Wind Waker? Good or Bad? Best Zelda Game?

[Opti]

Heys Guys

Ive noticed that Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker has a very split following (somewhat like Majoras Mask). Quite a bit I hear people talking about how bad of a game it is.

Personally I like the game, and even like the graphics.

Id like to know whether or not you like it, and if you dont, why specifically you didnt like it.

Would be cool if you also listed the Zeldas in order you liked them. Only list ones youve played.

1. Wind Waker
2. Link to The Past
3. Awakening/DX
4. Oracle of Seasons/Ages
5. Ocarina of Time
6. Minish Cap
7. Original (NES)
8. Twilight Princess

I have majoras mask and have for years and Ive never even booted it. I think I will tommorrow. Also realized I havent played any of the new ones, I need to catch up Im lagging haha

[Tupin]

Wind Waker is my favorite Zelda game thus far. I loved the art style, the story, the dungeons, the characters, the setting, the music, and even the sailing.

Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks are my least favorite. Bad controls and strange gameplay mechanics make them boring to play, especially Phantom Hourglass.

Majora's Mask is pretty awesome, way better than Ocarina of Time in my opinion. The only thing I don't like is that it doesn't place as much emphasis on dungeons, there are only four of them. Still an awesome game though.

Twilight Princess was okay. I really didn't like how Zant just showed up, the story was pretty mediocre.

Every handheld Zelda is amazing, save for the DS ones.

[SpaceHarrier]

I used to despise it overall. I wanted a game that looked 'realistic'. Then Twilight Princess came out. I loved that, and it made me let go of that bitterness toward Wind Waker.

I still can't get into it, however. I feel like I'm being hassled through every single room of every dungeon by really annoying puzzles. Sometimes I just want to kill everything and have a door open, ya know? Though I do feel it is the pinnacle of cel-shaded games, along with the Jet Set games.

[Opti]

The battles in OoT seemed boring and repetitve to me, but I really like the battles in Wind Waker I think thats one of the major reasons I liked it so much. I thought the battles where fun and gorgeous, especially closer to the end. I remeber in the final dungeon I kept wishing there where more bad guys haha.

[SpaceHarrier]

Perhaps I also need to play further into it. I have a certain seething hatred for stealth elements forced into non-stealth games, so right off the bat I was irritated.

[NE146]

I love Zelda and I really really WANTED to love Wind Waker, and I was enthusiastic about the art style from the start (I wish more games could look like it). but to be honest I ended up just giving it an "ok". The truth is the sailing is just so tedious. It's been said countless times before, but that's because it's true... and looking for treasure on the bottom of the ocean is both time consuming and frustrating.

Personally, I like to explore a large overworld :) The rest of the game is fine though

[heybtbm]

Windwaker is my 2nd favorite Zelda game and responsible for getting me back into console gaming after a 4 year absence (big time PC gamer back then).

I loved the cel-shaded art, the OoT-style gameplay, the soundtrack, and yes...even the sailing. I still plan on beating it for a second time at some point, but I've been saying that for 8+ years now.

[Opti]

The sailing only really got tedious for me when I wanted to do all the side quests and map the whole world. I was never more frustrated at it than I was at OoT though. Seemed like I was always backtracking in OoT and the Wind Waker world is WAY biggers so it didnt bother me too much.

I like OoT and up until last week thought it was amazing then me and a buddy went threw it in a few sit downs last week and Im really not filling it, I got bored real quick and had to soldier through all the sidequests and back tracking.

I am thoroughly enjoying my 3rd play through of WW though.

I keep hearing about how good majoras mask is so as soon as I can get to the game store to get the expansion pack Im gonna do my first play through. I despise games that time me though so Im not sure If ill be able to get over that, well see.

[Opti]

In WW I loved when you restore time to hyrule and when you leave the sword room their are enimies everywhere. I had a freakin blast fighting all the guards.

I think where OoT beat WW is the music. I remeber all the songs from Ocarina (only video game music Ive really even noticed, and I cant recall a single tune from wind waker.

[Zthun]

Wind Waker was too easy. There was only 1 dungeon in that entire game that I got slightly stuck on, but the rest of it was ridiculously simple. Too much water...

I've pretty much played all of the mainstream Zelda games except Spirit Tracks. The best ones are Twilight Princess, Link to the Past, and Ocarina of Time.

I really wanted to like Majora's Mask, but the time limit made me irritated and nervous, so I never really cared for the game.

[JSoup]

One of my favorite Zelda games. Most of the common complaints about the game were never really issues with me. Triforce hunting was the most frustrating part for me, but it's otherwise a great game.

[Flashback2012]

I played Wind Waker quite a bit and didn't have any problem with the graphics whatsoever. I couldn't stand OOT or MM and they almost drove me away from the series. I enjoyed Wind Waker because of the GBA compatibility. The sailing did get a little tedious at times but overall it's one of my more favorable Zelda games after LttP and Minish Cap. :)

[DuckTalesNES]

Haven't played it, but every time I watched my sister play, she was sailing. And Link's face looks like a Dorito. Kind of stupid looking game.

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

Playing Zelda in Super Smash Bros. Good freaking game.

[kupomogli]

Wind Waker and Ocarina are the only two good 3D Zelda's I've played(put any decent amount of time into.)

Majora's Mask though? I only got to keep the first mask and a little bit after that, but that was all I needed to play to know the game is complete garbage. Have to do fetch quests, like hide and seek, find the faeries, etc, etc,and then if the time runs out do it all over again until you memorize the locations. Get past the first part, get the mask, go back inside, and you have to figure out what again, and still with limited time. What a piece of shit.

[GameNinja]

I too just couldn't get into WW. When the art style was announced and most of the world was shatting brix over it I figured the game would still be amazing and I just needed to be patient. I was a mega fan of OoT and MM, and preordered Wind Waker, but something about the game just didn't do it for me. It was too happy or something for me, but then again the dark melancholy feel of Majora's Mask is what I love most about it (along with seeing people going about their lives on a schedule is amazingly appealing to me).

To this day I didn't complete WW, but when I am free to I think I will restart it from the beginning and give it a fresh try.

[Swamperon]

I love Wind Waker. It has by far the most expressive Link out any of the games and probably the most emotive plot out of the Zeldas. (MM fans may disagree) It also has a great sense of exploration and a huge amount of side quests, which TP lacked. It's soundtrack is also phenomenal.

For me I'd rank them:

1. OoT (Sometimes WW beats this)
2. WW
3. LA
4. ST
5. PH
6. TP
7. MM
8. ALttP
9. OoS/OoA
10. LoZ
11. LoZ II

Haven't played TMC or either FS.

[jonebone]

I'm one of the guys who was hugely turned off by the transition to cartoony graphics in Wind Waker. Thus I've never played it and never will unfortunately. Too many games in backlog as it is.

Of the Zeldas I've played, I'd rank them like this:

1. OoT
2. LttP
3. Twilight Princess
4. Majora's Mask
5. NES Zelda
6. NES Zelda II
7. Phantom Hourglass

Man Phantom Hourglass was horrible. That game was actually difficult to finish, but I'm glad I did. The game play was actually decent and the stylus use was cool, but you replay that damn Phantom Hourglass dungeon like 8 times in the game. Whoever thought of that was STUPID. Sometimes I would get to that same dungeon and then not play it for a week because I was dreading the experience that much.

As for every other game on that list, no bad things to mention.

[Robocop2]

Majora's Mask though? I only got to keep the first mask and a little bit after that, but that was all I needed to play to know the game is complete garbage. Have to do fetch quests, like hide and seek, find the faeries, etc, etc,and then if the time runs out do it all over again until you memorize the locations. Get past the first part, get the mask, go back inside, and you have to figure out what again, and still with limited time. What a piece of shit.

THIS! I've enjoyed every other LoZ game I've played for the most part, (being LoZ, LoZ2, LTTP, OoT, TP and MM) but Majora's Mask was definitely the only one out of those I absolutely hated. Twilight Princess I enjoyed what I played of it but I got mad at the fishing and traded it just because I thought that I would rather spend the money on something else. I should have finished it. I may pick it up again just because of this.

[Patney]

Wind Waker was too easy

The best ones are Twilight Princess
This does not compute. Twilight Princess is the easiest Zelda by far and I hate the game because of it. Otherwise it got a HUGE overworld with nothing in it, there is basically nothing to explore, the Twilight/Wolf parts are unbearingly tedious (when trying to replay I always quit on those segments) and the art style/story is so uninspired, it's basically a worse Ocarina of Time with some DARKNESS added in. It could've ended up being the new A Link to the Past, but ultimately it was the biggest disappointment of 2006.

On the other hand you got Wind Waker, which tried something new in a series that were getting a bit stale. The art style is so beautiful and still reigns as one of the most aesthitical pleasing games ever, I truly believe what they did with it is timeless. The music was a nice blend of classic Zelda tunes and folk-ish music. The setting was spectacular: They somehow managed to create a post-apocalyptic era which didn't feel depressive or oppressive (except for the lack of Zoras, that was very sad) and who can forget their first return to Hyrule? The sailing could be tedious but the vast sea held a great deal of exploration, tons of secrets and many interesting sidequests. And yeah, the game was a bit on the easy side but it wasn't nearly as bad as Twilight Princess. It still had a lot of engaging battles, and let's face it: None of the 3D Zeldas are hard at all. Twilight Princess still overdid it though.

Anyway, all of these points makes Wind Waker perhaps the very best Zelda game for me, along with Majora's Mask. I like games that tries something new and actually succeeds doing so. And just to counter some complaints towards MM: the time limit in Majora's Mask makes perfect sense and gives the player a sense of responsibility (and isn't bothersome at all as long as you use the reversed Song of Time), and the sidequests are amazing because most of them give insight to the characters/fleshes them out. It's a lot more immersive than "hey go collect some shiny bugs for me and I'll give you something nice"

[calgon]

Link's Awakening or Link to the Past with the original Zelda very close behind.

[Dobie]

I love Zelda threads, because everyone has completely different favorites. Of the console Zeldas, I would put them like this...

1. Majora's Mask
2. Ocarina of Time
3. Link to the Past
4. Wind Waker
5. Legend of Zelda
.
.
.
.
.
.
6. Zelda 2
7. Twilight Princess

1-5 are close. Every single game in 1-5 is a fantastic game, definitely worth playing. 6 & 7 are so far below... I wouldn't even put them in the "like" category.

I LOVED Majora's Mask. It was derivative of OOT for sure, but then expanded on it with a completely different take on game mechanics and universe. Incredible experience. The music, the atmosphere, everything... nailed it.

As far as handhelds go... I'll just say this. Phantom Hourglass is the ONLY Zelda game I started but have not finished. I HATED Twilight Princess... but I finished it.

[Darko]

1. Link to the Past
2. Link's Awakening
3. Wind Waker
4. Ocarina of Time
5. Minish Cap
6. Majora's Mask
7. Original (NES)
8. Twilight Princess

I actually enjoyed Twilight Princess quite a bit but the others above it were just more enjoyable. I didn't put the DS Zeldas on here because I hate them. I'd have to rank Phantom Hourglass above Spirit Tracks but I'd probably have to put non-Zelda games in the list to get low enough to even include them at all.

Also, I've played through the Wii version of Twilight Princess and half way through the GC version and I think a lot of people hate TP because of the Wii controls. It's a solid game on the GC in my opinion.

[buzz_n64]

Haven't really played any of the 3D Zelda games, and I suppose I would blame Wind Waker for that, thought it was boring as hell. Only makes me think of this song. http://youtu.be/sm-Vh3j8sys

1. The Legend of Zelda
2. A Link to the Past
3. Zelda II
4. Link's Awakening
5. Ocarina of Time

The Bad
6. The Faces of Evil
7. The Wand of Gamelon
8. Zelda's Adventure
9. Wind Waker (I like to call it Zelda: The Wind Breaker)

[Leo_A]

I liked the Wind Waker. It really surprised me with just how good it was after being so skeptical of it prior to release. I especially was suprised that I ended up liking the graphics so much, at least where the environments were concerned.

That said, it's pretty far down in my list. I hated the character designs, I didn't care for all the fetch quest, I didn't like having to use that wand so much (And the unskipable animation of it), the difficulty was pitifully low (I never died, not even once), there weren't enough dungeons, the lack of any significant land mass (Even the biggest islands are on the small side) and probably several other issues I could think of it I thought about it a bit more.

Great game, but it had several significant areas that it was deficient in. Doesn't approach games like Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Link's Awakening, Minish Cap, Legend of Zelda, etc.

[calthaer]

I thought Wind Waker was OK. I never quite finished it, but I enjoyed it alright. The sailing could get boring sometimes, but overall I enjoyed that aspect of it. I could see how it's not everyone's cup of tea - long periods where you move around the world and don't experience anything unique (as one does in most of the 2D Zelda games).

My favorite Zeldas are probably the Minish Cap / Oracle of Ages/Seasons games, followed closely by Link to the Past, their progenitor. I really did like Spirit Tracks, but heard bad things about Hourglass and probably won't pick it up or play it.

The only Zelda I absolutely hated was Majora's Mask. I'm with Robocop2 and, I suppose, kupomogli. I'll admit that the game possibly improved after the first half hour or so and I didn't give it a chance, but the fact that that initial sequence REQUIRED a FAQ / walkthrough (or have to watch 10 minutes of pointless cutscenes over and over again as you trial-and-error your way through the "correct" sequence of moves to get the Ocarina) was frustrating. They gave you a glut of stuff in that initial day, and if you didn't happen to pick the right rabbit trails to follow, you'd be screwed and have to re-play the beginning of the game. Stupid, and not fun.

[NE146]

The time in Majora's Mask is an aspect of the game, but not the rule of the game. It makes you deal with it at first so once you're intimately familiar with it (and it's aggravations), you'd then eventually you get the right items to manipulate it where it pretty much becomes a non-issue. It's like complaining about how you can't get past a certain obstacle in LTTP.. Well, you simply don't have the right item yet. :p

But yes.. it's difficult to get into. I had to force myself to get into it, and I eventually did.

[Zing]

I had given up on Zelda. Phantom Hourglass brought be back. I played Wind Waker afterwards. It was amazing. My daughter also loved watching me play.

I made the mistake of playing Twilight Princess later. It's… not so good.

I played through the first three Zelda games a couple months ago. Fabulous.

I'd personally rate the first game as #1, with Wind Waker right behind.

[Berserker]

I thought this game had a lot going for it. Fantastic storytelling, particularly near the end, and iconic reinventions of classic enemies. The game had character. The sailing was tedious, yes, but once you got on dry land I found the gameplay to be right up there with any other Zelda game.

In fact thinking about it now, I think I might understand what they were trying to accomplish with the sailing aspect of it. Once you reach a certain point in the game, you realize that every map square has something in it - some bit of land of lesser or greater importance, but still worth exploring for one reason or another.

It seems like they were trying to recreate the sort of self-contained screen by screen grid style overworld of LoZ in an open 3d context. Whether it was successful or not is arguable at best, and maybe this was already common knowledge, but I hadn't thought of it that way until now.

[importaku]

For myself i love windwaker the most, it's just so beautiful to look at even now. The sense of exploration when out at sea was amazing i love the fact you could see a speck in the distance & travel to it & discover a new island. It was like playing a living cartoon, there was so much hidden stuff too. I still have yet to complete the figure island rooms but it's fun hunting the people down & adding them to the collection.

[BydoEmpire]

I'm not a huge Zelda nut. I like the series, I've played a lot of the games since the original, but not every one. That said I really enjoyed Wind Waker. There were some slow parts, but overall it was a great game. Twilight Princess is my favorite Zelda, surprisingly. I thought it has absolutely everything going for it and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Every dungeon was brilliant, it looked gorgeous, controlled great - as expected - and had some great characters. The original Zelda is great, too, and I can definitely see myself going back to replay it at some point.

I've tried several times but for some reason I could never get myself to finish Ocarina of Time or LttP. Both are great and most people pick one of them as their favorite, but for some reason I stopped playing each halfway through and never came back. I restarted each one later and the same thing happened.

[exit]

I've liked every Zelda game I've played so far (although I have mixed feelings towards Adventures of Link), only ones I've never been able to play are the CDI games (no real loss there) and the ones for the DS. I had no problem with Wind Waker and enjoyed my time playing it, only annoying aspect I can recall was the sailing, but it was more of a "I have to sail all the way over there?!" annoyance that almost every open world game has. I also liked Majora's Mask after taking the time to understand how the game works, but I can understand why people get scared off by the time limit aspect, even tho it's not as bad as people make it seem.

[kedawa]

I really hope Wind Waker gets some sort of upgrade or remake.
It has great art direction and the dungeons are fun, but there's too much time wasted on fetch quests.
It would be nice if the games overworld wasn't a mile wide and an inch deep. You can barely interact with the water, whereas in older Zelda games you could fish and swim and explore underwater.

[APE992]

OoT - totally awesome.
Majora's Mask - needs a guide but otherwise is good.
Wind Waker - oh great, tons of sailing and a childish looking Link...
Phantom Hourglass - no, I don't find the stylus usage "innovative"
Twilight Princess - oh hey fuck yeh I can dig this.

Best is still OoT easily.

[Patney]

Wind Waker - oh great, [...] a childish looking Link...

I don't get why this is a complaint. Zelda isn't supposed to be mature (Although TP tried to be) and Wind Waker Link happens to have the most character out of all of the Links. This is a childish complaint to be honest.