Wind Waker was, at one time, in my top three Zelda games. I still love the idea of a game about exploration, treasure charts and sailing. Wind Waker looks and sounds great, and it has a cast of fun characters that are sadly done a disservice by some bad decisions by the game’s developers.
Nintendo could have made this game a masterpiece. When I first played it back at release, I thought it was amazing. Well, the novelty’s worn pretty thin at this point. Maybe it’s just the least replayable Zelda game, maybe I’m getting old, I don’t know. Wind Waker has some glaring flaws that truly hold it back, and at this point I have to say it’s one of the most frustrating games I’ve ever wrapped my head around.
I have always adamantly defended the sailing portions of this game, and I still do even though I’ll admit they aren’t that exciting anymore. Normally, I despise slow travel in games, but in Wind Waker the nature of the Great Sea makes it work. The game feels more vast and epic because travel takes such a long time. Here’s the thing, though: exploration in Wind Waker, while it’s the focus of the game, is entirely unrewarding. This ruins the game’s shining promise.
I’ll get back to that point, but to elaborate on it properly, I have to point out other things. First. Wind Waker is an easy game. You can beat it with three hearts without trying too hard. Granted, that’s difficult because the game throws heart pieces at you just for opening the mail. The game requires thousands of rupees to finish, but these are quite easily obtained. In fact, they’re too easily obtained: you’ll curse every orange rupee handed to you like candy before the wallet upgrades once you realize how much money’s needed.
One of the stupidest design decisions that comes to mind is how easily the game throws upgrades at you. As soon as you get Bombs, you can immediately get the 99 Bomb upgrade. The wallet upgrades are available with no fuss whatsoever (Maybe this is a good thing given my earlier complaint). You get the fire and ice arrows at the same time, which pretty much immediately hand you the Iron Boots and Gold Bracer. This goes on and on. Wind Waker hands you all of the important items on a silver platter. As long as you stopped and got chart information for each island along the way, you can’t miss any of it. This is problematic because the only things left are things you don’t actually need: Heart Pieces, Treasure charts, extra Rupees, the Magic Armor, and so on.
Hence, exploration is totally pointless. You gain nothing of value by doing it. Why get Heart Pieces when the game’s final boss can’t even put up a fight? Some players complain about the Triforce gathering section. I disagree; this is actually the best part of the entire game because it requires you to explore in order to progress. Just imagine if the entire game had been based on following charts to dungeons containing the Triforce pieces. That would have been way better than what we got!
It’s clear that Wind Waker was hampered by development problems. Items that should have come from dungeons are easily obtained. Most islands are too small, often filling in a bunch of stuff in to one space. Just the tiny amount of islands with more content than a heart piece chest proves the developers didn’t have time to expand on the world, and that’s sad. Since Wind Waker has such a fresh look and feel, improved combat, and an attempt at a plot that could have been more entertaining with less filler, the lost potential here hurts something awful.
The last thing I have to harp on is the beginning of the game. Skyward Sword’s beginning was awful too, but Wind Waker started this trend in the series. The first thirty minutes of the game are spent on Outset Island with pretty much no interesting gameplay going on. It’s just too long. The intro is overlong, the text boxes scroll slowly, and nothing happens until the Forsaken Fortress. Making matters worse, said Fortress is the worst dungeon in the game, and it can take an hour or more if you happen to get caught by the Moblins multiple times. Stealth could work in a Zelda title, but here it’s implemented in the worst way possible. Metal Gear Solid doesn’t handle stealth perfectly, but geez, at least Snake could hide in lockers, camouflage himself, or stun occasional enemies. In Wind Waker’s stealth section, all you have to rely on are barrels, and those don’t even work that well as the Moblins seem to detect motion way too easily.
Wind Waker has lots of good ideas. It’s not really a bad game. it is a mess, though, and unlike Majora’s Mask, it’s not a FUN mess. Wind Waker is an interesting game punctuated by some of the worst moments in the series’ history. I wish we could go back to 2002 and give Nintendo another year to work on it.
6.5
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