I still find The Wind Waker painful to play

[YolkFolk]

Such a beautiful game with fantastic controls, likeable characters, catchy music and a wonderful charm.

I can never shake off that 'what if' feeling whenever I play though. What if this game had another 12 months of development time? It's incomplete holes and subsequent padding are so glaringly obvious. With that extra development time they would have had at least two extra dungeons and perhaps non of the infamous triforce hunt we saw towards the end of the adventure. I always imagined they would have added more detail to several of the islands as well, giving us more to explore along the way.

It's such a shame that the Gamecube's poor performance forced Nintendo to rush this game out early. I was secretly hoping many of the issues would be fixed with the HD version for an ultimate release but instead we got a more refined version of what came before.

When I see the core foundations that are already in place, I can't help but feel a fully complete Wind Waker would have been the near undisputed greatest Zelda title for many years. Instead I've always had a black mark against it because no other game in the series feels so unfinished. It's a shame because what it does well, it does better or as good as any Zelda game that came before or after.

 

[WillyFive]

When I played it, it never occured to me that there were "missing" dungeons. Unless someone tells you about it on the internet, it wouldnt be obvious at all. It was a spectaculary well polished game.

I agree that the Wii U remaster was disappointing, but its not as barebones as the Twilight Princess Wii U port.

 

[unicornKnight]

I enjoy it but yeah this game is a big what if, every time I play it I feel sad of the wasted potential.

 

[MaitreWakou]

When I played it, it never occured to me that there were "missing" dungeons. Unless someone tells you about it on the internet, it wouldnt be obvious at all. It was a spectaculary well polished game.

Click to shrink...

I agree. Sure the triforce hunting is kinda boring, but the rest of the game is 10/10 imo.

 

[Sorel]

My favorite Zelda game :)

 

[BriGuy]

That, and its piss easy nature are what get to me. I don't think I've ever seen Wind Waker's game over screen... It has one, right?

 

[Deleted member 12790]

Unless someone tells you about it on the internet, it wouldnt be obvious at all

Click to shrink...

It was immediately obvious to me, without the internet telling me. I noticed how content-bare the game was on my very first playthrough.

 

[Mr. Keith]

When I played it, it never occured to me that there were "missing" dungeons. Unless someone tells you about it on the internet, it wouldnt be obvious at all. It was a spectaculary well polished game.

I agree that the Wii U remaster was disappointing, but its not as barebones as the Twilight Princess Wii U port.

Click to shrink...

You didn't think that at all when the big fish just gives you the third orb? That was all I needed to know some stuff was missing from the game.

 

[Bomblord]

This is just my personal experience but as a kid I loved Wind Waker and all my friends as well. I even put it above Ocarina of Time for a while (but I was also one of those weirdo's that liked Majora's mask more than it). The open world, sense of adventure, and dizzying number of islands with unique challenges was mindblowing to me. The sailing was cathartic, relaxing, and I even loved the tri-force hunt as it was at that point I got a chance to really explore the meaty world and had an excuse to stop at every island along the way.

It was only later in life I found out that "the internet" disliked the hunt, that people were disappointed with the length, others were complaining about cut content, and the "Cellda" debacle. I think that general internet anger colored a lot of people's expectations and experience with the game and instead of taking it on its own merits they went in with certain expectations and disappointments. It's like I was given a 2 course meal and loved it but another guy was given the same meal but was first told they burnt the 3rd course so it wasn't served and that the potatoes were substituted for mixed vegetables. He can still admit it was good but he's upset purely because he knew what he was missing.

Anyway that's just my 2 cents TLDR ignorance is bliss.

 

[NuclearCake]

Back when it released it never even occurred to me that it had missing content because it was a huge step up in that regard from Major's Mask and the world was much bigger and plenty of mechanics were more fleshed out from OOT, which was expected at the time of it's release. The series did not start to feel painful for me to play personally until Skyward Sword which had so many baffling decisions made with it, that i was contemplating on dropping the series permanently at that point, oh and the DS games were terrible as well. Twilight Princess was also a huge step up in content from the Wind Waker but it had the blandest world to explore and hand holding was cranked up to eleven but it was still a solid game.

Anyway i'm just glad the Zelda series moved on from the stiff and dated OOT formula. (permanently i hope)

 

[Midas]

Wind Waker is amazing. The last really fun Zelda game I've played (I should play the handheld instalments.)

 

[BassForever]

The hd version helped to mitigate my two biggest issues with wind waker (sailing being slow/boring, triforce quest being dull). Wind waker is still a fantastic game, but it's one of the lower 3d zelda titles in my eyes.

 

[Carassius Auratus]

Yeah, this game was definitely rushed. The dungeons had cool ideas but they were very poor compared to the previous entries. Not a big fan of the drastic art style change, either.

 

[JetmanJay]

I remember getting the third pearl, Nayru's, and thinking, 'wait, no dungeon??' - since the big fish Jabu just gives it to you for doing nothing but finding him, and knew something was wrong with this games development.
There were a few others times during the TriForce ocean hunt where I thought, 'wow, why didn't they do a dungeon here?'
But yeah, you aren't the only one OP. I still enjoy it, but it hurts to realize it could have been much more.

 

[Dukie85]

It still pains me to know that I'll never know what an underwater dungeon in WW could've possibly been like...

 

[Deleted member 12790]

IMO Breath of the Wild does what Wind Waker wanted to do a thousand times better than Wind Waker. BOTW is Wind Waker realized for me.

 

[Deleted member 7450]

If I stop playing games because of a "what if" scenario I basically stop gaming altogether.

 

[SmittyWerbenManJensen]

That, and its piss easy nature are what get to me. I don't think I've ever seen Wind Waker's game over screen... It has one, right?

Click to shrink...

Sooo...just like every other 3D Zelda game? (Except BOTW)

 

[hydro94530]

Best final boss of any Zelda game.

 

[Ehoavash]

Yeah it was pretty disappointing to me. I played wind waker after TP and skyward sword so going into this game I had great expectations since a lot of people liked this game a lot and i loved the fuck out of TP and SS but man was I crushed

The game's dungeons are all horribly designed. :(

 

[Walnut]

Such a beautiful game with fantastic controls, likeable characters, catchy music and a wonderful charm.

I can never shake off that 'what if' feeling whenever I play though. What if this game had another 12 months of development time? It's incomplete holes and subsequent padding are so glaringly obvious. With that extra development time they would have had at least two extra dungeons and perhaps non of the infamous triforce hunt we saw towards the end of the adventure. I always imagined they would have added more detail to several of the islands as well, giving us more to explore along the way.

It's such a shame that the Gamecube's poor performance forced Nintendo to rush this game out early. I was secretly hoping many of the issues would be fixed with the HD version for an ultimate release but instead we got a more refined version of what came before.

When I see the core foundations that are already in place, I can't help but feel a fully complete Wind Waker would have been the near undisputed greatest Zelda title for many years. Instead I've always had a black mark against it because no other game in the series feels so unfinished. It's a shame because what it does well, it does better or as good as any Zelda game that came before or after.

Click to shrink...

The only part of Wind Waker that felt incomplete to me when I was playing it back in 2003 was when you get handed one of the pearls without doing any sort of dungeon or quest for it (that I remember anyway it's been a while)

I know there's talk of two dungeons that got sketched out but then cut to be later repurposed for Twilight Princess. It would've been cool to have seen them in Wind Waker but I don't think we missed out in a big way with what we got

 

[Kromeo]

I don't enjoy the sailing and overworld outside of the story islands much personally, probably my least favourite Zelda game. I know not many will agree but I preferred the bleaker Twilight Princess art style to WW's bright colours

 

[Diarrhea Day-Lewis]

One of my favorite games all time and it's never bothered me at all the missing content or fetch quest. Yeah, it slowed down the game's momentum but it was a joy to sail the world.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

Best final boss of any Zelda game.

Click to shrink...

Really? it felt super tame compared to the n64 games to me. Just like a weird ass goofy looking puppet thing then a final fight thats too easy to even get hit.
It looked nice visually but there was nothing to it, no escape sequence, no transformation from ganon, just a pretty standard fight. I cant even remember the music from that fight. Even phantom ganon was just a less interesting version of the one from OoT.

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

What's done is done in regards to missing dungeons.

But they did clean up the tedious traveling and end game fetch quest.

 

[Fei]

My kid was playing through this last month and asked why the fish just gave him the orb. Sooo yeah. All that effort to find a ghost ship just to have it be a room full of enemies always bugged me as well.

The game is gorgeous and fun to play.. for the first half. Then it startlingly becomes a slog. It's a shame because it really feels like it will be an all time great up to that point. Artistically, I suppose it still is.

 

[Cipher Peon]

I also felt that it was painful to play.

But in that it felt way too long and tedious, with extraordinarily difficult and obnoxious dungeons. Whenever I was in a dungeon I never wanted to touch the game, but everything else was incredible. The Triforce Hunt was amazing and captured everything about the game that had promise. But I could not forgive its controller crushing dungeons.

 

[AzureFlame]

I didn't notice that it had missing content at all, best Zelda imo and it desrves a sequel on the Switch.

 

[Spedfrom]

Only Zelda I played to completion and loved. Gameplay is actually fun. Final boss is incredible.

 

[Deleted member 35204]

My favourite Zelda ever, aside map decyphering i have zero problems with its content.

 

[ResetGreyWolf]

I was like 8 or 9 when it came out. I'm not sure if I would look at it differently now that I'm an adult but at such a young age I absolutely loved the game.

 

[NuclearCake]

I liked the HD version and it's the superior version but i despise the changes they made to the visuals. Some character's look like they were made out of clay and the bloom really destroys most of the timeless look that was in the original. On the plus side most of the music was updated and sounds better but Windfall island music was completely butchered.

 

[Prologue]

Wonder if we'll get any more Zelda ports. As a future new comer to the series, would love to have one other Zelda to play on the switch.

 

[Ushojax]

When I played it, it never occured to me that there were "missing" dungeons. Unless someone tells you about it on the internet, it wouldnt be obvious at all. It was a spectaculary well polished game.

I agree that the Wii U remaster was disappointing, but its not as barebones as the Twilight Princess Wii U port.

Click to shrink...

Nah, it was immediately obvious in 2003. You visit two dungeons on unique islands to get the first two pearls and are then just given the third one for free back at Outset.

 

[InfiniteCats]

It's a shame when devs don't get enough time to finish games, but at the same time I appreciate that it's only 25h instead of 35+. I've played all the console Zeldas, but WW and BOTW are still the only ones I've finished.

 

[Beegeous]

I was disappointed upon its initial GCN release however when I picked up a WiiU with this I totally fell in love with it; the charm, the openness, the accessibility (some may say easy), the story, everything propelled this into my top 3 Zelda games.

 

[angelgrievous]

If I stop playing games because of a "what if" scenario I basically stop gaming altogether.

Click to shrink...

This. I just enjoy games for what they are, not what they could have been. I played it on launch, never beat it, and haven't been back. I'm hoping it comes to Switch one day. Otherwise, I'll buy a Wii U for the remaster.

 

[hydro94530]

Really? it felt super tame compared to the n64 games to me. Just like a weird ass goofy looking puppet thing then a final fight thats too easy to even get hit.
It looked nice visually but there was nothing to it, no escape sequence, no transformation from ganon, just a pretty standard fight. I cant even remember the music from that fight. Even phantom ganon was just a less interesting version of the one from OoT.

Click to shrink...

Oh I should have clarified, I meant the final dual with him, with Zelda in the mix. It was very epic and serious which was really at odds with the whole tone of the game. In fact, and it's been years since played, I think it was the first and only time that a Zelda game showed Link actually stabbing Ganondorf (through the frickin head no less). But yeah the puppet stuff was run of the mill for sure.

 

[Comic Obsessed]

Good game but is definitely one of the shortest Zelda in terms of proper content while is bloated with unnecessary stuff to compensate for it (which makes it much worse).

Is a shame since it has one of the most beautiful artstyles in the entire series and probably the most sympathetic version of Ganondorf that I've ever seen (and makes me wonder why other entries haven't done something similar).

 

[TheBeardedOne]

I was late to the party, because while I'd seen a friend play it while staying at his house, I didn't see much and didn't own a GameCube. When I got one I bought Windwaker, but lost steam at the long and arduous collecting quest of Tingle's. I forget what everyone calls it.

I'd planned to finish it and meant to go back and do that stuff, but never did until the Wii U version came out. I played through that in its entirety and loved it.

 

[Deleted member 249]

Wind Waker is an incredible game, and before BotW, it was the best 3D Zelda. The art, soundtrack, sense of exploration, and proto-systemic gameplay was fantastic. The story is one of the best in the series, and the final bosses and ending are probably my all time favorite in each of their categories respectively. That Ganondorf monologue, hnnnnhg.

To answer your question, yes, it could have been more, it could have been better. What it was, however, was already incredible. I am content.

 

[Boiled Goose]

I hate itsi overly linear, needle in a haystack level design.

Couldn't finish hd version.

 

[stinkyguy666]

Wind Waker and Mario Sunshine are great games, but you can tell Nintendo cut a few corners during development.

 

[Treasure Silvergun]

That's probably because it IS painful to play, OP.

When I played it, it never occured to me that there were "missing" dungeons. Unless someone tells you about it on the internet, it wouldnt be obvious at all. It was a spectaculary well polished game.

Click to shrink...

What.

It's not even the missing dungeons.
The game is so blatantly unpolished, the biggest achievement of the HD version is that it removed or eased the worst parts of the gameplay. The menu on the Gamepad means that you don't have to pause the game multiple times in a single room in a dungeon just to equip an item - in the original it's like every dungeon is the Water Temple, you're constantly accessing the menu to equip something as the dungeon design is terribly unfocused.
The fast sail makes sailing much less of a chore.
A melody isn't repeated two fucking times every time you play it with the Wind Waker - ie, half a dozen times in any room in the latest dungeons.

The HD version meant that I could finally replay TWW without feeling like I was wasting my life away, but it barely made the game tolerable. It's still an unpolished, redundant, unfinished game, by far the less accomplished 3D Zelda for a home console.

 

[skeezx]

been about a decade since i played but wasn't it just the tail end of the game that got truncated? never really felt like one of those "what if" games though today i'd imagine it feels pretty linear and sparse per today's 'open world' design

 

[Beegeous]

Quite a bit of dislike for the end game but I much prefer it to TP as that was literally three back to back dungeons with little story progression before an underwhelming final boss

 

[Deleted member 35204]

tbh if you find sailing a chore it's your problem, sailing in WW even the original is a sublime experience.

 

[IIFloodyII]

It's a really weird game for me, as I do really like it and have been coming back to it since the Gamecube, but have never once finished it, I just lose interest around halfway through.

 

[gaogaogao]

talk to a doctor

 

[cardboardboxer]

I feel like the only person alive who liked the Triforce quest. It tied the world together for me and made me go through it all one last time.