I just finished WW last night....It will go down as one of my favorite games of all time. I was very skeptical of the new graphics engine...but it works well with this game. The animation of the enemies and monsters are fantastic. I love the story and sailing aspect of the game -- very different from the past games. There really wasn't much I didn't like about the game....except it did get a little tedious later in the game when you are searching for all the Triforce maps and shards. I also thought that the ending was a little disappointing. What are your thoughts on the game???

P.S. What are the differences in the Second Quest?? Is it worth going through??


Thanks,


wlj

One of the best games for the Cube. A couple of flaws in my opinion, 1: Too easy.. would've been nice to have a difficulty setting. 2: Too many "fetch-quests", the bane of the Zelda series. 3: Too few dungeons, flaw 1 & 2 would've been much easier to swallow had there more than five dungeons to explore.

As for the look, without a doubt my favorite looking game of all time. I was NEVER skeptical about the graphics. It's just too bad Americans are so disgusting when it comes to how a game "looks", we'll probably never see another high-profile game in this style.

3rd best game this gen behind Metroid Prime and KOTOR.

I liked the difficulty level (hate hard games) but did hate the fetch quests.

Great game, but it was a little short. It needed more dungeons (as was stated before), but the graphics were amazing. Best looking game for a console in my opinion.

Was not crazy about the graphics, but what they did the did well.

Loved it at first, lost interest about a third of the way in and sold it off.

P.S. I am not disgusting. And did it not sell really well? I think the market is big enough now to support all different kinds of games. I personally have grown weary of japanese RPGs, Mario anything and cel shaded graphics.

This game took me awhile to get into, but I ended up loving the game by the end. It is probably my favorite game of this console generation. I loved being able to explore the islands in the boat. Not to mention the storyline of the game was excellent.

The game sold really well so I don't think the style of it hurt Nintendo too much.

I played about half way through it three different times and just cant finish it. I really cant stand sailing that much. I loved the game though (minus the sailing), and I think it has some of the best graphics I have ever in a video game. I hope they keep this same style for the next one, but I doubt that will happen with the "adult" dominated video game market.

I finished it and I loved it. Some of the travelling was a little annoying, but it wasn't a deal-breaker.

I liked the cel-shading. I wouldn't base liking a game on it being cel-shaded or not, i would base it on the game and if it's fun for me.

I like a variety in my gaming. I know a lot of the gaming magazines/media try to make us think that there is only certain things acceptable in games today, but it just isn't so. I'm afraid to say that much of what I read on some gaming forums seems to be just regurjitations of what was read in magazines.

I don't just want everything to be a FPS, or HAVE TO be 3D or HAVE TO be a certain number of hours in length for me to enjoy.

If it's fun, I'll play. If it's short or long, I don't care as long as it is fun.

I really need to go back and finish this game. I haven't touched it in over a year... and I've only got 2 scrolls left to find.

But I do love the game. Once I sit down to play it, there's goes the day!

Certain one of the best looking GC games (behind StarFox and Luigi's Mansion).

Loved the game. The only bad part was traveling all over the place but that was fixed with a nice little tune eventually so it wasn't a problem the whole game.

I dig the game so much I'm actually bummed to see the graphics on the upcoming game. I want the Wind Waker sequel to come out first!

The sailing wasn't popular with me either, but it did an excellent job of actually conveying a sense of scope to the world you are you. In Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, you can literally walk from one end of the world to the other in minutes. Wind Waker is the first game I've played that really gave you a feeling of being in a large world.

I got tired of the sailing personally, I would at times just leave my boat going in a direction while I did something else, thats what made me realize I didn't enjoy the sailing aspect. I wish there had been more of the game devoted to other things besides sailing (dungeons, on land quests).

But it is still a great game, and definitely in my top ten for this gen. The scene is one of my favorite gaming moments.

I also didn't mind the difficulty or the length, but then again I only have a limited amount of time for games so I don't really like spending 50 hours on one game.

That part of the game was pimp, very cool. Brought a smile to my face thinking about it again.

Loved it. I really did enjoy the graphics, but also am looking forward to the upcoming Zelda's look as well.

I too thought there were too few dungeons. There should at least be a standard 8 of somewhat equal length. But, it almost feels that a couple of the short areas were supposed to be full dungeons at some point.

There are many good points for me in the game and I could go on and on about what I liked, but I think I can just leave it at "loved it."

Has anyone played through the Second Quest??? Is it alot different??

Why does everyone say they didn't like the sailing??? I loved it...it made you feel like you were in this huge world. Anyway when you learn the Ballad of the Gales you can warp which cuts out 95% of the sailing.


wlj

Decent Zelda game but i enjoyed the previous ones more. Still hate Cel-Shading with a passion.

I loved the graphics, but found most of the rest of the game to be lacking in one area or another.

I think my biggest problem with the game was that it was way too easy. Sure, I got hit plenty, but even the biggest enemies did so little damage I was never at a loss for hearts. And even if I ever did get low on hearts, practically every enemy you kill showers you with hearts so that you're back up to full strength in no time. To this day, I have no idea what happens when you die or when you have to use a fairy in The Wind Waker. I had the same four fairies in my bottles for the entire game, and never had to use any of them.

Not only was the game itself pathetically easy, but as others have said, there was a seriously low amount of dungeons. Sure, Majora's Mask only had four main dungeons, but Majora's Mask was a lot harder than Wind Waker, and the time limit added another layer of complexity to the dungeons. The levels in Wind Waker were pretty much the standard Zelda puzzles. Most of the puzzles in the game were the standard Zelda push block onto a switch/kill all the enemies in the room stuff, making it seem like I had played all these before.

Other people have lamtented the sailing, and I have to agree, it does get tedious. However, I found that the worst part of the sailing wasn't the sailing itself, but the fact that most of the islands in the game were pointless. Sure, there were about six or seven major islands, but the rest of them were all pretty inconsequential. A game with the look and theme of Wind Waker could have really given the player a good sense of exploration, but the game fell flat on its face. Having a bunch of tiny islands wouldn't have been too bad in and of itself, but having no great reward for exploring these islands makes the problems worse. The best you could hope for when you explored the islands (or those pirate platforms) was more money (which wasn't exactly hard to come by) or yet another heart container piece (which you didn't really care about, as it just meant that the game would become all the more easier). I would have loved to have seen a similarly sized game world, but with a smaller number of huge islands, so that the bulk of the gameplay wasn't centered on the water. That way, you could spend a good amount of time on a particular island, exploring all the little nooks and crannies, then set sail for another island. Instead, you'd land at an island, spend a minute (three if you were luckY) to find out that there wasn't anything there of any importance, then get back on the boat and spend the next five minutes or so headed to the next island.

I think it all boils down to the game being rushed. Nintendo seemed to want to get rid of their "delay stuff all the time" image with their high-profile games this generation. Both Mario Sunshine and The Wind Waker came out without any delays, and both were way too easy, shorter than the other games in their respective series, and generally didn't have the same polish, making the other faults seem all the more glaring.

I am kinda indifferent to the graphics. They were cool while I played it but I'm looking quite forward to the new game.

The sailing... ugh. How pointless was that? Yes it shows how big a world it is but makes for quite a boring time. And like xVlad said, most of the islands were pointless. I found myself aiming my boat as well and going to do other things. Bathroom break, fixing food, playing on the net with my laptop, going to the the mail, etc. Pretty much anything to get out of doing nothing in my little boat.

I think they should have started a new franchise with that game, change Link, Zelda and Ganon a bit and they would have a whole new franchise. It wouldn't have gotten the disdain right of the gates either since there wouldn't have been such a stigmata about it.

WW was right up there with Mario Sunshine as the biggest disappointment this gen, IMO.

I loved the graphics from Day One, but felt the game itself was a dumbed-down version of Ocarina which didn't bring enough new stuff to the table to compensate. Overall, I found it far too short, the difficulty to be far too low, the sailing to be an excruciating experience, the collect-a-thon towards the end to be tedious. Even the dungeons - save the B&W level - were totally forgettable.

I agree w/ Ralph above, especially with the sailing... ugh.

Short and sweet; I found the game uninteresting enough to just stop playing what I'm told is about halfway through. It saddens me that the last Zelda games have bored me enough to just not finish them .

Yeah, I hate it when my games bleed miraculously.

Anyway, I liked the game overall. The only times I got frustrated were at the very beginning, in the Forbidden Fortress (with the stealth) and at the very end, when it seemed like the game would. not. end. The graphics were a nice departure, but I'm really looking forward to the more realistic-looking sequel, like every other Zelda fan on the planet. I did have to use a fairy occasionally... during the 50 levels of the Savage Labyrinth (maybe?) and, um, the snake form of the Ganon puppet, I think. Maybe on Ganon himself.

While I'm really looking forward to the new Zelda title, I have to say that I'd be quite disappointed if we never saw the cel-shaded look again. The graphics in Wind Waker were absolutely gorgeous, and a Zelda game with those graphics, except set on land, would be stunning to look at.

I wouldn't even mind the sailing so much if the land masses were arranged like they were in Zelda 2. For those who don't know or don't remember, Zelda 2 started you out on a pretty good-sized continent, with a handfull of docks scattered around the edge. Once you got a raft, you could set sail from the docks to docks on another continent. The sense of exploration there was great, because you were opening up huge areas at a time.

Which reminds me of the other big problem I had with Wind Waker. A hallmark of the Zelda games (and the Metroid games, now that I think of it) is that large portions of the game's world are blocked off from the player, requiring them to use newfound items to explore further. This gives a sense of progression and really makes finding certain items exciting. I remember when I finally found the hammer in Zelda 2, I was absolutely thrilled because I could finally break all the boulders and find out what lie beyond them. In Wind Waker, you could visit every single island about thirty minutes into the game, and since the majority of the islands were so tiny, you could actually travel practically the entire overworld right off the bat, which I did. I always love exploring and finding stuff to come back to in the Zelda titles, yet I found nothing here. Every locked off area was just some one room puzzle which rewarded me with yet another useless heart piece or map. The sad thing is that it wouldn't have been that hard to fix. They could have allowed for boat upgrades (I know I can't be the only person who kept expecting to find a magic sail that didn't require you to constantly change the wind direction), and make certain areas of the sea "too dangerous" to traverse in your current boat.

Back to my previous point about the graphics, imagine what the designers could do with more varied land masses with the Wind Waker engine. An arctic region, a Death-Mountain like volcano, vast forests, swamps, deserts, etc. Just thinking that we'll never see vistas like that realized in the gorgeous cell shading almost makes me upset that Nintendo bowed to all the people who complained about the graphics.

Too much sailing = boredom for me. I like the level designs for Ocarina much more.

Don't mean to sound like a queer or nothing but that Tingle (tuner) was pretty sweet.

I managed to finish Prime 100% but I skipped a bunch of side quests in Windwaker. I thoroughly enjoyed the game though and I still go back and play (the 50 level dungeon or the enemy onslaught cave-Shark Island I think).