Matewis: As soon as I can scrape together the money for a wii u, I;m going to dive headlong into the Zelda series. Not sure I can call myself a true gamer not having played any in the series :P
Elmofongo: Zelda 1: The original Action RPG I call it. It aged quite better than most NES games.
A Link to the Past: Where All the Zelda cliches began.
Ocarina of Time: The big one. The game invokes a classic Fantasy old school D&D/Tokien feel while still being unique. It has its own unique races, (Gorons and Zoras) and Monsters. The 3DS version is the most up to date. But your not missing anything.
Majora's Mask: The absolute favorite among fans. And its also has the weirdness of Planescape Tormant, Morrowind, and Ultima 8.
Wind Waker:Hated at first by fans because of the art style, but than grew to love it going so far as to place their second fav Zelda behind Majora's Mask.
Twilight Princess: Underrated imo. Had great Setpieces and Memorable moments. Its the sequal that Ocarina of Time lovers wanted. In essences its a bigger Ocarina of Time. (With the original element of the Twilight World)
Now Skyward Sword: Most fans hated this game. They criticized the controls and what not. Personally they are just Rage Quitters. I beat this game and the controls are fine. It takes some getting used to at first. But I grew to Master it. Like I posted above the Sondtrack is great (In a series that already has iconic soundtracks) Its also the first Zelda with Challenging combat once you master the controls. Past Zelda's combat mostly felt too Easy. Link's Shield is too overpowered and Monsters barely put up a fight. IMO they should implement a Dark Souls like Stamina system.
I don't aggree with many of it (especcially Majora's Mask, which killed the whole timimg freedom with constant pressure only to establish the whole "Link's death" topic based on the Kübler Ross Model), but all this aside, I wonder why you left out all the handheld Zelda games,
Link's Awakening,
Oracle of Ages and
Oracle of Seasons are better than some of the console Zeldas and even
Minish Cap beats the other comic style Zeldas (Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Wind Waker) imho.
Matewis: The only Zelda game I played a little bit was 'A Link to the Past', but it was on an emulator and just didn't feel right (especially using a keyboard). 'Ocarina of Time' is the one I would really like to get to, but I'll try to finish the 'Zelda 1' and 'A Link to the Past' first.
USB gamepads aren't expensive, I highly recommend the Saitek p2600 if you want one for everything.