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WW-Wii U Your Opinion

Big Octo

=^)
Joined
Jul 2, 2011
Location
The
Wind Waker is my personal favorite of all the games in the series. I loved just about everything about it, even the sailing. The music is stellar, and sets the perfect atmosphere in the areas it's played it. The combat is smooth, and introduced more advanced fighting techniques which would later be expanded upon in later entries. The dungeons were excellent, and I enjoyed every last bit of them. From here, you can probably assume I like everything about the game. Especially the art style, which I regard highly. Though I do see critiscm for this game often, I can cope with it. After all, it's opinion.
 

Twili123prince

"ZINGA-DINGDING"
Joined
Jul 13, 2008
Location
Canada.
I've always loved the Wind Waker but I agree that it has it's flaws and is not the greatest Zelda game by any means.

First of all I have to give it to the Wind Waker for it's sidequesting and amount of items to collect. I believe that any good Zelda game should have a decent amount of sidequesting to do. Wind Waker did this for me with simply one island of the game. Windfall Island still amazes me with the amount of sidequesting you'll do and heartpieces you'll find on that island alone. On top of that, we have the whole great sea with heartpieces and mini-games spread all over the place. This is one of the reasons why I love Wind Waker.

Wind Waker has an amazing, captivating story. I young boy on a journey doing whatever it takes to takes to save his sister and bring her back home. Along the way meeting many amazing, quirky characters and sailing the sea finding dungeons and different races. Wind Wakers story has so many amazing plot twists though that I did NOT see coming. I remember being amazed by the whole Tetra being Zelda thing and The King of Red Lions being the King of Hyrule. Unearthing the Tower of Gods and going underwater to see the ancient Hyrule Castle for the first time are two Zelda moments that I will always remember and cherish. You guys get what I mean. I think a lot of us can agree that Wind Waker has a great story.

I love Wind Waker for its killer gameplay. I don't know but for some reason taking down enemies in this game feels the GREATEST. I love the combat system of Wind Waker. Wind Waker also has a great variety of enemies. Darknuts are absolutely amazing in that game. Taking them down makes me feel like a total ninja everytime. On top of the amazing enemies on the ground it also has great enemies in the water. I remember the joys of fighting my first Big Octo :D

Now, the thing that makes a Zelda game for me, are the dungeons. This is where Wind Waker failed miserably. I don't like how Wind Waker's dungeons were like caves. That was just un appealing for me. Dragon Roost was literally a cave and Forest Haven was a Tree. I'm more of the traditional "Dungeon as a building" type guy. Tower of the Gods was great and the Wind Temple was awesome but the game just didn't have enough solid dungeons to satisfy my need. I'm really not a Forsaken Fortress fan either.

Wind Waker is by far the funniest and quirkiest Zelda game though. This is another reason why I LOVE The Wind Waker. I love it when a Zelda game can lighten up a little, or in this case, a whole lot.

On another negative note. The sailing in Wind Waker does get a little bit repetitive. I don't mean right away but slowly near the end of the game, right when the Triforce chart/piece quest pops up. By that point the sailing in the game feels tedious. That's one of the flaws of the games for me. I can understand if some people love that part of the game though. It's all personal preference.

Wind Waker is an amazing game and it will always be a game close to my heart and one of my favourite Zelda titles. There are a lot of other games better than it though, imo. Oh and on a sidenote, I'm a BIG fan of Wind Wakers graphics and I do not understand why some people hate them.
 
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T

Troubadour

Guest
I liked The Wind Waker, but I felt that the sailing was a chore, especially when you needed to change the direction of the wind. I had a couple hours of just sailing time in my first playthrough, and would have preferred better fast travel and another dungeon or two.
 

JuicieJ

SHOW ME YA MOVES!
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Location
On the midnight Spirit Train going anywhere
I definitely don't hate The Wind Waker, and it's definitely not at the bottom of my best Zeldas list, but there are a lot of issues with it that prevent it from being nearly everything it should have been. The Great Sea, while open and designed for adventure, is boring and bland, the game's difficulty is by far the easiest in the entire franchise, the bosses (save a couple) are lame and repetitive, the puzzles (while clever) are beyond basic for Zelda, and the overall padding of the game is unforgivable.

It IS a great game -- it's one of the greatest I've ever played -- but for Zelda standards, it just doesn't cut it in terms of elite status. It just didn't live up to its N64 predecessors.

The problem lies not in the game itself but with the historical contest in which The Wind Waker was released.

Implying that there aren't legitimate complaints about the game and that the only people that complain about it are those that hate the Cel-shade.

Dungeon design was also superb.

I would call the dungeon design good, but not superb. Forsaken Fortress aside, there pretty much weren't every any moments that required any strenuous thought. It was all remarkably easy to the point that it seemed like Nintendo wasn't trying at times. Like they were running on reserve power. (Which, amazingly, still produced good stuff. Shows how good the Zelda team is.)

The Wind Waker also set an intriguing precedent with a rematch against all the former bosses prior to the confrontation with Ganondorf.

Yeah, but two of those bosses sucked, and the other two were the only legitimately good bosses in the game (save Ganondorf).
 

Awesome

The Creepy Uncle
Joined
Feb 10, 2012
Location
Swaggin Roost Island
I loved the Wind Waker, but my only complaint with it was the bosses and it was a little on the easy side. Other than that it was an excellent game. Lot's of places to explore and even it felt tedious to do everything, it was still fun. Excellent game that I'm going to play right now just because of this thread lol.
 

Cfrock

Keep it strong
Joined
Mar 17, 2012
Location
Liverpool, England
I love The Wind Waker. It's my 3rd favourite game in the entire series.

Graphically, it's an absoloute dream. The cel-shading style brings the game to life and infuses so much emotion into even the simplest of character interactions. Seeing The Great Sea turn from deep, tranquil blue to a dark and foreboding green when a storm came along is a sight I never tire of.
It has some of the best music in the entire series. There are some really dramatic pieces, some that just fill you with a sense of adventure and others which are just plain fun to listen to.
The King of Red Lions and Tetra are two of my favourite characters in the series and I love the Pirates as well. The Wind Waker's Ganondorf is the best incarnation of the villain in my opinion as well.
The free-camera really helps out in the game a lot and I was sad to see it go from the series so quickly. I just love how the game did away with the traditional template of "Here's a kingdom connected by a large central field/countryside with some interesting things at the edges," and replaced it with "Here's a freakin' huge ocean. Pick a direction and go discover what's there!"

The Wind Waker was a marvellous game. I even liked the Triforce Hunt and I adore Tingle too. There is very little in the game that I can really fault.
 

PokaLink

Pokalink the avaricious
Joined
Feb 5, 2012
Location
Outset Island
People complain WW was too kiddy looking, peronsaly thats one of the main reasons i like it the kiddy graphics give it a happy look that makes it what it is, the dungeons were just as good as any others, and the bosses were epic, and so i have no idea why people still complain that Windwaker is still not that good of that game, anyway what are you supposed to see in a kids video gaming company.
 
Joined
Jan 2, 2012
Location
Grooseland
I think this game is downright epic. It is definitely underrated by most, but it's my 3rd favorite LoZ game. I love the story, I love the setting (I'm a bit of a sailor myself), and the gameplay and graphics are just so damn smooth. This is definitely its high point over older games like OoT and MM. The framerate is so much better and more responsive. Its downsides are that the sailing can be tedious, and the changing of the wind's direction is way too repetitive.
 
Joined
May 3, 2012
Currently replaying the wind waker and loving every second of it. The sailing is a lot more fun than when I first played it. Interestingly I haven't ran into any of the sharks this whole playthrough and I am at the earth temple. Not as good as SS or the N64 titles, but way better than twilight princess.
 
Joined
Aug 25, 2012
Location
Indiana, USA
One notable thing about the Zelda series is that everyone has their own distinct list of favorites. It may seem like everyone "disses" The Wind Waker, but there's clearly a very positive response on this thread.

The Wind Waker is actually my second least favorite Zelda game, right after Four Swords. On my first playthrough it was actually the total opposite, being my second most favorite. Second playthroughs, however, can change opinions drastically.

I actually liked the cel-shaded art style. I didn't view it as kiddy or insulting to my manliness; on the contrary, thwarting evil, slaying hordes of monsters without suffering a scratch, saving princesses, carrying impossible loads, and participating in adult pastimes such as auctions, all as a cutesy twelve-ish-year-old, made me feel more masculine if anything. (It's weird, okay?) I do feel as if the cel-shaded style made Nintendo feel they were allowed to be a little lazy with non-central characters, though. Windfall Island, a hub bustling with people, is home to some of the dang-ugliest characters in the game, especially that guy with the messed-up hair who makes his daily walks around town. It also allowed for some bland atmosphere, like how the ocean is one flat, unbroken, bright blue mass. I appreciate the expressiveness of characters such as Link and Tetra, but not all of it is worth a 10.

The music is my third favorite in the series: Skyward Sword is first and Majora's Mask (a game with ostensibly underrated music) comes second. I can't recall any dungeon music except for the theme in the final one and the Forsaken Fortress, but I have to admit that tunes like Outset Island, Windfall Island, Dragon Roost Island, and most of the boss themes were excellently done.

The whole game is worth about an 8/10 in my book, as it's essentially one giant low point to the standards of Zelda. Some Zelda games feature better dungeons than overworld design, prompting you toward the next dungeon with increasing eagerness. In some Zelda games it's the reverse. For The Wind Waker it was neither; I enjoyed exploring the various islands the first time around, but I knew what was coming the second time, especially how most islands are mandatory for completion and don't feature much in the first place. The dungeons also did not interest me terribly. They were generally just huge and took a long time to beat, and the unchanging scenery and negligible music didn't make them look very nice on the surface. Rather than presenting deep puzzles or challenging combat, it seemed mostly to rely on wandering around the huge dungeon until you found what you were looking for. Link's slow and somewhat stiff design didn't help navigation much. In The Wind Waker, I could look forward to neither the dungeons nor traversing the overworld, and since that's physically all the game is composed of, the rating is brought down.

And yes, the sailing was also a big detracting factor. Had it been streamlined or the King of Red Lions given something to make it go faster without a sail, the whole wind aspect would have been brilliant. If you miss the spot you were looking for (and lowering the crane for treasure usually must be exact), you must veeeeeery slowly turn around and wobble your boat to wherever you missed. The wind could also easily work against you, meaning you either put up with being slow as molasses or you changed the wind over and over again. I wouldn't mind the sailing too much if there wasn't so much of it in the overworld. All this means the dungeons (for me) were lackluster and the overworld was clunky and poorly designed.

To finalize my list of low points, I actually felt the story was one of the weakest in the series (please lower your torches and pitchforks, people). The story seemed to exist from plot point to plot point rather than building any solid character development or atmosphere as it went. The very beginning and very end were pretty well-handled, but everything between (save for Tetra's unveiling as Princess Zelda) seemed to have been kind of pushed in there hoping it would all fit. Rather than having personal motivations beyond saving his sister, Link's goal usually fit into the fetch quest variety with little atmosphere or development surrounding each event. Komali and Makar were interesting diversions, but not very deep as characters. Admittedly, I looked up The Wind Waker's story long before playing the game, back when I was young and stupid and had to spoil everything for myself. This enabled me to see certain plot twists coming, which has probably biased my opinion somewhat. Still, good stories are made predominantly by execution, not premise alone. The Wind Waker had one of the best premises in the series, but shallow execution. Even on my first playthrough, I couldn't help but ask my console questions when the King of Red Lions insisted I had to put the Triforce of Courage together to reenter Hyrule. Why? Why didn't it matter the first couple of times? What makes it tick?

There are a bunch of other littler arguments, but I've covered the main points. I don't want you to get the wrong idea from this. I still like The Wind Waker, and it still deserves at least an 8/10 in my opinion. But for a Zelda game, it felt almost like the video game equivalent of a fanfic. It seemed kind of unpolished. I like the game in general and understand how others can have it as their favorites, but I guess you could say The Wind Waker didn't really "do it" for me compared to the rest of the series.
 

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