As one of the most anticipated games of the GameCube library I feel almost an honor to be the one to get to give my thoughts on the current generation Zelda game. The angle that I will take when reviewing this game is probably much different from what you might expect if you are to read any other reviews of The Wind Waker. The reason I say this is directly related to my experience with the Zelda series of games. If you have spent any amount of time reading our site then you know that I have a deep loathe for turn based RPGs and an absolute love for action RPGs. I would consider playing the original Zelda as my first experience into the foray of the RPG world. While I consider myself to be a fan of Zelda, my enjoyment never grew into an obsession. I never owned a Super NES and thus never played the A link to the past. I also was not very fond of the style of game used for Zelda 2 and thus I never experienced it. My N64 was bought purely for WCW vs NWO and Flying Dragon. You could say that I have been on a Zelda hiatus. I have been waiting for the game that would combine the style of gameplay and level of enjoyment that I felt with the original Zelda. I feel that the release of The Wind Waker ends this wait.

One of the more controversial aspects of The Wind Waker has been the graphical element of the game. There was a pretty even split of people that were very excited to see what Nintendo would do with cel shading and there was another camp of people that were very vocal about the fact that cel shading would somehow destroy the legacy of a game that began way back in many of our childhoods. I tried to maintain an open mind about cel shading and I did a fairly good job of not allowing either group of people sway my opinion in either direction. It should also be noted that this is my first experience with cel shading aside from playing the demo of JSRF and an hour or so of Dark Cloud 2, neither of which made me think twice about the use of cel shading. My thoughts on the graphics of the game are that Nintendo took a fairly unexposed technology and did some very amazing things with it. One of the most notable aspects of cel shading are the facial expressions that Link uses. The expressions convey more feeling and allow you to immerse yourself into the story. The lighting in the game is also superb. I toyed around w/ the camera and positioning it facing the sun in a myriad of different ways and I couldn't find any flaws, clipping, or improper shading. This is not to say that it doesn't exist, just that Nintendo made sure that it wouldn't be common. Rest assured that Nintendo did a complete job on the graphics and you will be very impressed with just how good the game looks.

Being a fan of the original, it brought me great joy to hear some updated versions of the old school music. The music in the game never seemed to annoy me or actually cause me to take notice that it was there. It seems to perfectly complement the overall game experience without standing out in a bad way. The sound effects were right on and even just using the speakers on my TV I felt like they did a good job on giving you that "surround" feeling. Overall, the sound was adequate and I have been very happy with it.

One of the most crucial aspects of a successful game is the gameplay/fun factor which has a direct correlation to the controls of the game. A game can be an extraordinary piece of software but if the controls are horrid and there is no way to customize them it will fail. I was a tad bit nervous that Nintendo would have tried something original and dorked up the controls thus making the game a lot less appealing. I was wrong. It did take a few minutes for me to get used to controlling the camera and properly moving Link around. I still hit the wrong buttons every so often but I guess I am still not fully used to the GC controller. I do especially like the ability to customize X, Y, and Z to use different objects of your choosing. I am also very happy with the camera control. To many games recently have had unruly cameras that made the game difficult to play and I have been very pleased with the way the camera moves.

Something missing from the original Zelda was the fact that you didn't have a character in the game that held your hand and told you what to do and where to go. This is present for the most part in The Wind Waker. There were times when I felt that too much information was given out as to where you were supposed to go, but the vast majority of the time I had to actually think about what it was that I needed to do to move on in the game. I think Nintendo hit it dead on as far as the challenge level of the game. It is not too hard and it is surely not easy. It hits that nice grey area where you are forced to pay close attention to what people say and what your surroundings are.

The fun factor of a game always ranks high on my list of things that are important in a good game. I was not let down with Zelda. The game is fun, but not overly childish. It has aspects that will make you think, but not frustrate you to the point of throwing the controller. All in all, I think we have a winner as far as fun factor. I haven't had my GC that long, but I have noticed that the games tend to be more fun regardless of who the game is targeted at. The Wind Waker is one of those games and will definitely be worth the time you invest in playing it.

Obviously I could have gone into way more depth in this review of Zelda, but I wanted to just give you a taste of what the game is like without spoiling any aspect of it. I often find that it's much more exciting to notice some of the small details of a game as opposed to reading them in a review. I can assure you that Zelda lived up to the hype for me. I rarely pre-order games and I am so glad that I did on this one. This game gets the two thumbs up from me and I highly recommend anyone with a Cube to get it, especially if you grew up with the original. There was so much more I wanted to go into, but I would rather you experience some of those things and make the connections to the previous games.

Mar 28, 2003 | 8 comments
Chris Rasco