If a game could ever sell itself to me on charm alone it might just be this one. Even two decades after its release, and with so many games taking inspiration from the game's aesthetic, Wind Waker still feels like a breath of fresh air to play. The cel-shading here allows for an expressiveness that it feels like The Legend of Zelda had been trying to reach for for years, whilst making the series' tendency to bizarre character designs land in a much more consistently endearing manner than the previous entries. Even many of the stock enemies are just adorable in this game, from doggo darknuts to toucan wizzrobes. The game's soundtrack is also just incredible, helping make the game just have such good vibes to it; even during the Wind Waker's lulls it still largely manages to present spaces that are just so nice to exist in because of how all these elements come together.
The narrative aspects here feel very underrated to me; I hardly ever hear Wind Waker complimented in this regard, but gosh. Granted I think the Zelda series' ability to bring out striking moments of emotionality just generally goes undermentioned, but in my release order playthrough of the series Wind Waker may be the high-point so far in this regard. Moreso than how Link's Awakening gradually makes you accept that you'll have to let go, than the longing found at the heart of Ocarina of Time's exploration of the intersection of nostalgia and growing up, than how Majora's Mask stares oblivion and failure in the face, somehow Wind Waker's much simpler coming of age tale, told through the love you have for your family and friends, within the framework of an even heightened focus on the interweaving of history and legends, just hits perfectly for me with seemingly every story beat managing to land either in terms of emotion or humour. It helps that this is the first Zelda game to actually put work into making Zelda and Ganondorf feel like actual characters instead of just symbols, I just love both their characterisations a ton.
The actual gameplay of Wind Waker is where the game falls a bit short. I remember playing this game as a teenager and dropping it during the Triforce shard fetch-quest when the sailing was really starting to drag for me. The remake does a lot to help in this regard; the swift sail makes getting around much smoother, and the Triforce shard fetch-quest is significantly truncated to the point where it's actually genuinely fine. Even then by the time I had finished my recent playthrough I was still mostly done with the sailing, the initial joy starting to disappear as your map becomes largely filled in and the lack of variety in mid-sailing occurrences becomes increasingly apparent. Still it's worth it for those early highs of having the map open up to you, discovering all these weird and mysterious islands and piecing together how you're going to access their secrets later on, this portion of the game really is a blast and some of the most fun you can have with a Zelda game.
The dungeon design is less annoying than Majora's Mask, but largely unmemorable and run-of-the-mill, and whilst I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with a game being easy, Wind Waker is markedly so to the point where I would find myself just spamming sword attacks against enemies, accepting I was going to be damaged in the process, because the damage I was taking was just meaningless, throwing strategy out the window because the game couldn't really punish the fact that not thinking through your approach is just faster. At this point in the series sword combat was one of the weakest elements of the 3D Zelda entries, but due to the warped incentives brought by the non-existent difficulty this is the first time that the sword combat has seriously drifted into mindlessness for me.
I may sound harsh at points, but very little of this truly bothered me. The vibes really are just that good that they easily carry the game through its weaker moments, and whilst Wind Waker is certainly far from perfect it has become one of my favourite Zelda games during this return to it.
The narrative aspects here feel very underrated to me; I hardly ever hear Wind Waker complimented in this regard, but gosh. Granted I think the Zelda series' ability to bring out striking moments of emotionality just generally goes undermentioned, but in my release order playthrough of the series Wind Waker may be the high-point so far in this regard. Moreso than how Link's Awakening gradually makes you accept that you'll have to let go, than the longing found at the heart of Ocarina of Time's exploration of the intersection of nostalgia and growing up, than how Majora's Mask stares oblivion and failure in the face, somehow Wind Waker's much simpler coming of age tale, told through the love you have for your family and friends, within the framework of an even heightened focus on the interweaving of history and legends, just hits perfectly for me with seemingly every story beat managing to land either in terms of emotion or humour. It helps that this is the first Zelda game to actually put work into making Zelda and Ganondorf feel like actual characters instead of just symbols, I just love both their characterisations a ton.
The actual gameplay of Wind Waker is where the game falls a bit short. I remember playing this game as a teenager and dropping it during the Triforce shard fetch-quest when the sailing was really starting to drag for me. The remake does a lot to help in this regard; the swift sail makes getting around much smoother, and the Triforce shard fetch-quest is significantly truncated to the point where it's actually genuinely fine. Even then by the time I had finished my recent playthrough I was still mostly done with the sailing, the initial joy starting to disappear as your map becomes largely filled in and the lack of variety in mid-sailing occurrences becomes increasingly apparent. Still it's worth it for those early highs of having the map open up to you, discovering all these weird and mysterious islands and piecing together how you're going to access their secrets later on, this portion of the game really is a blast and some of the most fun you can have with a Zelda game.
The dungeon design is less annoying than Majora's Mask, but largely unmemorable and run-of-the-mill, and whilst I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with a game being easy, Wind Waker is markedly so to the point where I would find myself just spamming sword attacks against enemies, accepting I was going to be damaged in the process, because the damage I was taking was just meaningless, throwing strategy out the window because the game couldn't really punish the fact that not thinking through your approach is just faster. At this point in the series sword combat was one of the weakest elements of the 3D Zelda entries, but due to the warped incentives brought by the non-existent difficulty this is the first time that the sword combat has seriously drifted into mindlessness for me.
I may sound harsh at points, but very little of this truly bothered me. The vibes really are just that good that they easily carry the game through its weaker moments, and whilst Wind Waker is certainly far from perfect it has become one of my favourite Zelda games during this return to it.