One of my absolute favorite games ever. However, going back to the original without the changes present in HD can be painful sometimes. Despite these pains and the possibility of great improvement, its pros certainly outweigh many of its cons. Although I must admit I have a large, sentimental, and positive bias towards this game. So take what I say with a grain of salt.

Pros
- One of the best aesthetic presentations in a Zelda game to date. The graphics and art style still look great over two decades later. The musical score and sound effects are all fantastic, and the set pieces for bosses and cutscenes are usually outstanding.
-An excellent story the actively builds upon the lore setup by OoT while setting up something unique for the future. One of the best conclusions to any game I have ever played.
-Incredibly cool characters to support it. The two sages, Tetra, boat king, and especially Ganondorf all contribute to the incredible feel of the game. Side characters can be great too, such as Salvador, Tingle, and of course Grandma.
-Solid controls and gameplay, with some incredible item usage through grapple hook, a faster boomerang, etc. The Deku leaf alone is stupidly fun. There is a reason gliders were brought back in some form for many games after.
-Some really solid dungeon designs with neat themes. Each one feels unique and most feel well designed.
Cons
-Especially for new players, the game can have horrible pacing issues. The beginning feels like a longer slog than it actually is, blind Triforce charts take an absolute eternity, and going for 100% will take an extraordinary amount of travel time. This congests the middle and end of the game, making a slog.
-Some minigames are really poorly designed. Splish Kaboom is maddening without the help of the fanmade calculator, sword training heart piece is pure tedium, blind trading quest is incredibly boring, etc.
-For a game with 3 (or 4 if you include forest haven) major population centers, the meaningful content feels unfairly distributed between them. Dragonroost island really only has one meaningful non-story quest and its just the mail minigame, Forest Haven has statue collecting (actual hell with GCN version limitations), Outset has a tedious minigame and slowly moving a pig for a heart piece. There could be so much more.
- Given how many islands offer repetition or next to nothing, you could shrink the number by a decent number without negatively impacting the game.
-Lack of QoL features . Sail and Windwaker are a given when using the boat, which has two unbound d-pad keys. Why not use those so you can free up more item slots? Why do we have to watch the song cutscene every single time? What is even the point of paying a small fortune for all 8 triforce charts? Why is the Pictobox limited to only 3 photographs? The remaster of this game certainly adds needed QoL changes.
- A decent chunk of the game was apparently cut in favor of a rushed development, which just sucks in general.

Played through the GCN Gems Collection
While not a terrible entry, it definitely has it's quality overblown due to a history of scarcity and poor access.
Some levels are fun while many others are unremarkable.
Soundtrack is great, but the sound effects are horrible.
Neat to play for the novelty, but I would rather play any of the genesis games. However, these may be due to the quality of the emulation on the GCN.