Quick Look: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD

Is it me or Nintendo ripped off the Duracell commercial for the wind song.

That world map brings back great memories for Skies of Arcadia on the Dreamcast.

I was hoping for a Jeff-Brad quicklook and the inevitable rage of the Wii U apologist.

My favorite Zelda game, and one of my favorite games of all time. I didn't want a WiiU but this is making it really hard to stay away.

I was never against the artstyle of this game, in fact I'd say most of the problems I had with it at the time came from my own expectations coming from OoT. It was the first Zelda game to acknowledge another in its lore, and at the time I was really into the idea of having them all connected, to the point I wanted it to reference that stuff MORE, and was then disappointed when it didn't. It definetly ended up colouring my perception of the game at the time.

There's some stuff I could still see as legit criticisms, like the lack of dungeons, comparatively, or the eventually tiresome sailing, but overall I think I gave it a rougher time than it deserved.

As for Twilight Princess, I'd feel more compelled to go back to it if I didn't own the waggle-me-wiimote Wii version, or if it didn't have such a long, silent, boring intro. I do kind of want to see it again, I think it had some cool stuff in it.

Skyward Sword I did like quite a few parts of. It had some fun sidequests and I thought the weapon upgrading was neat. It was just too long and had too much filler with you doing the spiritworld stealth thing way too many times for instance. Also everything was a dungeon and I just grew tired of it. The waggling was slightly more involved but I could have lived without it. In fact I'd rather it wasn't there at all, any of it.

Twilight Princess is the shit. That game was amazing.

I only actually bought this game a few years ago, but it's still super nostalgic for me because I played the demo on that Zelda Collection disc.

EDIT: And watching Brad play this is as painful as expected. He makes it look like a struggle just to perform basic actions.

Oh this shit is weird. My roommate last year totally played through this game while I mostly was sitting in the same room. All this music is triggering memories from several months ago.

I just wish the WII U wasn't 400ish in a bundle.

Fuck.

Wind Waker also had this one AWESOME and memorable boss theme.

Chicka-Chicka-Chicka-Chicka-Chicka-Chicka-Chicka-Chicka!

I'd be surprised if you've ever finished any game, that stealth sequence can be completed by a child.

This is a full remaster, right ? Looks way too good to just be HD-ified original assets.

This quick look is giving me some serious flashbacks. Man, Wind Waker was pretty great, but that was also the last Zelda game I beat. I got quite far in Twilight Princess and don't even own Skyward Sword, so maybe I'll have to try that one out in the near future when I'm not playing any games on new consoles.

Also Majora's Mask was the first Zelda game that Aounuma directed, and it also pretty directly references Ocarina of Time. But I'm guessing Brad didn't play that one.

BRAD QUITS DOTA FOREVER

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Eh, I think things have swung too far for the last few Zelda games. Wind Waker was overly hated back in the day for its art style, Twilight Princess overly loved for being more "adult" and going back to the OoT roots pretty heavily. Both are pretty great Zelda games, but each have their problems. Nothing compares to the original Ocarina or Link to the Past.

Twilight Princess was a lot like Final Fantasy XII in that both games got rave reviews when they first released, and fans loved them, but after some time passed and things sunk in, a lot of people realized that they didn't like them as much as previous titles. That says nothing about the quality of those games, but you can find plenty of Zelda fans who will crap on TP and tell you what they think is wrong with it. And those fans are quite vocal about it. I think both games are great (and most fans will probably agree with me), but not the best in their series, of course.

I love Wind Waker. It is my favorite game of all time. Everyone else can fuck off.

Edit. Also make another one.

That's harsh, bro. I think that's more about him not enjoying stealth mechanics in Zelda games than finding it to be some kind of insurmountable challenge. I played the beginning of Wind Waker for the first time this month, and was definitely bored and annoyed with that part. I powered through it to get back to the fun stuff, but some folks don't have the patience. With so many games to choose from, it's their choice when it comes to entertainment. Different strokes and all that.

Wind Waker is by far the best Zelda.

Hoy, Small fry.

THAAAANNNN~KYUUUUU~

It's crazy how a guy who plays so many video games still misses so many video game troupes. Rushing water on the top of a plat forming section, sure why not jump in it? It's not like it won't take me to the bottom....oh crap.

And Brad totally ignores everyone but Jeff. Vinny has to ask Brad to do something like ten times before Brad will consider. Roll into him, roll into him, ROLL INTO HIM!

I didn't like Wind Waker, so I guess that makes me a dead, empty husk of a person. But really, I loved the art style, I thought it was super charming and probably the best part of the game. Wind Waker has stood the test of time in the graphics department better than most 3D games. I enjoyed sailing at first, but I found it to quickly get tedious and boring. I thought the ocean, like the sailing at first was interesting but then I found it to be pretty empty and uninteresting. None of the dungeons or bosses really stood out to me either at all, other than (HUGE SPOILER!) the final fight with Ganondorf at the end, which is probably one of the best LoZ climaxes ever. And I definitely do respect it for deviating somewhat from the standard LoZ formula, but I don't know, man. It was just alright but not an apex of the series like a lot of people claim, in my opinion.

I was in the group of people that despised the artstyle of this game on release. Being an edgy 14 year old at the time, I was pretty wound up that LoZ looked like a goofy kids game and never ended up playing past the opening. Looking at it now brings back nothing but great memories and I'm pretty excited to finish this for my first time.

Define "popular opinions". Look, I love The Wind Waker (look at my profile pic), and I think Twilight Princess was somewhat overrated, but a lot of the praise of TWW and often-in-the-same-breath bashing of TP reads to me as critical posturing.

I recall Patrick, on multiple occasions on the Bombcast, bashing TP because its tone and style was informed by the response to (or more accurately, the sales of) TWW. That's true, but TP is what it is, and shouldn't be judged relative to what it's not, or relative to what some people thought about the previous entry. TWW (or maybe Majora's Mask) is the "cool" 3D Zelda game to like, and TP is the "cool" one to be dismissive about. And frankly, most of the dismissiveness I've heard and read had come from the games press. Not to say they're wrong, but I can't help but feel it's the result of a bit of an echo chamber.

From a gameplay perspective, and to some degree overall, I find it hard to believe there are people out there who love TWW and hate TP, because they're pretty similar games. As much as I prefer TWW, TP is a good enough game (and TWW is a flawed enough game) that I can totally respect someone liking it more.

Majora's Mask is still the greatest Zelda game of all time.

That being said I still haven't played Wind Waker, so that opinion could easily change. When I was young, and dumb, I remember not liking the look of Wind Waker. Now I have taste and hate the fact that I never played this.

Fuck, seeing this kind of makes me want a Wii U...

Yeah, I don't know. I tried playing Wind Waker finally a couple years ago and got maybe a third of the way through--maybe more, maybe less, not sure exactly--and while I enjoyed it, it wasn't good enough to retain my attention and just naturally faded. Never finished. This version looks really nice, but I feel like it'd end up the same way.

Something about the Zelda formula just doesn't draw me in nearly as much as it used to, probably because of how stale it is and how much it wastes your time on boring shit, which never bugged me as a kid but now that my time is more valuable, it really annoys me. Like, I actually fell asleep during Twilight Princess' grueling five-hour tutorial.

And for the record, I finished Twilight Princess. It felt like playing Ocarina again, but not in a good way. It's often aggressive in how stale it feels and I ended up really not liking it as a whole. Of course, that's partly because I played on Wii where the fairy moves around screen and makes a shimmering noise literally every time you point at the screen which is practically all the time and combat was reduced to shaking the Wii remote with zero precision until everything around you is dead.

Though, it's funny to hear that Jeff doesn't really like it now given that he famously gave it an 8.8 at the time.

amen

I haven't watched this yet, but I wish with all my heart that it involves Brad indignantly acing the stealth sequence.

I bought the bundle because Wind Waker is my favourite game of all time. Still is.

Painful to watch Brad of all people play it, though. THERE IS A BUTTON FOR STOPPING. IT'S LABELED STOP. RIGHT THERE. JESUS. HOW DO YOU NOT DIE EVERY DAY.

I had way more trouble with WW in terms of difficulty than I did with TP. The amount of special moves you get in TP, coupled with the low damage enemies duke out (I don't recall a single enemy doing more than a 1/2 heart of damage in TP, whereas in WW, Ganondorf does 3 and a Dark Knuckle does 2) made it a pretty simple game. It was just very long, but it wasn't nearly as imaginative as WW, OoT, or MM. It was a 'realistic' Zelda made for all of the fans whining about the 'cartoon' Zelda.

The Great Sea is awesome until you come to realise that only three or four of the 49 islands/areas are actually populated, and that Windfall Island is actually the biggest one.

The only Zelda game I've ever really cared to try, looks beautiful.

Christ, this even as me tempted by a Wii U. Never thought that would happen.

The first screenshot I ever saw of Wind Waker was a low-res photograph taken off screen. It looked absolutely hideous to me, and caused me to join the hate bandwagon for awhile. It wasn't until I actually saw it in motion did I think, "Oh hell yea, this looks amazing". I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of others saw the same shot of the game I did at first; and that'd probably explain why they never let you shoot footage off screen at conventions anymore.

I do love this game, though it did start the worrying trend of being just a little too hand-holdy. It was passable on WW, but in TP and SS if felt claustrophobic. There wasn't enough "adventure" or exploration in those games when you were being pulled by the nose everywhere. I had to force myself through Skyward Sword.

I am very curious what the next big Zelda will be though. It would be hilarious if it went back to Wind Waker style again after showing that realistic WiiU demo trailer a year back.

I'm sorry Brad, complaints about the touch controls in Spirit Tracks are completely valid. While driving the train they were fine, but not being able to directly control Link when he is on foot is one of the dumbest fucking design choices in the history of Zelda games.

Oh goody, Zelda discussion.

I enjoyed Wind Waker when it came out, but found it too easy, especially with the 'I WIN' button (counter attack). The art style was nice. By WW I was getting bored of the Zelda formula. At least WW carried on from Majora's Mask in trying to do something interesting, in this case with the Great Sea and sailing.

Twilight Princess was the most disappointed I've ever been by a game. I remember Miyamoto saying how Link would be more mature and the importance animals would play. When the game was released none of these concepts existed. TP had the most boring cast (Midna is the only stand out character in the game, and she was very memorable and well written), the most forgettable music, the most forgettable dungeons and world. Zelda/Ganon where shoe horned in. Waggle controls were awful for combat. While the combat system was the most comprehensive in any Zelda game, it was wasted. Waggling like a moron was just as effective and damaging as taking the effort to execute other moves.

I remember almost nothing about Twilight Princess, I played it once and forgot it. WW is memorable for some music pieces (Dragon Roost is one of my favourite Zelda pieces) and boss battles, and trying some new things. Majora's Mask is perfection for me. An amazing overworld, side quests, characters and dungeons. Ocarina of Time was the game that created the mould for 3D Zelda's (and in turn was moulded strongly from A Link to the Past). I haven't played Skyward Sword.

As for the "critics loved it!" response; I find that most reviews and aggregates are worthless. Most critics are as susceptible to hype as regular gamers, so any Zelda game scores highly (you also see this with Call of Duty, Pokemon and Final Fantasy).

That bloom effect is driving me insane. It looks like they lowered the contrast on everything. I think I'd rather play the Gamecube version. Absolutely amazing game though, my second favorite video game ever after Ocarina of Time.

At the 40:00 mark, Vinny says, "You ran out of Deku juice." I spit out my food laughing. Not sure why.

Hm, well it's cool that they're playing it, though I wish Jeff was playing it only because he reviewed it back in 03 on GameSpot. I feel like I'd know how he'd feel and react towards it, but still.

@toowalrus said:

I've never even cared about Zelda at all, but let's be real here. It's fine for someone to have their own completely uneducated opinion on something, but not fine to project that opinion onto the public at large as if that's the way it is and always was. Revisionism irks me. Twilight Princess received critical acclaim when it was released, including from the founder of this very website, and is one of the highest selling games in the entire series.

This really isn't one of those rocket science or "you had to be there" things, it's checkable. Either Twilight Princess was well liked and received, or the process of game reviews, and most game reviewers, are full of shit. To be fair, it's probably both.

My fave was Link's Awakening. Link on a boat is the way of things, though an airship might just be the next thing.

I think Wind Waker is the only Zelda game I've ever really liked—itʼs shocking how much better it is than all the others, and I never understood the complaints when it came out.

Watching this is making me really nostalgic for the summer I spent playing the game along with Metroid Prime.

But man, the new shading/lighting pass on this really ruins the look of the game.

That combined with the framerate problems and obtrusive motion controls make me question why @brad would buy a Wii U for this when he has a gaming PC and could play the GameCube version in HD, which is a much better experience.

It's a shame that this is the way many people will experience this game for the first time. Nintendo should really have made that stuff optional.

Oh snap! Boom! Daaaaayyyyyyyyymmmmmm... you get the idea.

I like how the quick look opens with the exact part of the game that made me quit playing it originally.

@marokai: I feel like Twilight Princess was in a situation similar to Mass Effect 3 in some ways. Both received stellar reviews, but gamers seemed to have a bit of a different opinion on the whole. The difference seems particularly noticeable amongst hardcore fans of the series. The reason for the discrepancy is totally different for each game, though; Mass Effect's problem clearly came from the ending, whereas... well, I'm sure Twilight Princess had a decent ending, though I wouldn't know because I couldn't bring myself to finish it on any of the occasions I've tried. Review scores and public opinion had nothing to do with it, because I wasn't aware of either when I played it. The game is simply far too easy and far too similar to previous entries for me. It's probably an amazing game to someone who is new to the series, though. Since playing it, I've read many similar opinions. I don't have any sort of data to back it up, besides maybe some user reviews scattered around various gaming sites, but what toowalrus said seems accurate to me.

Edit: Sorry for the bold text, I can't seem to turn it off.

Brad speaking positively of a game that isn't Dota?
Weird.

@mjbrune: It was mine. I totally vouch for it.

The important thing is that you've established that you're better than he is. Congratulations, champ.

Hoy small fry

I feel a lot of people fondly remember Wind Waker because the formula wasn't as stale then (which is a fair point) and because of the timeless art style. But apart from the free-roaming sailing--which while flawed, was a brave concept I admire--I don't care much for Wind Waker. In terms of difficulty, it's Zelda for babies. To my memory, the dungeons in Twilight Princess were much more challenging and interesting.