This is a sequel to Ocarina of Time, and while it is really quite different in some respects, it’s very similar in others, giving it a good blend of old and new. In this game you are a new Link and Ocarina of Time happened thousands of years in the past and has become a legend. After Link’s sister is kidnapped by a giant bird he sets out across the seas to rescue her. Unlike most Zelda games, where you have a big world of fields, forests, swamps and mountains to explore, this time you sail across the ocean and visit a variety of islands. I think that the fact that you are exploring the ocean, rather than a carefully mapped out countryside, makes it feel like you have an awful lot of freedom. The sailing side of things is definitely an upside.
But of course, as I said, several things are still the same. You still get to venture through large and interesting temples and dungeons, you still collect lots of items and figure out the ways in which you can use them to reach new areas and there are still a large number of side quests for you to do. They seem to have taken all of the excellent things from past Zelda games and mixed it with original features to make it especially good!
One thing that might bother some people is the change in graphic style that Wind Waker has. When you play previous games in the series, you get the impression that they were trying to be realistic with their graphics, but were just limited by the consoles they were on. In this game, they were clearly not aiming for realism: everything is cell shaded and very bright, the characters all look like cartoon characters. This doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but I know some people might have trouble with it.
On the whole, this is a very good game, but for me, I’m not quite sure why, but it just somehow doesn’t seem as good as Ocarina of Time (or Majora’s Mask.) Perhaps it’s just nostalgia? Though I’d still rate it highly at 9.4/10!
