Another great 3D Zelda and the artstyle stands the test of time. But I can't get over how tedious sailing is. I always had to switch between watching something on TV and setting a course for a faraway island just to maintain my interest in the game. Wasn't crazy about the dungeons in this game, thought they were all too straightforward. Have to acknowledge the final fight in this game, its the best out of the series hands down. I wish boss rush existed just so I could do that fight more often.

Aside from the art style that was mired in unfair controversy, the highlight of Wind Waker as a Zelda game is the sense of exploration. Unfortunately the actual act of exploring can be frustrating and tedious. As much as I love taking in the art and the music on the high seas, sailing gets old very quickly, and exploration goes unrewarded for almost all of the game. Early on in the game, islands mostly fall into two categories: Islands that are significant later in the story but not now, and side islands that can't be plundered without items from later in the game. Once the player reaches a point in the game where they can be reasonably confident that exploring will not be a waste of time, they end up doing a world tour and uncovering the whole map at once, zone by zone, rather than slowly over the course of the game, which I think is a shame. The last few minutes of the game are incredible and the opening is quite strong as well... it's the middle that's the problem. Dungeons are adequate fail to impress and it certainly feels as though one or more were cut from the game. The mandatory late-game world-spanning scavenger hunt is always a risky trope, and it's implementation here is pretty infamously poor. One would think that finding a piece of the Triforce wouldn't be as unceremonious as just scraping it off the ocean floor. The HD version wisely moves the pieces instead to the locations that once held the charts which led to them. This also cuts out the excruciating fees that Tingle demands in his role as middleman and the game is better for it.

I remember the hate the game got because of its art style.
It's good to see that people now don't mind it or even like it because of it.

The wide sea areas where annoyingly large and barren and finding the triforce pieces was a nightmare. That Tekla was suddenly a rather demure character after her Zelda reveal was weird too but I liked the story well enough.
No horse this time but a speaking boat.

Could have done without that but here we are.

Also liked the rather sympathetic ganon characterization. His last words always kinda stuck to me even though they were not even that good I think...

:D

Wait, forgot about the triforce hunt

:)