The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
A Review By: Shannon
Console: Nintendo GameCube ()



Okay. Welcome to my review on “The Wind Waker”. I will write a quick summary for all those who have not bought it yet and would like to see a storyline before I begin to rate this game.

In this new addition to the Legend of Zelda family tree, your character lives on a peaceful island in the middle of a gigantic ocean. It is your birthday and your grandmother, as well as the rest of the islanders have a tradition to wear a green tunic the on the day you become a man to remember the great Hero of Time. Your sister, Aryll gives you her telescope to borrow and just outside the docking area for boats, is a large pirate ship. A mysterious bird flies over head and the pirate ship shoots at it with it’s cannons. No sooner had they done that then the bird lost hold of the thing it was carrying and drops it into the woods. You find a sword from the swordsman in town and head on up to the area where you saw the thing the bird had dropped. After defeating some villains you rescue a pirate girl named Tetra. Leaving with her and her pirate friend to go back outside of the forest, you stumble upon a horrific site. Your sister is being captured by that bird. You can do nothing but now you must start on a quest to find your sister before it is too late and safely return her home.

Graphics-9/10
I’m sick of all these idiots out here running around saying that graphics are the only thing that matter to a game. I mean, honestly, the perspective that Nintendo aimed for was of a comical one. The Link in The Wind Waker did not grow up and there were points where the graphic design for the Link in Ocarina of Time could not have narrowed his eyes and sweatdropped, or turn his head to see if he could make it around the corner without being attacked by moblin pig things. The graphics aren’t that bad once you get used to the game and I ended up liking the way they were laid out.

Sound and Music-10/10
Koji Kondo is a musical genius! The music was just as every bit as fantastic as it was in Ocarina of time. Dragon Roost Island is upon one of my top favorites! The music played together very smoothly and they were obviously very thought out notes because I did notice they were not lazily slapped on the game. If you are looking for some very good instrumental music to keep you occupied while you play, this is your game. The opening theme was brilliant, I found myself dancing to the ending song for four minutes straight before I got tired. Nothing less from the brilliant Koji Kondo!

Storyline-9/10
I very much liked how I was able to play through everything and get the full feel of the game. The storyline was excellent and I know that no one in Sony could come up with a better storyline even if they actually used those oversized pea-brains. *cough* Sorry. Anyway, the storyline is great. The only thing I didn’t like was spending so much money on Tingle and then having to collect every single piece of the Tri-force. I liked the concept of it though, how else could they have thrown the Tri-force in there and still make it believable?

Gameplay-10/10
Ah ha ha. So we’ve come to this one at last. Shannon is a sucker for game play. This game has so much more mini things to do, you can be kept busy for weeks just trying to do it all! With the Joy Association on Windfall Island, collecting Joy Pendants, helping deliver mail for the Dragon Roost Island Post office and all sorts of extra games, this game is the definition of excellent game play. Nintendo took the fan input about adding new monsters and that dramatically changed the games creativity. There were many more things to do which leads me to my next topic:

Replayability-9.5/10
This game does not get boring. I mean, even if you get to the top of the Forsaken Fortress there is still an exit to the outside world. Besides that, the games WANTS you to replay it! Once you defeat Ganondorf, they have a special game where you start out with the color pictograph box, invisible clothes (you don’t wear the green tunic!) and all the Hylian that the characters speak in are translated. It just screams for you to replay it and with all the mini-quests, there is no reason not to!

Score: 9.45/10