Nintendo

Ocarina of Time actually has a rich combat move set. You can horizontal slash, vertical slash, thrust, jump slash, spin slash, jump to the side and backflip. Essentially none of that is ever called for.

Very minor enemies are always vulnerable and you can hurt them however whenever. Some moderate enemies are only weak to certain other weapons. Major enemies, to a fault, are completely damage proof until they make an opening by attacking, and then you can damage them however. Wait for the Wolfos, Lizalfos, Dinalfos, Stalfos, Iron Knuckle, at least a couple others, to attack, they'll have some cooldown animation during which you can attack them. Bosses, from Ghoma to Ganon, require fending off their attacks, stunning with a special weapon, and then slashing with the sword.

In the words of Egoraptor, "There's so much. Goddamn waiting. In Ocarina."

They had ideas they couldn't realize for another decade and a half in 1998. They only realized an actual organic combat system in Breath of the Wild.

Zelda II, the problem with Adventure of Link is it's unfair. They place enemies in such a way that you'll go to make a jump, you'll get hit by an enemy you couldn't see, and fall down a death pit while stun-locked. You don't really beat it by getting good at it, you beat it by memorizing all the bullshit.

Idk if I'd call Link to the Past a step backwards outright just because it returned to a formula that more fans, at the time, preferred. It also pushed a lot of new things and introduced a lot of series staples. But I get why, when looking solely at the formula it seems like regressing. It just turns out that the formula had the perfect ratios of everything the second time around.