The Legend of Zelda is easily my favourite video game franchise. In times of sadness, loneliness or boredom, I’d often go to the spare room and escape into the kingdom of Hyrule. These days I play on a more competitive level, meaning that I’m challenging myself to complete as many Zelda games as possible, the most recently completed: The Wind Waker. This game is amazing. Honestly, one of my favourites.
I know that Wind Waker gets a lot of mixed reviews, mostly due it its extreme change in style (the cartoony theme was a significant alteration from earlier games such as Ocarina of Time or Oracle of Ages) and for some reason, lots of people didn’t like this.
I, however, love it. When I first got into LoZ over six years ago I believed that the current game I was playing, Twilight Princess was a unique individual, so when I came across the other games I was amazed. Since that moment I decided that I wouldn’t be happy
until I got to play Wind Waker.
It took me three years to save up and then find a working GameCube and game. And I finally got my hands on the combo after my sixteenth birthday. Annnnd two years later I’ve finally completed it. My exams annoyingly detained me from enjoying myself. That’s student life for you. Anyway that’s all beside the point. The Wind Waker has left a lasting impression on me; I want to talk about it!
By the time I’d completed The Wind Waker I already had finished, Twilight Princess, Ocarina of Time, Skyward Sword, Spirit Tracks, Oracle of Ages, Majora’s Mask and A Link between Worlds. I guess that this meant I found the actual game play easier to grasp which lead me to pay more attention to the world. Here are the three sections that I found the most interesting.
Travelling
Sailing was super-fun for me, I used to aimlessly float around in the ocean and visit all the different islands just because I was in utter awe of how expansive this world was. Within my first four hours of the game I’d achieved little of the story line in favour of mass exploration. I loved that each separate island – and there’s forty nine islands all together – had a completely different theme and feel. The treasures that can be found in them, the mini games and new enemies you encounter, it all made sailing to new places exciting and alluring for me. My personal favourite is the infamous Forsaken Fortress. It shows how the islands can range from completely eerie and dark to homely and bright. Some players don’t enjoy the sailing aspect, but without it you wouldn’t be able to fully explore the world, all the treasure charts and the watch towers would be pointless and I personally believe that the game would be much less without it. So sailing gets a thumbs up from me 😀
The Enemies
The foes in Wind Waker are hilarious. If you are familiar to Zelda games and of course their enemies you’ll know that they come in increasing difficulty. The enemies in Wind Waker though have an added sense of humour. So that even within the peril of battle you can have a slight giggle when they lose their weapon, gawk and then run over to it sweating with arms raised in the air. And who hasn’t done a fist pump when a clumsy Moblin takes out its own comrades with an attack aimed at you?! It’s not just the added comic effects; to me the foes seem much more realistic, in the sense that they seem to complete tasks. For example, when you come across them on their floats, they appear to either be searching the sea with their telescopes or having a snooze. This makes sneaking up on them and taking them down even more thrilling!
Triforce Charts and Shards
Arggghh. This is the bit that I hated the most from the entire game! Once you reach a certain point in nearly every game (this is not just reserved for the Legend of Zelda series) it suddenly takes a turn from being fun and entertaining to suddenly hard and sometimes, a little boring. For me it was the tedious section after the defeat of Molgera and the completion of the Wind Temple. I made the mistake of not collecting information on any of the islands on my journey except for the main ones so I had to go back to every single island. That’s at least 46 pieces of All- Purpose- Bait for that stupid fish lurking around each bay. And that’s over two hours of my life gone. It’s fair to say that it may have slightly tinted my love for Wind Waker. I still love it. It’s still a brilliant game, but I did not enjoy going back and forwards across the Great Sea, being chased by Seahats and Sharks and constantly being pulled into the path of Big Octos. So it’s fair to say that I didn’t really like collecting the Triforce Charts and even then after that collecting the Shards and enough rupees to decipher said charts! Urgggh. I’m assuming that the next time I play this game I shall hand the remote to someone else to complete this bore some task.
Overall though it was a fantastic game, I loved so many things about it and, as expected so many things about it annoyed me. But none of the things that annoyed me will put me off this amazing game and I’m certain that this won’t be the last time that I type up a blog about The Wind Waker.
My Media Moo 