The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

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<img src=“http://www.rpgclassics.com/staff/tenchimaru/td.gif”> Well, I finished Wind Waker, obviously (only 5 days, damn), so here’s my little min-review. Pardon the spacing, my spacebar is having issues.

So yeah, Graphics. I have to say, the Cel-shading is awesome. Not neccesarily because it looks nice, but it really helps to convey emotions from the characters. Like all the faces Link makes, the way people look at you, etc. All in all, it’s a huge improvement over “normal” graphics, this fits the Zelda universe much better.

The story. On one hand, I like the general feeling of the story (the game is more story driven, you don’t just randomly clear out temples anymore, you actually get harassed into clearing them out :P), but on the other hand I don’t really like how parts of the story were presented. Like the whole mysterious boat decides to save Link bit and other seemingly random events. I also don’t like how un-epic (yay, new word) it gets near the end. I mean, fishing for Triforce parts? The hell? This could have easily been dragged out into a few dungeons, instead of a cave here and there to get the treasure charts. The ending was also kinda meh, it mostly left me with a " …ok, now what?" feeling. Didn’t really give me a sense of closure. I think they’re on the right track with the general use and feel of the story, but it really needed some more finetuning.

Now then, the gameplay. First off, I really love the fighting. The Attack of Opportunity system is interesting, and some enemies can actually be hard (like those armoured dogs later on, fun when they gang up on you.) Secondly, I really don’t like the boat parts. It just takes too long, although it’s a very nice idea. If they’ll cut down the distances and increase the speed of the boat in a sequal, I think they’ll remove a LOT of frustration from the game. Also, I personally found Wind Waker to be a nice bit harder than previous Zelda games, but maybe I’m just getting rusty. The whole game is kinda short, but there are a ton of sidequests, and I’m fairly certain I haven’t finished them all.

So uh, yeah, that’s it. All in all, I liked WW, but there’s a lot of room for improvement. And uh, quick question. The New Game+ option you get when you finish t he game… what the hell does it do? It just appears to have reset my save o_O

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I agree. I thought the cel-shading would be weird, but after a while I just plain forgot it was there.

But they could have made it a lot better. The return of the old ‘Hyrule and Ganon’ storyline was cool, but they botched it with the Triumph Forks fishing and the huge ocean.

The New Game+ gives you a new costume; the clothes you start off in. You also start with the Deluxe Pictograph. That’s it. You get nothing for doing it again either. What a gyp…

How about for the next one they return to a land-based game, but give you a glider/flying thingy or something? that would be cool.

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There’s one more thing New Game+ does.

It lets you understand Hylian. Not that this amounts to much… And you carry over anything in the Nintendo Gallery from your last game.

The best part of the game is the Final Battle. It reeks of kick-assitude.

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<img src=“http://www.rpgclassics.com/staff/tenchimaru/td.gif” > Yeah, the final battle was awesome. Zelda shot me though. TWICE.

Tuh, knew I forgot something. Must stop posting after 1 AM…

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Uh, spoiler marking please!

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I suppose I should finish it one of these days. That’d make it one of the very few things I have finished.

I like the graphics, they’re more alive and breating than the old ones. Not that we can really compare the graphics in a game on the N64 and the graphics in one on the GameCube.

The only thing I really didn’t like was that bloody ocean and that bloody boat. But that is what you get when everyone wants large worlds: We’d have seen much of the same had they replaced the ocean with land.

I suck at fighting. I’m too impatient and imprecise, I always end up hitting the wrong button, or hitting the right one too late.

A nice game all around.

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I disliked it, due to the unepicness of it primarily. The kicker was when the game crashed on the second boss. I just stopped playing there. Real dissappointment, OoT was just excellent.

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Ooh, I haven’t finished the game yet. :too bad;

I guess I should. :smiley: But, yeah. I’ll try to. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Take away the vast ocean and long long long long long long long long long long long long long long etc. ocean travel and the game is pretty cool. The dungeons are so much more alive, the story is intriguing, but there isn’t enough traditional Zelda stuff that we are sued to and all love. However, get rid of that damn ocean, or at least shrink it and the game would have been pretty cool. The part where you meet the King of Hyrule as the Red Dragon is completely awesome and makes the game really work for me. It makes all my quibbles fo the plot and setting fine.

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I never finished the game. It just ceased to hold me captive like other Zelda titles did. The game just felt blah…

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I completed it only because it is a Zelda game. If it hadn’t been I wouldn’t have gone past the first boss.

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Great, now you gotta complete your nintendo gallery. Presuming you didn’t of course.

Did you learn all the music you can conduct as well?

And find all the treasure?

Me neither. I tried though…

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There are only like, 5 or 6 songs. A few of them have no purpose as far as I could tell…like the day to night song. What the hell is that for?

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Its useful on windfall, you can only auction at night, and trade during the day.

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Originally posted by Sorcerer
What the hell is that for?

<img src=“http://www.rpgclassics.com/staff/tenchimaru/td.gif”> Pissing off Elvis, obviously.

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A couple of things. It speeds up the passing of time, and you don’t have to wait till nightfall to access the auction and other night only events.

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WW was… okay for the most part. I’m not a big fan of cellshading, but it did look alright for it. I might finish the game… one day. It was just disappointing when it revealed that Ganon was the ‘big bad guy’ <i>again</i>. Though I did like that dragon rooster island place. But the conductor… took me a good long time to figure that stupid thing out.

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Originally posted by Reno
WW was… okay for the most part. I’m not a big fan of cellshading, but it did look alright for it. I might finish the game… one day. It was just disappointing when it revealed that Ganon was the ‘big bad guy’ <i>again</i>. Though I did like that dragon rooster island place. But the conductor… took me a good long time to figure that stupid thing out.

It’s a Zelda game. What’d you expect? Mario as the villain? He’s either been the main villain or appeared in nearly all the Zelda games. He’s a main stay of the series, it’s like the Mario series. Of all the Mario games Bower has been the main villain in all but 2 or 3 and there have been a lot of mario games. The same goes for Zelda. Ganon is the eternal enemy of the Zelda series.

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Originally posted by Zombie_Ori
It’s a Zelda game. What’d you expect? Mario as the villain? He’s either been the main villain or appeared in nearly all the Zelda games. He’s a main stay of the series, it’s like the Mario series. Of all the Mario games Bower has been the main villain in all but 2 or 3 and there have been a lot of mario games. The same goes for Zelda. Ganon is the eternal enemy of the Zelda series.

My point exactly. He’s in almost <i>every</i> one. I just think it would be interesting to see a new ganon-less Zelda game. Something different. The series has become something akin to telling the same story over and over again, except in different ways.

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I actually liked it that Ganon was the enemy. Besides, you have to think about how crazy fans would go if Ganon wasn’t the enemy. Look at how much of an up roar the cell-shading caused and that doesn’t even affect anything but cosmetics. Everyone wants the main Zelda saga to continue, which means that Ganon has to be the main baddy. Heck, Majora’s mask alreayd got some back kick for not having Ganon since it was a console one and main story without Ganon.