The Wind Waker Gamecube/Wii U Comparison and Framerate Test

Digital Foundry has put together some videos examining the framerate of The Wind Waker HD, as well as a comparison of the graphics on the HD and original Gamecube versions. There is quite a noticeable difference, and seeing the HD version next to it certainly brings out the… worse points in the Gamecube game’s visuals.

Check out the videos after the jump!

Man, the Wii U version does NOT do good things for the Gamecube version. The Wind Waker is still my favorite Zelda, maybe even my top game ever, but man. The HD remake looks phenomenal, while the same resolution on Gamecube just makes your eyes hurt. Sure there is nothing quite like the original versions cel shading, but really, the Wii U made me really happy when I saw it.

I actually did notice some of these slowdowns when I was playing, especially during ocean battles. Yes, the framerate drops were very few and far between, but the ones that are there kind of show the Wii U falling victim to something I think modern developers do regularly. Back in the day, consoles were not as powerful, obviously, so there were limits developers were well aware of. They actively tried finding ways to avoid things like slowdowns and visual graphics overloads, since they knew such things could easily happen on the consoles they had created.

Now, with so few limits on what the developers can do on these powerful consoles, some framerate-dropping issues, among other problems, are probably just as likely to occur, if not more likely, since they do not expect the console to outright fail in most instances. This is likely why I do not recall seeing framerate drops on the original Gamecube version, which runs at the same 30fps that The Wind Waker HD does.

Anyways, even with the few drops in framerate, The HD version is likely to win the favor of most players, as it improves on so much that the original did. The glorious 1080p resolution is clearly superior to the original’s, whether or not you like the HD version’s graphical style better, and maybe this game is an indicator as to how awesome other potential Zelda remakes could look.

Which is your favorite version of The Wind Waker? Did you notice any framerate issue while playing through the HD version? Leave a comment below!

Source: Eurogamer