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

To be fair, Jeff acknowledges himself that the score he gave Twilight Princess is kind of bullshit and he doesn't really like the game at all. At the time at GameSpot, reviewers were told to give objective reviews (whatever that means), it even said so in their mission statement for reviews. So, the 8.8 was pretty much "hey, this game is very made", not "I really like this game." The internet was weird(er) back then.

Initial reviews aside, Twilight Princess is definitely one of, if not the most, maligned entry in the series. There is definitely a prevailing opinion of that's when the series started to feel stale. Metacritic score is an okay indicator of internet public opinion but you can't base everything on that. I really don't think Brad is out of line to say that a lot of people don't like Twilight Princess.

Now as for the actual game this Quick Look is for, Wind Waker is (mostly) dope, some dated gameplay quirks aside and it looks absolutely fantastic in HD. This is one of the first games that make me wish I had a Wii U, which is kind of sad in its own way.

Never played WW so I'll definitely pick this up later since all my money went to Disgaea and Pokemon.

I'm sorry I've never liked Link's face in WW everything else about the game is A 1.

This desaturated look really irks me.

"Perhaps, a sea change?"

Edit: I think Skyward Sword, almost two years ago, is the last video review that Giant Bomb did. Also, I miss green screens.

Jesus this game still looks freaking amazing. When I eventually buy a WiiU (and I'll get one... eventually) I'll pick this up for sure. This and Wonderful 101 are so far the only games that I'm interested in that are on the WiiU.

@brad What's the obsession with wanting to spoil everything? =/

Man, this Darksiders clone.

Im so glad i played this before OOT, im happy my favourite zelda/game is a timeless one.

too bad its on wiiu

oh god the way brad second guesses and gives up so easily, he must get stuck all the time

One can only hope.

GB hate towards Twilight Princess continues to baffle me. I love that game. Maybe it's a Wiimote thing - I played it on the gamecube, as God intended, and is basically like an updated OOT. It's fantastic.

Wind Waker is also fantastic but I am still not buying a Wii U!

I agree, it is absolutely mad that Twilight Princess gets such a bad rap. It's definitely the most interesting Zelda world that isn't Link's Awakening.

Twilight Princess was better than this

The only zelda game I've ever played was phantom hourglass and i enjoyed that a lot. Was the Orcarina remake on 3ds any good if you didn't play the original?

Brad Windwaker

@milkman said:

I tend to agree with Shane Bettenhausen's assessment that Twilight Princess was one of the best paced games ever made at the time, and makes games like Shadow of the Colossus feel like a demo of a single section of TP in comparison. It's a game that's 40+ hour long, yet you're never doing one thing for too long; it's constantly throwing new, unexpected activities, mini-games, etc at you.

It's a decent remake that brings the graphics up to an acceptable level for a handheld game these days, though I feel like it's an incredibly personal preference in whether or not you'll enjoy Ocarina. I enjoy Wind Waker infinitely more from a gameplay and style perspective. I would still say to at least give it a shot, since I seem to be the odd person out where Ocarina still seems to be considered the pinnacle of the series.

@masterpaperlink said:

I do kinda wonder if Brad has some kind of... lets call it 'psychological quirk' where he just doesn't perceive things in games designs that are meant to guide players.

Maybe the pressure of making a video causes the 'second guessing' (not rolling into the Deku tree, not trying the bomb on the door plant again), but I think there's more subtle things.

Like he's walking up the water passage at the forests entrance, which is a closed off route that you can't get out of, but at the top he immediately turns hard left rather than continuing forward and hitting the trigger for the cutscene. Or he sees the animation of Links face, but doesn't notice he's looking at 'active' objects in the environment.

Maybe, as ever, it's just easy to criticise and say 'oh how did he not see that' when you're only watching.

I really liked Twilight Princess, except for the extended sequences in the Dark World where the colours are washed out and the music sucks.

I really liked Wind Waker, except for the small number of dungeons and having to change the wind to sail the ocean.

That said, WW left a bigger impression and I remember it fondly. Can't say why that one and not TP. The final boss fight in particular really stuck with me. Something about the music? Maybe the implied connection to Ocarina of Time, my first and favourite Zelda? Maybe the more Zelda you play, the less special they become? That would explain why I haven't bothered to try Skyward Sword, despite having access to a borrowed copy for awhile.

It's true. Especially apparent in the text screen after opening a chest, where there's a distinctly close green lighting source. I really don't think it's enough to mar how amazing the rest of the game looks, however. Just a small technical oversight or maybe even personal preference. The rest of it looks breathtaking, especially for your average "everyday" HD remake.

Man, this game looks so great. Even the HD stream isn't doing it justice. In 1080p it's just stunning.

I mean, if you had a Gamecube and played this, then it's interesting but not essential, but if you've never played it... man.

The hitches during the fight are not the framerate. It stops every time an enemy dies. If you want to see bad framerate look up the boss fight under the dragon.

WW is still a ton of fun to play, picked up one of those Zelda bundles because I'm weak and actually surprised at just how much I'm enjoying it. Everything moves along at a nice pace and is stunning to look at, lots of smart little tweaks.

It's not difficult but that's ok - will have to give the new Hero mode a go at some point. Great game that's both classic Zelda and a unique adventure, always put it near the top of my list for the series but right now it may just stand alone up there.

Protip for Brad: you can change camera distance yourself. It goes closer to Link if it's in tight quarters but I think if you move the stick it will zoom in or out based on your input. It's not "quite" like modern 3rd person cameras, probably because standard 3rd person camera behavior at the time this game came out was not so consistent between games.

The Wind Waker Bundle is $300.

It probably has to do with the fact that Twilight Princess has the strongest anime overtones to its art direction. That or the fact that furries aren't well-liked around these parts.

That's it I'm buying a Wii U

So, guys... I really don't like the look of this game. Looks like shit, I really don't see the appeal. Just look at that water...

Everybody, be cool. You, be cool.

The memories!

Gah this looks like a kiddie game! Who wants a kiddie Zelda?!?!

/s

wind waker is great, for me it's tied with oot for second place in the zelda franchise.

The best one being a link to the past

Twilight Princess is great. If you enjoy the little hints to the Zelda lore sprinkled throughout WW, you'll love TP.

I played this game such a long time ago on my gamecube but I still remember the forbidden forest dungeon. I remember it so well that as I watch Brad play I keep wanting to tell him he is going the wrong way. What a great game.

Only Zelda game I've ever played, I bought a Gamecube mainly for this. Never finished it though but I enjoyed every minute I played of it.

Same here. But honestly you can start the series anywhere, with a few exceptions. LTTP, Ocarina and Wind Waker seem to be the most beloved.

Looks really gorgeous, but I still don't really care about Zelda and to replay an old game isn't a convincing argument for buying a new console.

My housemate bought this game and I can't believe how gorgeous this game looks, it even puts a lot of modern games to shame. I'd much rather devs go for a timeless art style like this then strive for realism and produce something incredibly generic and dull. Obviously, there are some games which are suited to a more realistic aesthetic but sometimes it feels as if a game touts 'realism' just so they can put in on the back of the box.

So true. I've been thinking about this a lot recently and you can list so many innovative and unique titles that Nintendo released during the GC era: Wind Waker, Double Dash, Metroid Prime, Animal Crossing (technically came out N64 first but that JP only), Luigi's Mansion, Donkey Konga, Star Fox Adventures, Mario Sunshine and Pikmin. I'm not saying they were all great games but at least they tried something new. And the Wii certainly had a few inventive first party titles but not to the extent of the GC.

Having just played it a few months ago for the first time:

• The opening tutorial area in the village was super frustrating. I swear I spent an hour just trying to catch the fish for that stupid cat... And then I had to do it twice! If it wasn't a Zelda game I would have quit there.
• Swinging my arm to attack got old around Hour 20.
• It took way too long for the world to open up with a significant amount of exploration and side-quests. I didn't feel like I had anything to really explore until I got the Bomb Bag, about 4 hours in.
• I didn't really like the story.
• The graphics haven't aged well. Especially the twilight areas, super-ugly.

Having said that, once the game finally gets going the dungeons are great and there's a lot to do in the overworld. If I'd played it in 2006 or played the GameCube version I might have a different perspective on it.

@ruthloose said:

@robaota said:

@lclay said:

GB hate towards Twilight Princess continues to baffle me. I love that game. Maybe it's a Wiimote thing - I played it on the gamecube, as God intended, and is basically like an updated OOT. It's fantastic.

Wind Waker is also fantastic but I am still not buying a Wii U!

I agree, it is absolutely mad that Twilight Princess gets such a bad rap. It's definitely the most interesting Zelda world that isn't Link's Awakening.

It probably has to do with the fact that Twilight Princess has the strongest anime overtones to its art direction. That or the fact that furries aren't well-liked around these parts.

I don't think it's that. Jeff was one of the few people who wasn't in love with it at the time/thought it was overrated. Patrick plays in six years later and thinks it's boring and dismisses it (of course he does). Brad bandwagons on his coworkers opinions.

The game looks beautiful. Man I kind of wanna get a Wii U.

Man. such a magical game.

I feel like I remember a decent amount of this game and I may still have it if I didn't lose my gamecube games, so I'm hesitant to buy this. I wanna play it again and I like the idea of the stupid fetch quest being fixed. I literally stopped playing the moment they said hey you have to find a bunch of triforce pieces. So I never actually beat the game. I thought the treasure hunting was kinda cool as a passive thing, going from A to B and seeing some treasure I'd pick it up but when you're forced to do it it's just not fun at all.

For some reason I could never get over the really drab color sets of every 3D Zelda game except for this one. Ocarina of Time was not as bad as Twilight Princess. Twilight Princess' dark zone parts made me hate that game. Plus I remember it always just being rainy and dark all the time. Skyward Sword seemed like it was trying to be brighter and more colorful but I couldn't even get out of the starting town before I was completely bored. The sorta crazy cartoony art style I felt matched better than any of the "realistic" designs of the other games.

The look really holds up. Oddly enough wouldn't mind seeing an original HD game with this art style. I think one of the issues people had back in the day was this hope that the new Zelda game would prove to others how Nintendo is "mature". I think that everyone realizes today that Nintendo makes Nintendo games and does not make gritty "mature" games-thus a return to "cel-da" wouldn't be taken so bad.

The sailing absolutely killed this game for me. Way to make traversing the world such a chore.

Never owned a nintendo console(other than a gameboy advance)or ever played a zelda game but this almost makes me want a Wii U, this and the backwards compabillity.

I bought the bundle with the "dumb looking controller".

I dig it, personally. I think the gold etched on black looks good.

I"m closer to buying a Wii U at this point than any next gen console coming out, because of this game.

@mracoon said:

But then all the "fans" bitched and whined because they were different, and now we have Nintendo pooping out a New Super Mario Bros every other year and being too afraid to try anything new and different in their games.