I'd really prefer to be an indie dev, so I can make what I want and work with people I like (and have better working hours), but I've been considering the pro developer scene a bit... mostly because I need a job, and making games is what I most want to do. However, even then, I'd like to be able to work on stuff that I'd at least be passionate about. To that end, I need some information, and I'm hoping that someone here might be able to provide it.

The question is this: Do you know of any developer in the United States that makes [GOOD] games similar in any way to the Zelda series?

I want to make Zelda-like action/adventure games (though obviously with changes that Nintendo should have already made). No doubt I wouldn't be prepared for any such job (don't ask me what, specifically, I would want to do) just yet, but I would like to contact someone on the development team and ask them what kind of education and skills I would need, so I can get to studying things that I didn't learn in college. Making small games of my own and/or modding existing ones is something I know I'll need to work on (and have no objections to!).

I might actually work best as a programmer, but I don't want to rule anything else out (except maybe art, but I'll be working on character modeling). For those who want to know, I have some slight experience with Visual Basic (don't remember any), Java (don't remember any, but have a textbook), Python (don't remember any, but have a textbook), JavaScript (just started, so far looks similar to C# except for type declarations and related syntax), C and C++ (remember a bit, giving myself a refresher as we speak), and C# (love it and know it much better than the others, but need a refresher). I'd love to master each of these languages just 'cuz, but I get the impression that C and C++ might be the most useful, followed by the Javas and C#. For my personal projects, I'm using the Unity Engine, which supports scripting in C#, JavaScript (which is how I know any JS at all), and Boo.