User Rating: 9 | The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Limited Edition) GC
I actually finished this game months ago, and now that I have had some time to reflect on it, I find that I am somewhat disappointed overall. If I had reviewed this game while still playing the first dungeon, I may have given it a 9.5 or higher. This game has many strong aspects which are impossible to overlook, most notably the graphics. What the game lacks in texture detail, it more than makes up for it in animation. I have never seen a video game pull off this caliber of fluid movement. Everything seems to move and animate smoothly, making the game seem full of life. The gameplay is pretty much identical to Ocarina of Time, which is fine by me since that game seemed to create the best methods for playing games in 3-D. The music is great, using many of the old songs as well as some new ones. I did find the ocarina’s songs to be a lot more memorable than the wind waker’s though. The sound effects are also top notch, with ambient effects such as the echo of your sword as it strikes a hard surface in a dungeon, and the sounds of the sea as you set sail. The dungeons are the strongest design structure of Wind Waker, much like the other games in this series. I found myself playing for hours just to see what the next one would be like. This is where my problems with this game begin. I really wish this game took place on land. I just find the sea in this game to be rather boring and monotonous. After a while everything looks the same until you get off the boat to explore. I also don’t remember a Zelda game being so tedious. Here is a list of these nuances.. 1. Feeding fish bait in every square of the sea to map out your sea chart, and having to hear them say the same thing over and over again. 2. Having to constantly change the wind and watch the same sequence for it over and over again. 3. Not being able to skip the instructions on how to use a dungeon map or compass in every dungeon (you think we would have figured it out by now). 4. Being forced to play a gigantic fetch quest which isn’t fun, or interesting, but you’ll do it because you want to see the good parts of this game. Don’t get me wrong, I still highly recommend this game to everyone who plays video games. It provides a lengthy quest with amazing visuals and a better value than most games have to offer. It is obvious that a lot of talent and passion went into making Wind Waker a polished product. But I worry about Nintendo. It seems they are afraid to venture out of their established franchises and try anything new. Metroid Prime is a fantastic game, but so is every classic Nintendo game-gone 3D-for the first time. It just seems they don’t know how to evolve their games much further. I would also think that Shigeru Miyamoto, with his brilliant imagination, would have added at least a few “new” franchises to Nintendo’s lineup over the past fifteen years. I would never doubt his ability or talent, but why are they so afraid of taking risks? Nintendo needs to re-kindle that flame that captured our imaginations when we were children (I hope your with me on this one) as we hung out with the kid in the neighborhood who’s parents could afford a system with Super Mario Brothers 3. Perhaps the best memories came and passed, but what will they have for the future generations to come?
