Windwaker is one of those games I have replayed innumerable times throughout my life.
Replaying a game can sometimes make or break your experience with it. You can often wonder if your enjoyment of a game, especially one you played as a child, was just nostalgia, or if there was really something there. I’m absolutely the type of person that as I replay specific games more and more, (which is something I do less as I get older for better or worse) I tend to analyze and criticize them more and notice clearly what games lack to me, rather than appreciating what they do have occasionally. I have done this with every other 3D Zelda game ad nauseum. For example: I've played Ocarina of Time so many times I’ve gotten pretty close to actively not liking it as much anymore and destroying all nostalgia I once had for it growing up. Windwaker is probably the Zelda I've played the most, I got, played, and beat it within weeks of its original release, and I’ve replayed it most likely between 15 and 20 times since then, sometimes replaying it back-to-back at once or multiple times in the same year. I believe the first time playing it was my fourth game in the series after ALttP, OoT and Majora's Mask, and I have played (and of course, replayed) almost every other game in the entire series since.
In comparison to every other 3D Zelda game, WW might be the one that is clearly "lacking" the most in some respects, it obviously has issues with pacing in many aspects of its story and even gameplay, it has a noticeable lack of dungeons and even some content in general compared to half the 3D games at least. Although, if I am being honest, of all the games I've replayed to death and gotten more critical of each replay, and essentially crushed all nostalgia for, Windwaker might be the game that works for me the most despite any issues it may have for me. I legitimately do not care about anything this game clearly lacks, and how clearly choppy the pacing of some aspects of it are; because what it does have is so concise and to the point thematically and amazing to experience for me personally, that its faults really do not bother me whatsoever. No matter how much I can and try to critique it, it is among the only games that those critiques don't really harm my overall opinion of what is there in the game. Of course, I could argue it doesn't achieve doing nearly as much with what little it has as a game like Majora's Mask before it did, and I'd say it is absolutely much less directly innovative to gaming as a whole than OoT was at its time; but for me it thematically surpasses both of them, particularly OoT which WW builds off the most directly.
Ocarina of Time is a game about, well... time. Link and Zelda falter in their original naive plan to stop Ganondorf and doom the world and the passage of time becomes an antagonizing force when it seals Link, and he awakens in a world that is conquered by his enemy. The time between that is forever lost to Link and he is unable to directly stop these events as they happen. Link then weaponize that very passage of time against their foes and secures a brighter future by altering it and affecting things in the past before they happen instead. Link, with Zelda's unseen guidance, wields the past, against a hostile and bleak future. Majora’s Mask goes in a direction that takes some of the ideas from OoT and confronts you with these themes about time in the form of an idea of loss and getting back something unattainable and moving on. Windwaker addresses a similar idea but takes it much further and uses these dynamics between the past, present and future in a much more nuanced way in my opinion, that, while not reaching the heights of reflecting this in the gameplay like OoTT does, it manages to build upon OoT's thematic foundation while almost directly rejecting its principles and approach to them in a way that holds up to me astonishingly well.
Windwaker at its core is essentially about the stagnation of adherence to nostalgia and obsession with glory days of the past and rejecting it to build and appreciate something new. A new world, a new beginning, a rejection of a past that has no place in the current world and stops it from growing on its own. It is essentially a direct answer to the story and world OoT gives you. I don't think it's saying "OoT sucks", or anything of the sort, but more that it takes the ideas it presented in OoT and pushes them in a much more interesting direction while directly using its events and themes as a point of reference. It is sort of a duality of rejecting and simultaneously appreciating the work it builds off so much, which is fascinating to me. Windwaker dares to reject the traditions of the Hero of Time, and the world of Hyrule reflected in the obsession and longing with the past that the King and Gannondorf share in different ways. It challenges the harmful stagnation of nostalgia and longing for an unattainable past. Instead urging its heroes to create a new and better world free from the shackles of the old. As I mentioned before, Windwaker is not nearly the innovative game in its structure that Majora's Mask is at its core, in fact it is honestly something much closer to a reflection of OoT's formula in a new direction, but it does manage to have a beautiful story, world and themes, and a remarkable sense of expression and creativity that I love more and more each time I experience it. It is ultimately a game with astounding heart and soul in its core themes and concepts despite some minor flaws and empty space in its actual gaming experience.
With this strong will Windwaker exemplifies to build off but partially reject its predecessor’s approach and go against nostalgia; the negative reception to its artstyle and perceived changes in tone that came with its release, and the constant comparison and desire for something more like “OoT 2”, are then doubly ironic in a way. In story, gameplay and tone, Windwaker continues to build off and go new directions from OoT in incredibly creative ways. The dungeons, the overworld, the puzzles, the major locations, the aesthetic style, the characters, they all take this idea of taking the foundation of OoT and doing something new and quite different with it. It was the perfect game to accompany the Gamecube as the start of a new era and show the unique innovation that come with that newness. It reflects these themes of allowing innovation to take hold over nostalgia in the very essence of its existence and the actual experience of playing it. The beautiful cel-shaded graphics and masterful use of lighting and color in the game which were vilified around its release, and that amusingly make the game hold up perhaps among the best of any game its age aesthetically, ultimately act as a testament to its innovation and acceptance of new things. Exploring and mapping out a mysterious ocean world and the sense of discovery that comes from traversing a world so vastly different from Hyrule shows these ideas in its gameplay incredibly well also. Despite the fact that parts of its pacing does make it quite obvious things were cut from the game just by playing it over numerous times, I think the final result is a wonderful and concise experience that is very thematically consistent with the rejection of nostalgia and hope for a brighter future paved with new ideas reflected in all aspects of it.
Perhaps there's a hypocritic irony in my inability to criticize the game as heavily possibly being a type of nostalgia of its own, but that doesn't matter to me much either honestly. I think for me it's more important that Windwaker is the one game in the series, and one of those rare pieces of media in general, that instills and brings forth a very deeply personal feeling and emotional response in me no matter how much I experience it. It still retains a resonance with who I am as a person at my core and encourages me to experience new things instead of holding on to nothing but the old, which is a powerful and important feeling to who I am. In that way perhaps my willingness to destroy some of my own nostalgia with criticism comes from Windwaker instilling this ideology in me in the first place. I think one of the reasons its themes have become more enjoyable to me instead of less, is because its ideas are the direct result of getting older and maturing as a person. Instead of halting progress and personal growth and adhering to nostalgia, the hope for a future comes in accepting great new things and changes for the better which Windwaker illustrated wonderfully to me from a young age whether I understood it at the time or not.
A simple but beautiful game that resonates with me personally on a profound level, and that has been a part of me for nearly 20 years now and will most likely remain with me continually going forward.
Replaying a game can sometimes make or break your experience with it. You can often wonder if your enjoyment of a game, especially one you played as a child, was just nostalgia, or if there was really something there. I’m absolutely the type of person that as I replay specific games more and more, (which is something I do less as I get older for better or worse) I tend to analyze and criticize them more and notice clearly what games lack to me, rather than appreciating what they do have occasionally. I have done this with every other 3D Zelda game ad nauseum. For example: I've played Ocarina of Time so many times I’ve gotten pretty close to actively not liking it as much anymore and destroying all nostalgia I once had for it growing up. Windwaker is probably the Zelda I've played the most, I got, played, and beat it within weeks of its original release, and I’ve replayed it most likely between 15 and 20 times since then, sometimes replaying it back-to-back at once or multiple times in the same year. I believe the first time playing it was my fourth game in the series after ALttP, OoT and Majora's Mask, and I have played (and of course, replayed) almost every other game in the entire series since.
In comparison to every other 3D Zelda game, WW might be the one that is clearly "lacking" the most in some respects, it obviously has issues with pacing in many aspects of its story and even gameplay, it has a noticeable lack of dungeons and even some content in general compared to half the 3D games at least. Although, if I am being honest, of all the games I've replayed to death and gotten more critical of each replay, and essentially crushed all nostalgia for, Windwaker might be the game that works for me the most despite any issues it may have for me. I legitimately do not care about anything this game clearly lacks, and how clearly choppy the pacing of some aspects of it are; because what it does have is so concise and to the point thematically and amazing to experience for me personally, that its faults really do not bother me whatsoever. No matter how much I can and try to critique it, it is among the only games that those critiques don't really harm my overall opinion of what is there in the game. Of course, I could argue it doesn't achieve doing nearly as much with what little it has as a game like Majora's Mask before it did, and I'd say it is absolutely much less directly innovative to gaming as a whole than OoT was at its time; but for me it thematically surpasses both of them, particularly OoT which WW builds off the most directly.
Ocarina of Time is a game about, well... time. Link and Zelda falter in their original naive plan to stop Ganondorf and doom the world and the passage of time becomes an antagonizing force when it seals Link, and he awakens in a world that is conquered by his enemy. The time between that is forever lost to Link and he is unable to directly stop these events as they happen. Link then weaponize that very passage of time against their foes and secures a brighter future by altering it and affecting things in the past before they happen instead. Link, with Zelda's unseen guidance, wields the past, against a hostile and bleak future. Majora’s Mask goes in a direction that takes some of the ideas from OoT and confronts you with these themes about time in the form of an idea of loss and getting back something unattainable and moving on. Windwaker addresses a similar idea but takes it much further and uses these dynamics between the past, present and future in a much more nuanced way in my opinion, that, while not reaching the heights of reflecting this in the gameplay like OoTT does, it manages to build upon OoT's thematic foundation while almost directly rejecting its principles and approach to them in a way that holds up to me astonishingly well.
Windwaker at its core is essentially about the stagnation of adherence to nostalgia and obsession with glory days of the past and rejecting it to build and appreciate something new. A new world, a new beginning, a rejection of a past that has no place in the current world and stops it from growing on its own. It is essentially a direct answer to the story and world OoT gives you. I don't think it's saying "OoT sucks", or anything of the sort, but more that it takes the ideas it presented in OoT and pushes them in a much more interesting direction while directly using its events and themes as a point of reference. It is sort of a duality of rejecting and simultaneously appreciating the work it builds off so much, which is fascinating to me. Windwaker dares to reject the traditions of the Hero of Time, and the world of Hyrule reflected in the obsession and longing with the past that the King and Gannondorf share in different ways. It challenges the harmful stagnation of nostalgia and longing for an unattainable past. Instead urging its heroes to create a new and better world free from the shackles of the old. As I mentioned before, Windwaker is not nearly the innovative game in its structure that Majora's Mask is at its core, in fact it is honestly something much closer to a reflection of OoT's formula in a new direction, but it does manage to have a beautiful story, world and themes, and a remarkable sense of expression and creativity that I love more and more each time I experience it. It is ultimately a game with astounding heart and soul in its core themes and concepts despite some minor flaws and empty space in its actual gaming experience.
With this strong will Windwaker exemplifies to build off but partially reject its predecessor’s approach and go against nostalgia; the negative reception to its artstyle and perceived changes in tone that came with its release, and the constant comparison and desire for something more like “OoT 2”, are then doubly ironic in a way. In story, gameplay and tone, Windwaker continues to build off and go new directions from OoT in incredibly creative ways. The dungeons, the overworld, the puzzles, the major locations, the aesthetic style, the characters, they all take this idea of taking the foundation of OoT and doing something new and quite different with it. It was the perfect game to accompany the Gamecube as the start of a new era and show the unique innovation that come with that newness. It reflects these themes of allowing innovation to take hold over nostalgia in the very essence of its existence and the actual experience of playing it. The beautiful cel-shaded graphics and masterful use of lighting and color in the game which were vilified around its release, and that amusingly make the game hold up perhaps among the best of any game its age aesthetically, ultimately act as a testament to its innovation and acceptance of new things. Exploring and mapping out a mysterious ocean world and the sense of discovery that comes from traversing a world so vastly different from Hyrule shows these ideas in its gameplay incredibly well also. Despite the fact that parts of its pacing does make it quite obvious things were cut from the game just by playing it over numerous times, I think the final result is a wonderful and concise experience that is very thematically consistent with the rejection of nostalgia and hope for a brighter future paved with new ideas reflected in all aspects of it.
Perhaps there's a hypocritic irony in my inability to criticize the game as heavily possibly being a type of nostalgia of its own, but that doesn't matter to me much either honestly. I think for me it's more important that Windwaker is the one game in the series, and one of those rare pieces of media in general, that instills and brings forth a very deeply personal feeling and emotional response in me no matter how much I experience it. It still retains a resonance with who I am as a person at my core and encourages me to experience new things instead of holding on to nothing but the old, which is a powerful and important feeling to who I am. In that way perhaps my willingness to destroy some of my own nostalgia with criticism comes from Windwaker instilling this ideology in me in the first place. I think one of the reasons its themes have become more enjoyable to me instead of less, is because its ideas are the direct result of getting older and maturing as a person. Instead of halting progress and personal growth and adhering to nostalgia, the hope for a future comes in accepting great new things and changes for the better which Windwaker illustrated wonderfully to me from a young age whether I understood it at the time or not.
A simple but beautiful game that resonates with me personally on a profound level, and that has been a part of me for nearly 20 years now and will most likely remain with me continually going forward.