>>11950185
This can't be emphasized enough. OoT came out and massively expanded the execution of the overall story of the series, giving everything a proper origin and ending on a beautiful melancholic climax that set up the other already existing games. It really succeeded at feeling incredibly epic, in a way few games could come close to. Like, did people forget how cool it was to see AoL establish the whole Triforce of three pieces, courage appearing as a mark on Link's hand, Ganon being resurrect-able, there being many generations of princess Zelda going back ages who can come into play etc. then eventually OoT coming up as a fully realized version of the LttP Imprisoning War which establishes Ganondorf as his own character with a past and history and has the fight against him become a coming of age story through multiple periods years apart that plays out due to his trickery taking advantage of Zelda's eagerness to do good.
People were, at this point, perfectly in the right to expect series of games that progressed and moved forward to allow the existing story to take place, but to also take advantage of it and do other things without stepping on it, to maintain the sense of a cohesive legend. This is why people were perfectly justified in wanting a set timeline established, to prevent someone like Aonuma from just waltzing in and messing around with what had already been done well. Now everything is a bloody mess and there's barely anything to be helped anymore.
