Pros: Classic Zelda tunes, colorful graphics, imaginative characters and locations. Dungeons and a lot more besides.
Cons: It's not as good as Ocarina Of Time
The Bottom Line: It's by far the best game I've played on my gamecube yet. Bold, colorful, imaginative and genuinely funny. Nintendo have done it again.
carl_lazarevic's Full Review: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for GameCube
Story Long ago, there existed a kingdom where a golden power lay hidden. One day, a man of great evil found this power and took it for himself, and with it at his command, he spread darkness across the kingdom. But then...just as all hope had died, a young boy clothed in green appeared as if from nowhere. Wielding a blade that repelled evil, he sealed the dark one away and gave the land light. This boy, who traveled through time to save the land, was known as the hero of time. This boy's tale was passed down through the generations until it became legend.
And then a day came when a fell wind began to blow across the kingdom, and the great evil once again crept forth from the depths of the earth. The people believed that the hero of time would come again to save them, but the hero did not appear...
What became of that kingdom...? None remain who know. The memory of the kingdom vanished, but it's legend survived on the wind's breath.
On a certain island, it became customary to garb young boys in green when they come of age. Clothed in the green of fields, they aspire to find heroic blades and cast evil down. The elders wish only for the youths to know courage like the hero of legend...
Hero Of Time Legend-as it appears in the games manual
Our story begins then on this island that we come to know as Outset island. A long time has passed since the legend was started and it's lost a lot of it's power over people. It's become nothing more than just another bedtime story parents tell to their children. There is no kingdom in the world, just vast oceans holding the occasional islands with them. Yet on Outset island people still dress their young boys in green when they come of age, not because they believe it will better their already peaceful world, but because it's a tradition. The day the story starts though a young boy has come of age, and guess what? His name is Link. (Or whatever you choose to name him.) Link is a young boy who lives with his grandmother and younger sister on Outset Island, but he has a tendency to fall asleep on the towns watchtower. That's what happened the day before his birthday, but in the morning he's woken up by his sisters calls. His sister, Arill, tells him that his grandmother needs to see him so he heads back to the house. His grandmother tells him that he has to wear the green clothes of the Hero of time, just for this one day of course. He hesitantly puts them on and then goes to find his sister again. She's waiting for him back at the Watchtower as she wants to give him his present. She's going to loan him her most cherished position, her telescope. Link greatfully accepts the telescope and begins to look out to sea, but suddenly in the sky a giant bird fly's over the horizon carrying a small blond girl. The bird is being chased by a pirate ship which eventually hits the bird forcing it to drop the girl into the dark woods behind the village.
Arill convinces Link that he must save the girl, but he can't enter the woods without a sword and shield to protect himself with. His first stop then is at the house of the sword master Orca. An adventurer who now lives on Outset Island with his intellectual brother and the only person on the island who owns a sword. He obviously isn't prepared to just hand over a sword to a young boy with no experience whatsoever so he trains Link to use the sword. Once he's happy that Link can handle himself he hands over a sword. (The poor girl in the woods must be very patient.) Link then returns home where he knows his families shield is kept, a shield rumored to be the same shield used by the hero of time himself. His grandmother, who is horrified to see Link with a sword, eventually let's him take the shield and he sets off to save the girl. He battles his way through the woods, fighting monsters he had never seen there before until he finds the girl. This girl is named Tetra and it turns out that she's the captain of the pirate ship, but she's also a right ungrateful cow. Link leaves the forest to be greeted at the bridge by a very happy Arill. Sadly the bird is still around and mistaking one little blond girl for another it swoops down and takes her. The postman, another big bird, witnesses this and tells Link that the same bird has been kidnapping blonde girls worldwide and taking them to the forbidden fortress. The pirates agree to take Link to the fortress to rescue his sister, but a few questions remain. Why is this bird kidnapping Blond girls? Can Link trust the pirates? What waits for him in the Forbidden Fortress, and why did this all have to happen on the day he put on the green clothes of The Hero Of Time?
Graphics
The cell shaded graphics used in The Wind waker have been the cause of so much controversy for poor Nintendo that it'll be a miracle if they ever try anything new again. Needless to say the controversy was inevitably made before the games release and most of the people who did complain have now been forced to eat their words. The game world looks absolutely amazing even with the cell shaded graphics. Grass blows in the wind, water ripples out and storms cause great waves to crash into boats. It really is like being inside a living cartoon world, and that cartoon nature is not as harmful as you might expect. The bosses are so detailed that they are still terrifying, but the cartoony graphics make them look even bigger and impossible to defeat than they did before. Unfortunately though I do find that the cartoon style of the graphics is ultimately detrimental to the story. I couldn't find myself nearly as involved with these characters as I did back in Ocarina Of Time, even when compared to the smaller characters. It fits in with the style of the game and it ultimately feels like a classic Zelda adventure, but it will never top what I consider to be the greatest game ever made.
Sound
There's not much to say about the sound at all. The new tunes lack the sheer amount of character as the tunes in Ocarina of time, but a large portion of the games soundtrack uses classic Ocarina tunes and when it does the nostalgic atmosphere is brilliant. Sadly there's no voice acting save for the occasional giggle or "Hey."
The Game
The gameplay in Wind waker is simply classic Zelda. You explore a vast world, interacting with a variety of unique characters and exploring deep, dark dungeons. The controls are exactly as you would remember them. Z targeting is still used in the battles so that those familiar with either of the N64 games don't need to worry about learning an all new system. For those of you unfamiliar with the previous games though I'll take a little time to explain what I mean by Z targeting. Basically Z Targeting is the ability to aim at your enemies and lock onto them. In the N64 games this was achieved by hitting the trigger button, or Z button (hence the name) and in the new game you can pull it off just as easily by hitting the left button on the back of the gamecube joypad. Z Targeting was and still remains the best battle system I have ever had the pleasure of using. It allows for some truly cinematic fights like those Ray Harryhausen used to bring to his movies. You can dodge, block, parry and attack with deceptive ease in what is really a complex battle system. Plus it allows you to fight multiple enemies without anything getting confusing as it usually does in every other 3D battle game like this, but the best, and trust me when I say best, advantage to Z Targeting is this. It allows a Role Playing Game to exist without the annoying turn based battle system that permeates nearly every other major RPG. If you want to know more about Z targeting then try some of the other games that have been influenced by Zelda such as Alundra, Kingdom Harts and Dark Cloud, all of which use this same battle system.
Thankfully though that's not the only area of the control system to make a reappearance. They've also kept the controls for use of items that worked so perfectly in the last games. You have 3 buttons on the joypad marked X, Y and Z that are kept free in order that you can assign one of your inventory items to it. This can be used for things as simple as potions and Elixirs, to more complex items such as a boomerang or a bow which can be powered up with the powers of fire and ice when holding an arrow. These items have gone through an improvement over the previous games though. The boomerang now behaves completely different to any boomerang I've ever witnessed in that you can target up to 6 enemies and it will hit them in order. Even when that means bouncing around the room, which comes in very handy against these swarms of little insects that slow you down later in the game. A completely new item is a proper grappling hook. The classic is still there to be found later on in the game, but this new one that you get at the beginning is a lot more fun. You can now swing over chasms to ledges that would have previously been inaccessible. Mind you the actual rope swinging is a little slow compared to the rest of the game, but when you finally get it just right it's incredibly satisfying.
Sadly though the improvements over the older games end there. It seems petty to complain about what's not quite as good as Ocarina but, with the waiting time I had to endure, I'm going to anyway. It's just that the games world is not as good. The ocean planet that the story takes place on is just that, an ocean planet and the result is that you have to endure long periods of sailing. This quickly becomes a chore as there is nothing to add any variety to these sections. You simply conduct a song using the Windwaker, a conductors baton with magical powers, to decide which direction the wind will blow in. Then you get the sails out on your ship and let nature take over. Fun can be had when sharks show up and you have to dodge their attacks, or when you get your bombs you can blow them out of the water which is much less fun, but sadly these moments are far to few to justify the long bouts of sailing. It's not only sharks that attack though as giant squids are everywhere. On the occasions when they attack then they can't be dodged, you simply have to destroy them which uses up most of your bombs and does tend to get very frustrating. Anyway, getting back on track, the main problem I have with the sailing is that there is never a change of scenery. Long oceans followed by longer oceans with the occasional small island. It hardly has the same resonance as crossing Hyrule field with Hyrule castle gradually getting bigger on the horizon.
Thankfully at the end of those long sections of watching Link sail there's a vast world to explore. The characters all have their own unique style's and personalities that ensure even small one line characters, and side quest characters are all memorable. A gang of little kids who challenge you to a game of hide and seek are probably the most memorable. The characters are really only useful for sending you off on the different quests which see you heading into the games action stages, or dungeons. These all meet the same basic pattern of making your way through a deep, dark, multi leveled dungeon. Solving logic puzzles in each room, and battling monsters until you reach a boss battle against a giant monster at the end. These levels are great, tense fun and work really well. The problem is that they're a little too short and there's not quite enough of them. The old "I want more" complaint is probably the oldest in the book, but there's no denying that the dungeons are not as deep or as dark as the dungeons in Ocarina Of Time. They're more than long enough to be pleasing but like I said, there's not enough of them. There's now only 2 sages to help and a portion in the middle of the game see's no dungeons at all, it's just one long set of treasure hunts on that huge ocean.
I don't want you to think I'm complaining though. Compared to Ocarina Of Time it's a disappointment but one look at the score reveals that it's still an excellent game in it's own right. It's by far the best game I've played on my gamecube yet. Bold, colorful, imaginative and genuinely funny. Nintendo have done it again.
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