This is a work of art in the form of a videogame.
The Good:
- Outstanding visuals
- Superb gameplay
- Incredible soundtrack
- Great Value
- Great story
- Huge world to explore with tons of minigames and sidequest- Great dungeon design - Interesting (and lovable) characters.
The Bad:
- Sailing and the constant use of the Wind Waker is annoying
- One last tedious fetch quest
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Back in 1999 Nintendo released what would be one of the most innovative games ever created called The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, it gave a whole new feeling to the series and it was regarded as one of the best games ever created, and after a disappointing (by comparison) Majora's Mask everyone was expecting the next Zelda game to shine. And the hype went up after a Spaceworld demonstration of the game in 2000, that demo featured a fight between Link and Ganondorf and incredible realistic graphics for it's time; However the next year in SpaceWorld 2001 Nintendo shocked the world when they showed how the game would really look like: It would use cartoon-like graphics, this created a lot of skepticism because of it's kiddy look, and Nintendo proved everyone that you don't need super realistic graphics to make a great game.
The story begins with a little kid named Link (or whatever you want him to be called) who lives in Outset Island with his sister and his grandma, it's his birthday and now he's old enough to wear the hero's clothes (honoring Ocarina of Time's Link, now known as the hero of time), and just like that hell breaks loose. A giant bird throws a girl in the woods of the island and it's followed by a pirate ship, you rescue this girl who turns out to be the pirate leader, now the giant bird kidnaps your sister and you must team up with the pirates to rescue her; and in a classic Zelda way everything gets bigger and you'll have the faith of the world in your hands. The story feels classic and new at the same time and there are some great plot twist in it making it one of the best stories in a Zelda game.
The gameplay is essentially the same as Ocarina of Time, you move around with the analog stick of the Gamecube's controller, lock on to enemies with the L button and use the Y, X, and Z buttons to item placement, the sword attacks are done with the B button and you move the camera with the C stick, so it's pretty much the same as Ocarina. This time there's a new item which is the focus of the game, it's called The Wind Waker, and you have use it to control the wind's direction, it's cool at first but the fact that you have to use it so many times gets annoying after a while. Other parts of the gameplay involve sailing around this huge and vast world full of sea and island (you'll have to conduct the wind with the Wind Waker to move from place to place).
There are many towns and Islands in the game, with tons of sidequest and minigames and they're full of lovable cartoon characters. The dungeons in the game are fairly easy compared to other Zelda games, that doesn't mean you wont have a fun time going trough them and solving their puzzles, the boss fights are also easy but they're incredible, especially the last one. You can also connect your Gameboy Advance with the game with an item called Tingle Tunner, with that he will give you hints and some new abilities, but they come with a cost. The game can be finished in about 15 hours, but these could easilly become more than 20 because of this last item fetch quest which will have you collecting rupees, sailing, looking for maps and stuff like that, and this is incredibly tedious and may turn some people away from completing the game, Thankfully the last temple is good enough to make up for that.
The music is superb, the new tunes are combined with the old ones making an incredible soundtrack, maybe one of the best in videogame history. There is no voice acting at all, though you'll hear the character's noises when they "talk", it's classic of the series and the characters are not less interesting because of that.
The graphics are the best ever created for a videogame, plain and simple, they are a work of art. They are not realistic at all, the cartoon cel shaded graphics fit the game perfectly, the characters are extremely expressive and this is what makes them so lovable, maybe more than other Zelda games, and there are some great effects like when the wind blows in a direction, everything blows with it. This is along with Okami one of the best artistic jewels in a game.
Overall this is a game that can't be missed by any Gamecube or Wii owner, an incredible action adventure game unmatched in artistic quality. And now that the sequel Phantom Hourglass is out, why not picking up this game and beat it again, and if you haven't play it, please do yourself a favor and go get it
