A HUGE departure from the bog standard Zelda formulae.
Putting the obvious aside, let's get to it. Okay, story goes you play as a boy with blonde who wears the green tunic that previous Link heroes have worn throughout the ages. When a boy comes of age he dons the garb, this is explained by a re-telling of the Ocarina Of Time story. Okay, still with me? Good. Fast forward to a ocean filled world and join previously mentioned boy on a quest to find his kidnapped sister, find the master sword and save Princess Zelda. For the most parts, despite the over used storyline, the story does have unique moments and is told really well through reams of text and cut scenes, more on that later.
Wind Waker plays by the large the same way as Ocarina Of Time, minus cool spaceship style joypad for the more conventional GameCube joypad. Fighting mainly consists of locking on with the shoulder button, whacking B to slash and dash and L block. So far, so cliché. Even the items you'll be using are largely the same from the good ole boomerang, bombs and so on. The new key edition to the series that can be considered to be new is the sailing. Some aspects of it are good, others not so good. I'll get the bad part out the way first. For the last part of the game, you do a lot of sailing. And I mean A LOT of sailing. It's really repetitive, annoying and boring before the final fight. Before you get to that though, it's a whole lot of fun and really brings you into the world of Wind Waker. In case you can't tell, that was the good part. Another good part is the ease of controlling the ship. It's easy and doesn't take ages to get use to. So besides the same usage of items, dungeons (set in lava, ice, water etc albeit different layouts and puzzles) this is classic Zelda.
The graphics are the real standout for this game because it's such a huge departure from the Zelda series. Usually Zelda titles are mature and the graphics reflect this. Nintendo probably got bored of using realistic elements and tried a more unconventional route i.e. cel shading. I personally find this game to be a fantastic visual treat and suits the overall tone and theme of the game. The whole world comes to life like nothing else and I find it a breath of fresh air to be honest. People cried when they first saw the graphics and refused to buy the game until a more mature and realistic Zelda came out. I thought it was great and bought a great game, that much was certain alright.
The music is midi-rific, with great remixes of the Zelda theme, new themes and great adaptive music i.e. sneaking like tip toe sounds then when you get caught it goes mad! Great use of new voices, finally! Just screams and fighting sounds, no full voice acting yet. Like always this divides fans between Zelda getting full voice work and not getting it. I personally couldn't care less because the game is great as it is and I don't want bad acting to spoil such a glorious franchise and series. Case in point see Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
Like any Zelda title, the game is littered with a tonne of things to do. There's the main quest which can take anywhere between 20-25 hours to complete. But there's also loads of items to collect, people to see and quests to finish. Add another 20 hours to the 25 and you'll see what you get for your money.
Wind Waker was a breath of fresh air to a franchise that could have become stale. Many may not realise this, but if Nintendo kept going down the Ocarina Of Time route, the magic that is Zelda would have been lost. Wind Waker needed something to make people take EXTRA notice (I am fully aware that any announcement of a Zelda title makes anyone notice, I'm talking about the extra kind). The graphics are simply gorgeous and is always get to watch. The same goes for the game. It may not be that far removed from Ocarina Of Time or any other 3-D Zelda game, but at least it tries to be different. And what's wrong with that? Definitely a recommendation from me!