I recently beat the Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for the first time and, wow, it is great! I am on a journey to complete all of the Zelda games. If you’ve read some of my other articles, you might be thinking, “Claire, how come you haven’t played the other Zelda games, but you claim to be a huge Zelda fan.” To that I say, half of you people claiming to be Zelda fans only have played Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. And really, I’ve always wanted to play them, I just haven’t been mentally mature enough to get through the dungeons by myself. It’s like something magical happened when I turned thirteen, and somehow, I’m able to play and appreciate all of these harder games now. Anyhow, I finished the Wind Waker and I’m going to review it. There will be plenty of spoilers of course, so this is your extreme spoiler warning. This review ended up being a lot longer than I originally intended, so I separated the review into the following categories: Gameplay, Atmosphere, Storytelling, Side Notes, and Conclusion. So, without any further delay, let’s dive into the Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

Gameplay

I’m going to start by talking about the Gameplay.

First and foremost, sorry to all of you naive Breath of the Wild fans out there who haven’t played real Zelda, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is open world. Not just semi-open world; actually open world. The only load screens you’ll encounter in the entire game are while going into buildings or dungeons. The load screens into the dungeons also allow for the game to have expansive dungeons without actually having to fit it inside a mountain or something. It actually works really well, considering this game had some amazing, classic Zelda dungeons.

The gameplay outside the dungeons is really entertaining as well. For those of you who haven’t played the game, the map is made up of islands connected by the ocean. Each section of the map has a different island to explore. Link sails between these islands on his boat, The King of Red Lions, who turns out to be the former king of Hyrule (more on that later). The biggest drawback of having the game take place on a fairly empty ocean is that it can get a little annoying to sail back and forth between islands. Though, later in the game, you can unlock the ability to fast travel to a few different spots on the map.

The late game “Triforce quest” was also a little tedious, but supposedly it’s fixed in the HD version. I played it on GameCube, so I wouldn’t know. Not that I don’t have access to a Wii U and a copy of Wind Waker HD, it was just more convenient for me to play it on GameCube.

Overall, the game was a ton of fun to play. 3 out of 3

Atmosphere

Next up: the Music, Environment, and the overall Atmosphere. Let me just start by saying that this game’s atmosphere is AMAZING. And keep in mind, I played the original GameCube version.

The Wind Waker has such a lively and fun soundtrack, possibly one of my favorite Zelda soundtracks (second only to Skyward Sword). The music always matched whatever feeling the location or scene was supposed to have. A lot of the music is really upbeat and fun to listen to in the background of the game. The Wind Waker has some really memorable music, too, such as (but definitely not limited to) Dragon Roost Island, Outset Island, and the Great Sea theme. Also, can I just mention that the credits music was epic?! Because it was. The credits music was so epic!

The game also had a really bright and colorful environment. It really captured the ocean vibes and matched the tone of the game perfectly. When the game first came out, people complained about how kiddie the game’s art style was, but I really liked it. The game has a distinct feel to it; very bright and lively, and sometimes kind of silly.

I love the atmosphere of The Wind Waker. The soundtrack was spectacular, and the environment was so much fun to explore. 3 out of 3

Storytelling

Moving on to Story and Characters. This section will almost certainly have more spoilers than any of the rest of the article, so I’m just going to reiterate; this is your(second) EXTREME SPOILER WARNING.

I’m going to try to explain the beginning of the game for context. The game opens with Link asleep and his sister coming to wake him up because it is his (12^th, I think) birthday. His grandmother gives him a green tunic because it is their island’s tradition to have all boys wear the tunic on the birthday that they “come of age” (supposedly they do this because they want one of the boys to turn into the next “Hero of Legend” because they have passed down a legend about the Hero of Time from Ocarina of Time). A giant bird holding a pirate, Tetra, in his claws shows up and drops her in the forest. Link saves her, but then the giant bird kidnaps Link’s sister. Link decides to join Tetra and her pirates to save his sister.

Later, he gets separated from the pirates and washes up on Windfall Island, where he meets the King of Red Lions, a sentient boat who talks out of a red, wooden lion head at the bow of the boat. After you beat the Tower of the Gods, it is revealed that the King of Red Lions is actually the ghost of the former King of Hyrule (did I mention that Hyrule was flooded?). At the same time, it is also revealed that Tetra is in fact the reincarnation of Zelda, which would have been a bigger plot twist than the former if I hadn’t already known about it going in.

Contrary to the gameplay, and aside from the fact that you can pick which order to do the Wind Temple and Earth Temple in, the game’s main storyline is quite linear, in a great way. Unlike Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom where they leave the player to find the memories (possibly out of order), the Wind Waker manages to take the player on a quirky Zelda adventure as a well-planned story unfolds, while still maintaining an open world.  

In my Tears of the Kingdom review, one of my biggest compliments about the game’s story was that it has a book ending, but, surprise, surprise, the Wind Waker has a book ending too. At the beginning of the game, when link joins the pirates to save his sister, there is this scene that plays as they depart from Outset Island (Link’s home island) where you see Link running to the back to the pirate ship and waving goodbye to his grandma and all of the villagers that live on Outset Island. In the post credits scene, you see Link leaving Outset Island with Tetra and her pirates in a similar fashion (the same music and everything), except this time, Link is on a now non-sentient King of Red Lions boat, and you see his sister (who is now saved) waving goodbye.

The Wind Waker’s story is one I certainly won’t forget. It really felt like a classic Zelda story, just on the ocean. The story isn’t really as complicated as I probably make it seem. It’s so lighthearted and playful. 3 out of 3

Side Notes

One of the things that I love about classic Zelda games in general is the use of music in the gameplay and story, and the Wind Waker is no exception. In fact, it is part of the reason I love the game. While the Wind Waker is the title of the game, there is also an item in the game called “the wind waker,” a baton link uses to control the winds and perform other tasks. In the second half of the game Link uses the wind waker to conduct the characters Medli and Makar, the sages of the Earth and Wind respectively, while they play either the Earth God’s Lyric, or the Wind God’s Aria, again, respectively. Fun fact: the first section of the game’s title theme is the Earth God’s Lyric, and the second part is the Wind God’s Aria. Isn’t that cool? As I hope you can see, almost every aspect of the game relies on music, and I absolutely love it.

Conclusion

As a whole, the Wind Waker is an amazing Zelda game, and an amazing game in general. It has a perfect balance between open-world gameplay and a linear story, something a lot of open world games struggle with. It feels like a real Zelda adventure and is certainly a game to remember (plus one point). If you have a way of accessing it, you should definitely give this game a shot. If you’re anything like me, I’m sure you’ll love it.

10 out of 10 stars