Thanks for the kind words, Jason. I appreciate that.
Also, I feel the same way about gameplay throughout some stuff within the franchise even as a relatively late entrant into the series as a whole. The N64 and Wii/Gamecube stuff doesn't have today's state of the art graphics and other bells and whistles to that end, and the remakes provide but a few tweaks here and there. But when all the other facets of gameplay are so enthralling (even from the outside looking in, like re-playing with the perspective of now vs a kid who just got an N64 at the time) said graphics tend to take a backseat. And that's fine by me.