Wind Waker was a great game, although I was very skeptical at first and
it did take be a while to get use to all the sailing, but otherwise I
had a ton of fun and it was a worthy sequel to Ocarina of Time. They
did enough to make it different, but also kept enough to keep it
familiar. The story was really good, one of the better stories for
Zelda, it just seemed really rushed at the end.
----------Battle System----------
The game's controls are straight from Ocarina of Time, and that's
not a bad thing. The only difference is you can control the camera with
your c-stick freely. Instead of an Ocarina you use a Wind Waker, they
pretty much have the same function. There's only a few new weapons in
the game like the leaf that helps you float or throws a ball of wind,
and the graping hook which is similar to the hookshot (which you end up
getting towards the end also).
The game just seems shorter than Ocarina of Time, as in there’s
alot less dungeons and bosses. The dungeons were small as well. To make
that up I think they tossed in about 100 more sidequests though. I
spent more time on the sidequests than I did on the mainquest. Where is
the fishing though??? You live on an island and you don't fish!!??
----------Characters / Story----------
This game takes place a LONG time after Ocarina of Time, and it
mentioned OoT quite a few times in the Wind Waker. The world has been
flooded, so the world is just a few islands now. Your sister is
kidnaped and when you go on a quest to rescue her, you find out more
about yourself and friends and realize Gannondorf is trying to come
back to take over the world.
There's alot of new characters in the game with a ton of personality, I just wish they would of used them more than they did.
----------Graphics----------
The character and enemy graphics are all celshaded. This is some
of the best graphics I've seen on the cube in a long time and still
holds up 4 years after the fact. The water and the boats are celshaded,
but just about everything else is CGI like you would find in Ocarina of
Time.
The only problem I had was the dungeons felt short. Most of them were 3 floors, and one of them you had to go through twice.
----------Sound----------
The music is great of course. The music is always the best thing
about Zelda games. There's alot of familiar tunes in this and some new
ones that are really good as well. When you attack with your sword, the
music spikes for up the intensity, Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy did a
similar idea.
There's no dialog voice overs in the game, but like Skies of
Arcadia, most of the characters do have voices and they'll often
express some sort of trait or short line on the game. I would of loved
it if they had voice overs though, no voice overs at this point seems
outdated.
----------World Map----------
Compared to Ocarina of Time, the World is probably about 4 times
the size. Early in the game you get a talking boat, and eventually a
sail and the Wind Waker. The Wind Waker changes the direction you sail
across the ocean 8 different directions you want. This is your main
transportation, its long and agonizing at times. Eventually you'll
learn a new song on your Wind Waker and a cyclone will suck you up and
drop you off at any spot on the map that is marked with a cyclone.
The map is separated into squares. Each square has about 1 major
island on it, and most of them have other little secrets like
Submarines, Platforms, and so on. When you want to know the info on the
square, you have to feed a fishman living near the island, and he'll
give you hints and unlock that square on your map. It's probably a good
idea to do this with every fishman you come up to early in the game,
it's very helpful to know where everything is. To give you an idea how
big this game is, there's 49 squares in it.
While you move along in the game you'll find treasure charts.
These treasure charts hold the location of Triforce pieces, Heart
pieces, 200 jewels or other more important charts trapped in chests
hidden beneath the sea. You'll know where they are by a light
illuminating from the sea. There's alot of fetching in this game, going
back and forth just looking for something small.
The special charts in the game are pretty helpful for your main
and sidequests. There's a chart that tells you where every submarine
is, one that tells you where every tri-force is, one that tells you
where the Orcas are and so on.
----------Time to Complete Game----------
They don't keep time on this game? Very weird. After the credits
and the official game over scene you can start a 2nd game with new
clothes, I think that’s about it.
