Zelda-like games.

[Xeogred]

Darksiders, it's Ocarina Of Time on Steroids

Complete with brain-damaging side effects... Darksiders' puzzles were all super basic.

Yeah, I couldn't get into it at all honestly.

[ethinethin]

Brave Fencer Musashi (ps1) and Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (n64) are some action RPG's which should be appreciated by fans of Zelda gameplay. They're not exactly like Zelda, but they are similar, and definitely fun games.

[Hazerd]

Darksiders, it's Ocarina Of Time on Steroids

Complete with brain-damaging side effects... Darksiders' puzzles were all super basic.

Yes... and Zelda games have hard puzzles right?

[jfrost]

The second Higemaru game for the Famicom and maybe Goof Troop for the SNES.

Screenshots courtesy of HG101:

Higemaru Makaijima (or Makai Island, as it was going to be released in America):



The English-translated prototype was released a while ago.

Goof Troop:

[Yancakes]

I will second Elemental Gimmick Gear. Absolutely fantastic game.

also

On the PC there is Dink Smallwood, pretty decent game that is probably not very well known to the console players.

no

It's not very well known to console players, it's also not very well known to PC gamers. Because it's a silly, terrible game. It took about three months to go abandonware after it was released.

[Ivo]

also

On the PC there is Dink Smallwood, pretty decent game that is probably not very well known to the console players.

no

It's not very well known to console players, it's also not very well known to PC gamers. Because it's a silly, terrible game. It took about three months to go abandonware after it was released.

It IS silly, but I liked it enough to play through it and even check some of the user-created "DinkMODs" (only a few of *those* aren't terrible though).

It was made freeware (not abandonware) in 1999. For a free game I think it is certainly worth trying it out - apparently you didn't like it. I liked it enough to remember suggesting it on this thread.
Also, I think it fairly well known to PC gamers of that time period - there are even some in-jokes in other games (Baldur's Gate for example).

Ivo.

[sabrage]

Darksiders, it's Ocarina Of Time on Steroids

Complete with brain-damaging side effects... Darksiders' puzzles were all super basic.

Yes... and Zelda games have hard puzzles right?

I printed out pages and pages of walkthroughs for the Oracle games. I was also like 11, but those games were much more difficult than Darksiders.

[Anapan]

For the closest to a classic zelda experience, using the original engines or clones of them can get pretty close to an official game.
There's tons of rom hacks of Zelda games.

Then there's Zelda Classic - it has been ported to several systems (Pandora, Wii and GP2X!). It's a fully customizable cone of the Zelda engine with hundreds of user-made quests. Open Zelda appears to be similar.

Zelda - Return of the Hylian is a homebrew sequel to LttP for many systems (PSP too).

A homebrew called Anguna for GBA & DS is pretty zelda-like.

Stretching my brain (and using google) to remember the names of all these, but here goes:
NGC - Star Fox Adventures
PS1 - Threads of Fate
PS2 - The Hobbit, Radiata Stories, Dual Hearts, Legend of Kay, Shining Tears
Xbox360 - Kameo: Elements of Power
NDS - Lunar Knights
Iphone & Android - Chronicles of Inotia series.
Computers - Spiral Knights

[GigaPepsiMan]

Star Fox adventures and Beyond Good and Evil are the obvious ones for me.

[KDub]

Golvellius is another good one


Switches views through each area and even looks more like StarTropics and Zelda II for some spots but the majority of it has that classic Zelda feel. It was on MSX and MSX2 and got a iPhone port recently but probably the best is the Master System port is and it is easy to find.