The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

I'm writing this from the perspective that the reader already knows Link and Zelda and has possibly heard a lot of negative comments, mostly about the cel shaded graphics, which give Wind Waker a more cartoony appearance. Major features of the game include: cel shaded 3D graphics, over 50 locations with tasks to complete, only slightly structured, fairly free storyline and game play, fun for all ages (I'm 38, my son is 6), and linking to a Gameboy Advance without needing a separate cartridge.

Considering the first Zelda I played (A Link to the Past) was stylized 2-D animation, this transformation to 3-D seemed pretty natural to me. Despite what some people have complained about, Link's appearance wasn't distracting at all, nor were the cartoony graphics. As a matter of fact, as a computer animated anime story, it was done quite well. I'm looking forward to future "realistic" Zelda games, but have no problems whatsoever with the cel shading used in Wind Waker.

The story revolves around you (an apparent heir of Link's) trying, once again, to defeat Ganondorf, Link's archenemy from the past. It starts innocently enough on your home island from which your little sister is abducted by a giant bird. The world is made up of 49 island locations on a 7 by 7 grid. You link up with some pirates who take you to where your sister is being held. Instead of rescuing her, you ultimately discover Ganondorf's plot to take over the world.

You are given the Wind Waker, a wand that can conduct wind (among other things), that initially helps you sail a LOT faster to various locations on the map, but ultimately has many more uses. Learning one pattern helps you conduct a gale that can carry you to one of eight locations on the map quickly, without having to go through the often tedious sailing.

A series of adventures ensues where you find stronger and stronger weapons, interact with dozens of the denizens of the world, and slowly but surely uncover the plot and collect all the items necessary to defeat the big bad enemy in a final showdown at the end.

I specifically wrote the previous paragraph that way so that you can cut and paste in your review of just about every adventure game in existence. We all know what it's about long before picking up the box, it's just a question of "did they do the adventure right?" All in all, I had a great (if sometimes frustrating) time playing the game. The story is downright addicting. I have a small family of four, and whenever someone (either me or my son) was playing, anybody who happened by would usually sit and watch. It's one of those games where, after hours of playing, you would keep saying "I'll just finish -something- and then I'll stop for today." You'd tell yourself that maybe a dozen times before you finally were ready to quit for the day.

The drawbacks are numerous, often taking a little something away from the game play. Despite these shortcomings, the game comes way out ahead, having great, fun game play. But just so you won't think I didn't warn you, here are some of my pet peeves:

Sailing is fun . . . for a little while. There's way too much of it here.

The music is not bad, but the game takes so long to finish you can't help but start to get annoyed at it.

The game often pauses to display dialog or other information. When it's dialog, you can skip past it fairly quickly by tapping the button. When it's instructions, it does not let you skip. This is annoying, because by the fortieth time I've found a "Joy Pendant", I already know what it's for. This happens on far too many objects.

When conducting with the Wind Waker, the animations are tedious after a while, with no way to skip past them.

The default 3D camera position is almost always WRONG, and the controllable camera is not versatile enough. Too many places require you to go to a first person mode in order to look around. This is especially bad in a number of fights, especially bosses.

And one final comment, without any spoilers, is during the final battle Zelda often talks to you. Now, note the last "peeve" I wrote above... after someone talks to you, the camera goes back to the default position... so if you're pushing one way to run, then the camera changes, the way you are pushing is usually not the way you want to go. Very frustrating.

Some of these "peeves" are things where it was just painfully obvious the creators of the game were trying to stretch out game play. Pretty annoying. As I said though, it's all about game play and this game was FUN, it was very hard to put down. I'd give it an easy 8 out of 10, maybe even a 9.

IMDb side note: IMDb keeps saying "cel" is not spelled correctly. It is, in fact, the way you spell the word when you are talking about animation.