This is one of the most creative games in the franchise. It revolutionized the visuals and exploration gameplay, making a step backwards from the much more story-focused Majora's Mask and Ocarina of Time to the very beginning of TLOZ, back in the NES days.
The game shines in these moments of complete liberty. When the player is free to explore, or even in the tiny puzzles where much more lateral thinking needs to be done than in your average Zelda, you can sense what the game developers were trying to achieve. Unfortunately, there's also a feeling of underdevelopment in many of those moments, and more. The sailing, the islands, the underwater parts, the dungeons, etc., have all some aspect or two that makes you think "clearly, they wanted to do this in more detail and just run out of development time".
I know that the sailing has always caused some debate among the fans. I don't think it was neither as boring as some put it, nor the perfect gameplay mechanic others claim it to be. I admit that I was sometimes bored while sailing, because there isn't much to do apart from watching Link go forward, but it was always exciting to find a new island or piece of the map and wonder what secrets it may hide.
On the other hand, the dungeons were a letdown, no excuses. The layout is way too linear (not that focusing on being linear is a mistake, but the problem here is that this linearity had me not even paying attention to the rooms I had been in and how they were related, because I always felt that I was walking on a very long corridor), and the combat is too easy (I never died in the game, and I can swear that I was particularly reckless on some parts once I realized how easy it was). A complete final dungeon would have been very much appreciated, too.
Instead, where I have found the true strength of this game is on the story, which is something that I was not expecting at all. WW made me care about Link's sister, want to sail the seas with Tetra, appreciate the silent King of Red Lions as a stern but reassuring companion, and, above all, respect the imposing presence of Ganondorf. This has become one of my favourites, if not my favourite, incarnation of the villain, and the final battle stands as one of the most epic in the franchise.
But yeah, play WW. And tell Nintendo to port it to Switch.
The game shines in these moments of complete liberty. When the player is free to explore, or even in the tiny puzzles where much more lateral thinking needs to be done than in your average Zelda, you can sense what the game developers were trying to achieve. Unfortunately, there's also a feeling of underdevelopment in many of those moments, and more. The sailing, the islands, the underwater parts, the dungeons, etc., have all some aspect or two that makes you think "clearly, they wanted to do this in more detail and just run out of development time".
I know that the sailing has always caused some debate among the fans. I don't think it was neither as boring as some put it, nor the perfect gameplay mechanic others claim it to be. I admit that I was sometimes bored while sailing, because there isn't much to do apart from watching Link go forward, but it was always exciting to find a new island or piece of the map and wonder what secrets it may hide.
On the other hand, the dungeons were a letdown, no excuses. The layout is way too linear (not that focusing on being linear is a mistake, but the problem here is that this linearity had me not even paying attention to the rooms I had been in and how they were related, because I always felt that I was walking on a very long corridor), and the combat is too easy (I never died in the game, and I can swear that I was particularly reckless on some parts once I realized how easy it was). A complete final dungeon would have been very much appreciated, too.
Instead, where I have found the true strength of this game is on the story, which is something that I was not expecting at all. WW made me care about Link's sister, want to sail the seas with Tetra, appreciate the silent King of Red Lions as a stern but reassuring companion, and, above all, respect the imposing presence of Ganondorf. This has become one of my favourites, if not my favourite, incarnation of the villain, and the final battle stands as one of the most epic in the franchise.
But yeah, play WW. And tell Nintendo to port it to Switch.
Reviewed on Apr 09, 2023