20 Years of Windwaker
The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker was released in America twenty years ago for the Nintendo GameCube. Developed by Nintendo this installment gained an HD remake for the Wii U in 2013. This title sold very well, got great many and was nominated for a handful of awards. Now twenty years we are looking back at what made the Windwaker such a great experience.
This installment in the Zelda franchise takes place as the first game of the adult timeline. Gannon is sealed away at the end of Ocarina of time causing Hyrule to be sealed and then flooded. 400 years later we see the new hero, who was reborn, as the Hero of the Winds. Link in this game is young boy living on Outset Island with his grandmother and little sister Aryll. When is Aryll is kidnapped by a resurrected Ganondorf and is spreading evil across the world. Link must set sail on a journey to become strong enough to rescue her. Along Links journey he teams up with the King of Red Lions, who is a talking boat, that helps Link travel around the Great Sea. With his new companion Link travels to different trials scattered around the Great Sea to obtain the power to pull the Master Sword.
The Windwaker introduces new gameplay mechanics due to how Link explores the Great Sea. Rather than riding on Epona’s back around Hyrule, in this title Link sails around the Great Sea like a pirate. The wind blows the sailboat and Link controls it while exploring new islands. The sailboat also has a battle mechanic system. Link can also encounter enemies and must battle when on the ship by shooting bombs out of the canon.
This is the first title to use cell shading which was used to give this game a cartoon effect. This divided the players and drove many of the older Zelda fans away because it looked too childish. Shell shading is a main reason why this game still holds up. At the time many games tried to make realistic graphics that looked good at the time but within two to three years these graphics were outdated and bad. This does not appear when replaying Windwaker all these years later. No, the graphics are not amazing, but it does not look like a game that was made twenty years ago. To add onto the graphics, Windwaker has beautiful ocean world scenery. There are many times where the player can get lost sailing around the seas
The only thing that this game lacks is the number of temples. During production one dungeon had to get taken out to make the deadline. After this dungeon was removed in its place there was a hunting objective where the player must find Triforce shards around the Great Sea. This part of the game is very tedious and often feels like a waste of time. During this portion of the game there were many players who did not finish it because of how annoying this part was. It would have been a lot better if the dungeon was cut down and nothing was put in its place.
