LoZ: WW

[billymills]

Wind Waker is one of my least favourite Zelda games (Though still well ahead of Spirit Tracks...), primarily because of the ocean.

Art was nice, dungeons were good. Most of the bosses were decent, but the exploring aspect took fucking forever. Yes you get to warp around at some point, but there is really no excuse for the length of time it takes to get from one island to the next, even with warping. Even worse is the triforce quest which forces you to boat around aimlessly for hours.

I felt most of these aspects were improved upon in Phantom Hourglass (a much better game imo), as the boat actually moves at a decent pace.

 

[Snkz]

Yes I totally forgot about the DS games, Phantom Hour Glass and Spirit Track were both pretty bad. Not by Zelda standards, just bad. It was a combination of the controls, the ease of dungeons and the map movement in both games. I didn't find the repeat dungeon as bad as most did, although it was bad.

 

[Alan]

Your friend is wrong for condemning the game based on the graphical style - it's charming and full of character. I much prefer it to the dreary feel of Twilight Princess.

If he's looking to condemn it he should bring up the Triforce shard section (seriously one of my worst memories in all of video games), or the fact that it's a little bit easy.

if I'm listing 3D Zelda games it's OoT > MM > WW > TP.

This. I loved the graphics in WW so much more than every other Zelda game. Its so fun and, quite frankly, cute.

 

[Thorns]

the dungeons and environments were brilliant and the artistic style only contributed to that

i really felt like i was in the loz universe instead of just looking at it like twilight princess or ocarina of time

loved the humour too, great game (one i've never actually finished due to the massive amount of content)

sailing was monotonous. wish there was a 'fast travel' option

 

[SgtWoodsy]

The sailing is less monotonous to me due to the art style; it's just pleasant watching a brilliantly detailed world go by. WW is my favourite Zelda game because of this.

However, I hope the inevitable Wii U remake does fix a few things up, like improving the Triforce quest (which is obviously a common complaint).

 

[Kingclown50]

I actually enjoyed sailing and charting all of the islands. Each island had a few sidequests and some rewards and stuff.

The only thing wrong with Wind Waker in my opinion is how easy it was. The parry attack kills literally everything in the game. I would absolutely love this apparently inevitable remake to contain a Master Quest, like for OoT. That would make me wanna buy Wii U no matter what.

 

[Steeler]

this was the first zelda i ever played, and aside from getting to the first real dungeon in OoT... the only zelda i've ever played. and i absolutely loved it. i remember watching my cousin play it and thinking "it's so beautiful..." so yea, before WW, i'd always thought the zelda games looked 'boring' and probably not very fun to play :x

funny story, i went all the way to the final dungeon and got to the final door...

and could not figure out how to open it. i tried rolling into it, bombing it, anything except throwing the damn sword at it.

so i ended up restarting. yep, i was literally a door away. i never ended up beating it.

 

[jumpluff]

I've never played Wind Waker, but I assume that it is like Phantom Hourglass, except better graphically and stuff. I very much enjoyed Phantom Hourglass, I put 20 hours into it. Now, I just finished OoT 3D (my first playthrough of OoT in any form) and that blows any other Zelda game that I've played out of the water. If I still had my Wii, I'd probably play Wind Waker. Of the games that I've played, OOT 3D > Twilight Princess > Phantom Hourglass > Link's Awakening DX.

Has there ever been a poor Zelda game?

p.s. look at Wind Waker rendered in HD via Dolphin and tell me that it doesn't look gorgeous.

edit: I forgot that I will probably be selling my Xbox and picking up a cheap Wii to play Skyward Sword.

It's much, much better than PH. If you liked PH so much, play WW when you get the Wii!

 

[JimBob]

and could not figure out how to open it. i tried rolling into it, bombing it, anything except throwing the damn sword at it.

so i ended up restarting. yep, i was literally a door away. i never ended up beating it.

I think you might have to hit something with a light arrow

 

[Ulttimaa]

Wind Waker is my favorite Zelda game. The only downside is the Triforce hunt, but that's not that big of a deal. Just a bit of a chore.

I absolutely love WW's art style, and I'd love another game to be done in that style. Or another Minish Cap too, because Minish Cap was awesome.

 

[vonFiedler]

I do think Wind Waker is a good game. It offers what any Zelda game does, a long adventure game with pretty smooth design.

When compared to other Zelda games, the fighting is very good. I like the moves they added to OoT's system, but at the same time it didn't feel dumbed down like Twilight Princess did. The music is also top-notch. You have to compare the game to others with extremely good music, and personal taste may vary, but I think the quality of the music in WW is always worth bringing up.

Two things that people bring up a lot are the visuals and the ocean. Your mileage may vary here. Cell shading was very new at the time, and WW wouldn't be the last really lazy cell shaded game before devs started getting cell shading right. The ocean could have been so much more exhilarating if I was constantly having to change the direction of the wind.

What I really dislike about Wind Waker are the Dungeons and the Items (a similar complaint with TP, but it's worse here). Dragon Roost Island is a good start but then the Forbidden Forest is just annoying, and the Temples of Earth and Wind are so dull that despite playing the game twice all I can remember is those annoying puzzles where you controlled a partner who couldn't anything on their own. There's also too few Dungeons, which means too few items (and ugh, the Deku Leaf).

I remember enjoying Wind Waker but I tried to replay it a few months ago and only got half way through before I was just bored with it. That's not a stunning recommendation but it is what it is. No one has too many games that they can play infinitely and still enjoy, and I can say that about 3 other Zelda games so...

 

[black_cotton]

Wind Waker was great, in some points even better than Twinlight. The new art graphics made the expresions, the colors and the overworld much more enjoyable to see then TP. The songs were also better.

If I was too complain about something the overworld was to sparse, actually I would like to make mine billymills words about the ocean too.

 

[blastoiseboy19]

TP was MUCH better IMO; I liked the dark, dreary, serious tone it had. While I havent played WW in a long time, to me it seemed too... i dont know, childish? although the story line was ok, it was a little bit dissapointing as to how childish it was, not going very deep into history and junk like that. The graphics, although not as good as TP, were pretty good, and I like how Nintendo has expanded upon that in SS. The triforce hunt killed my will to play Zelda for a couple years (i was only like 8) and it was just a bit too hard for a young'n. but yeah, i give TP a 9.5/10 and WW a 8/10.

 

[jumpluff]

Wind Waker is one of my least favourite Zelda games (Though still well ahead of Spirit Tracks...), primarily because of the ocean.

Art was nice, dungeons were good. Most of the bosses were decent, but the exploring aspect took fucking forever. Yes you get to warp around at some point, but there is really no excuse for the length of time it takes to get from one island to the next, even with warping. Even worse is the triforce quest which forces you to boat around aimlessly for hours.

I felt most of these aspects were improved upon in Phantom Hourglass (a much better game imo), as the boat actually moves at a decent pace.

My problems with Phantom Hourglass were:

- Smaller scope made it feel sparser than the detailed WW that was so fun to explore, also the dungeons were even smaller and easier, like it needed that...
- The temple that you had to repeat over and over again was just as tedious as the Triforce hunting in WW
- I didn't like the plot as much, though Linebeck was a great character

So I felt let down compared to WW, but as a DS game on its own merits it was good.

 

[masterful]

My problems with Phantom Hourglass were:

- Smaller scope made it feel sparser than the detailed WW that was so fun to explore, also the dungeons were even smaller and easier, like it needed that...
- The temple that you had to repeat over and over again was just as tedious as the Triforce hunting in WW
- I didn't like the plot as much, though Linebeck was a great character

So I felt let down compared to WW, but as a DS game on its own merits it was good.

I have to agree. As a sequel to Wind Waker, I felt Phantom Hourglass didn't have the scope nor the same charm as its predecessor, and the Temple of the Sea King was just stupid, because of course everyone wants to do the same exact challenges over and over, right? That, and the final boss was incredibly anti-climactic in my opinion, especially since the battle against the Ghost Ship was so cool

 

[Renosaur]

uh, semi spoiler?
has anyone beaten WW with 'link's' original blue clothes? I know they changed some dialogue around but I haven't actually beaten the game 2nd playthrough..wondering what happens or if anything gets unlocked
edit: also, ghost ship in WW completely scared me when I played it first....I wasn't aware it existed since I didn't dabble around with the Pictobox stuff

 

[Layell]

uh, semi spoiler?
has anyone beaten WW with 'link's' original blue clothes? I know they changed some dialogue around but I haven't actually beaten the game 2nd playthrough..wondering what happens or if anything gets unlocked
edit: also, ghost ship in WW completely scared me when I played it first....I wasn't aware it existed since I didn't dabble around with the Pictobox stuff

I have, really the only changes are that the ancient hylian text is now completely English. It is cool but I don't think there is any more of it once you get the third gem. I'm sure you can find it on gamefaqs or a wiki.

 

[Tyranitar.armaldo]

Not my favorite zelda game.

I did like dragon roost's dungeon. I did like the design of the earth temple. But there were many problems I found with the game.

While people praise the fighting style, I did not like it, introducing new moves was cool, but. It felt like it was too easy, like all you did was press a button and link did all this cool stuff with none of my imput. Twilight princess fixed this.

The photo taking system was cool, and a nice throwback to majoras mask. But did I really need to go through all that, just to find out the NAME of the boss I had fought?

The lack of dungeons was a big downer. The wind waker has the fewest temples of any zelda game (as far as I can tell) barring majoras mask, which made up for it with sheer volume of things to do. The lack of dungeons in WW is surprising for a game with such a large enviroment.

And I disliked the obvious, the sailing was long and dull, riding Epona is nice because the scenery oges past at a good pace, not too fast not too slow, with an ocean its just water water and more water. The fetching quests were extremly irritating to complete, and as stated before did not feel challenging compared too earleir games.

And though some people saw this game as a rather cheerful happy place, I did not. Before Wind waker I had only played Ocarina of time and Majoras mask, so I was quite used to useing the same link, the hero of time. But to play this game and not only play as someone else, who not only is just following in the footsteps I had made with link in the previous games, but also everything I had done in those games had been undone, ganon had returned and the people and land I had saved were destroyed (some even extinct). This would have been only a feeling I had at the beginning of the game, if I wasnt constantly being reminded throughout the game that I had failed.


I do not hate the game for the graphics or the new style though, all the zelda games have thier own style and thats a strong point of the series.