Zelda: Wind Waker

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Do you remember that moment during National Treasure where they find a clue that leads to another clue, which leads to another clue. Even the father said that it was just to keep them busy searching for a treasure that doesn't exist. That is how I felt playing The Wind Waker. Every moment I think I have finally reached the end, I receive another locked gate that requires another item. The Wind Waker was fun. I enjoyed it a lot. There are plenty of things to do and see. I may not have opened all the chests or obtained all the hearts, but I still managed to unlock enough content within the good 20 hours of gameplay I poured into it. The game had a nice wide-open world to explore.

There were a lot of issues with the game. In fact, you can tell from this comprehensive list of all the things they tried to fix in the HD re-release on the Wii U. I can tell you from playing the Gamecube version that a lot of them were desperately needed.

  1. Swift Sail makes it much more bearable to travel between islands by halfing the time it takes, removing the restriction of wind direction, and giving you an extra edge of not being knocked out of your boat over and over.
  2. The pictograph system was a mess. Before, you could only collect up to 3 at a time, not knowing whether they were valid until you turned them in, could only turn in 1 at a time, then had to play the day of passing song twice just to be able to turn in another. Now, you can take up to 12, turn in any number, and get a rating if it is a successful photo the moment it is taken. 
  3. The cap of 200 rupees at the start is raised to 500. 
  4. The time an enemy is invincibility is less and therefore lessens the likelihood of missing on the second swing. 
  5. You can alter your direction while swinging from a grappling hook. 
  6. Forest Water lasts 30 minutes instead of 20. 
  7. Hero Mode adds much needed difficulty to an already easy game 
  8. A lot of things like pulling up chests, playing a song, or reading texts were sped up. 
  9. Enemies that die at sea will now have their dropped items fly towards you.
The HD adds a ton of other things like higher resolution and lighting effects. What it doesn't do well is make collecting items any easier. Kotaku called the attempt to make the quest much easier as a "sore point." I guess they were expecting something a little more creative then sticking a few stones into chests (without gaining a treasure map first).

Now for my review. Even without all the needed changes, the game held up pretty well. The dungeons were cool, there were plenty of neat puzzle mechanics from all the items you get in the game, and the world was beautiful to look at. The cel shading, quirky animations, and characters was just enough to be considered different from other Zelda games but not enough to stray from its charm. The issue I had was the treasure hunting aspect of the game. The world is huge and my way of slowly exploring each island node wasn't working. Many of the clues left by the fish that help you out are introductory and sometimes required to know before making any heavy advancement in the game. This means you must visit each node immediately before exploring. Once you do that, you must keep track of what you did each node. Otherwise, you are going to forget which island needed which item you just found in one of the dungeons. Then comes the annoyance of revisiting each island after you get a treasure map. Most of the time you will only get a lump sum of rupees. Other times, which you can tell by how hard it was to obtain the map, will reward you a piece of heart. At least it records what map you visited. It isn't as generous when it comes to other aspects. Otherwise, the game isn't that difficult. I must have had 13 hearts by the end and I never had to use a fairy.

I'm also going to add that even though this game came out in 2002, I really wished they would have made the world a little bit more interesting. It felt awful knowing that people survived on these tiny little islands out in the middle of nowhere. I had a hard time fathoming where these people would even get the resources to survive. I also really wished the ending was a little different. I won't spoil it but it felt... cheap. The lore and connection to Ocarina of Time was gorgeous. Maybe I wanted a more glorious battle ending.

 

8-29-2016