sad) after finding out the plot, a few may agree with me on this. overall close second.
majoras mask was good, but not as good as the other two 3d zeldas though. i think they just tried to stop people getting bored by giving them the same as oot, but hell if it was exactly the same as oot i would have played it anyway. the 3 day system was a bitch, and failure to hurry would result in repeating like 2 hours of gameplay, though the song of time doubling the length was very helpful after i discovered it.
the capcom gameboy games were okay, but in my opinion (no flaming) didn't have much of a zelda feel to them, probably because they were not set in hyrule, i also remember them being ridiculously difficult, but that was years ago. overall not bad, but not as good as the nintendo first party ones.
i will never forget riding across hyrule field (old hyrule) on epona, the size of hyrule field gave a great experience, and is one i shall never forget. infact if someone asked me my favourite game ever i would either choose half-life or ocarina of time.
the only reason why i am keeping my gamecube is for windwaker/oot port, and the new zelda game (i'm an xbox man now due to the modding), i was very excited when i woke up the day after the e3 conference and say 'The Legend Of Zelda' trailer on the internet, this was breathtaking and will make the series even better than it already is, (not because of the graphics, as i said earlier visual presentation has no effect in a zelda game, even 2d ones have the potential to be better than 3d ones), and i am surely going to buy it the very day it comes out, even if i have no money, i will find a way.
so in response to the topic, yes best-series-ever. im sorry for rambling on but it is a chat forum and im just sat here waiting for something to finish burning so its better to do something constructive, i realise my grammar hasn't been as good as it normally is but im typing this quite fast as i think it and not really putting sentences together well. see im doing it again.........