Pros: | Cons: |
Charming cartoony graphics | Sparsely designed ocean |
Amazing music and themes | Short and easy quest |
Epic story, huge game world | Tedious sailing and Triforce shard quest |
Amazing Zelda gameplay |
When you play a video game, you look for artistic qualities such as the game’s visuals, music, creativity, and story, as well as the game’s gameplay including the length, difficulty, design, and quality. These aspects together create something that should be one thing: Fun. Any game that is fun is surely one worth playing, and if you’re looking for a fun game, there’s hardly a better place to start than “The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker”.
Whereas most Nintendo games are geared more towards the gameplay, Wind Waker is the exact opposite. The artistic qualities of this game are absolutely stunning. By far the most unique aspect of the game is the game’s charming cartoony visuals which range from character models, to the many inhabited islands, all the way to the ocean itself. The art style presented in this game is amazingly detailed and unique, and easily one of the best selling points for the game. Everything has amazing detail too, buildings, fields, rocks… you name it! All the texture designs are smooth and highly detailed, even more so than successor Twilight Princess. The only complaint about the game’s perfected visuals is that the Great Sea is often extremely sparsely populated and barren. Perhaps some rocks could jet out of the sea in more areas, or maybe harmless sea life could swim by. But this is such a minor complaint that it doesn’t even damage the perfect “10” score I give the game’s graphics. Stunning. Gorgeous. Unsurpassed.
Similar in style to the graphics, the audio in the game sounds cartoony, tropical, cheesy, but yet still amazing and stunning all the same. The sound effects are good, and thankfully Link’s yelling isn’t as annoying as in Ocarina of Time, but these things aren’t what makes the game’s audio so downright amazing. The outstanding music and themes are beautiful to listen to and some themes are some of the best in the franchise. (Dragon Roost Island, Wind Waker Title Theme, etc.) Sure there are some flaws here and there, but most of the music is perfectly combined with the game’s charming graphics to set mood and feeling into dungeons and cut-scenes, which helps make the amazing story even better.
To round off my praising of Wind Waker’s constant beauty is a look at the story. The story line in The Wind Waker is by far the best story in the franchise. Yes, I love Ocarina of Time’s story, and yes, Twilight Princess’ cut-scenes were amazing, but Wind Waker had so many gasp worthy moments and twists and turns that constantly surprised the gamer. I mean c’mon, Tetra is actually Zelda? Priceless. Link is the Hero of Time? Well, I think everyone knew that one. But besides the epic story the game also includes tons of cool sidequests on nearly every island in the game, some with their own story packaged in. (see Private Oasis) Plus, the ending reveal in the game is worthy of a lot of praise, so enjoy it, it’s awesome, it’s epic, it’s The Legend of Zelda.
I probably sound repetitive because I have said this in every Zelda review so far, and I’ll more than likely keep saying it; the usual dungeon solving, overworld exploring, enemy fighting, princess saving, evil stopping, and adventuring around Hyrule is as fun now as it always has been, and even more so with the introduction of a few new items and gameplay elements. Every last dungeon is well designed, and all of the boss fights are well done and much better than in some other Zelda titles. The one major problem with the gameplay is definitely a major down point, and honestly the only thing keeping this game from a perfect 10 overall, and that would be the tedious sailing and Triforce hunt. The sailing itself can last a very long time especially without the help of cyclones which can warp you around the ocean. And besides this, the sailing is usually unengaging and extremely dull, and the Triforce Hunt in the latter half of the game takes an extremely long time, and is mainly repetition and rupee gathering thanks to Tingle (we all love that guy!). But what works in the game is pretty much everything else, I do wish that the islands were closer together, and maybe a Wind Waker 2 (please, please, please!) would solve these problems, but the moment you reach your destination all problems go away. I will admit there are a few other issues with the gameplay, but they are extremely miniscule, the first is that the game is not quite as difficult as other game’s in the franchise, but at the same time it’s a lot more fun to play. Also I kind of hate the Forsaken Fortress because it’s just a giant fort with similar looking hallways and I can’t ever find how to get to the top, plus you have to go there like three times, and it’s just really tedious and dull. Besides this, I also wish that enemies would respond better to Link’s stabbing and slashing them with his sword, as half the time it goes right through them and it seems they have an invulnerability moment where nothing hurts them. Once again these are minor issues but it would’ve been nice if they had been fixed before the game released. But don’t let my list of cons make you think the game is bad, trust me, I have many more pros I could list but I just don’t have the time.
If my last paragraph gave you headaches, I’ll be concise and to the point here. The amount of gameplay in Wind Waker isn’t very much. The main quest is the shortest in a 3-D Zelda adventure, and leaves you wanting more. It’d be nice if the game had about double the 6 or so dungeons, and you spend half the game looking for the Triforce of Courage (see gameplay) which is extremely tedious. The game world is massive however and there is tons to explore which should keep you busy for quite some time.
“The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker” is one of the best games you’ll ever play, and it’s artistic qualities are absolutely unsurpassed even eight years later. The visuals, music, and story are worth buying the game by themselves, so just consider the short and easy quest a bonus, even if it is sometimes tedious thanks to the sailing and Triforce hunt. Wind Waker is certainly one of the best modern Zelda games, and one of the greatest GameCube games to grace the purple lunchbox. It will always remain dear in my heart and to many others as well, it’s a fan game, so get to it and save the land of Hyrule once again, even if it is underwater.
Graphics: Charming art style, highly detailed textures, amazing visuals, ocean is barren 10.0 |
Audio: Good sound effects and little voice acting, amazing tropical themes and music 10.0 |
Story: The best story in the franchise, awesome reveals, twists, and turns, great ending 10.0 |
Gameplay: Awesome new items and dungeons, tedious sailing and Triforce quests 9.5 |
Gameplay Amount: Huge overworld to explore but a small main quest 9.5 |
Overall: Unbeatable story, visuals, music, but with a short quest and tedious gameplay, nonetheless, an amazingly crafted and developed title, absolutely stunning 9.5 |
SIDENOTE: Yes, this is my highest review score yet tied with Ocarina of Time 3D, and no I’m not saying this game is as good as Ocarina of Time, because it’s not. I gave it this score because I didn’t want to give it anything higher than OoT, but I wanted to give it at least a 9.5 because it is awesome. Overall, I think that OoT 3D deserves better than a 9.5, and I may do a re-review within the next few weeks to change the score a little bit. So overall, Wind Waker gets a 9.5, and Ocarina of Time 3D gets around a 9.6 or 9.7. The original Ocarina of Time would probably place at about a 9.8 because it was the original despite its lack of 3D graphics.
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