Review: Legend of Zelda, The Wind Waker - Gamecube

Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

review

by Fausto Chavez


I enjoyed the first few stages, fun and easy to play. Starting out, the enemies and bosses were easy and fun to fight. At Forest Haven the game became increasingly difficult. Any sort of progress began to require solving endless puzzles and a lot of micro-tasking. Seriously, just to get to the cave at Forest Haven you had to go through all sorts of loops. Once in the cave, you're met with even more puzzles and micro-tasks just to make any progress. I started using walkthroughs heavily at this point. Still, the game was so complex with music spells, multi-layered dungeons, and intricate tasks, that the online walkthroughs were not enough; so I got the official strategy guide. Using the official strategy guide I was able to make quick progress and the game was fun again. Then came the stages requiring you to take control of another character in addition to yours, including progressing through dungeons with these characters. This increase the difficulty level substantially, becoming tedious. I persevered because the gameplay was still more fun than frustrating (though was nearing breaking point). After wringing my brain to get to the Wind Temple boss, I gave up since the boss was too difficult. The game had become more work than fun. Still I enjoyed having played this game, and the evolution of the skills/learning curve, was interesting. This game requires a lot of research and concentration. If you want an intuitive easy to play game, this is not the one.

Some more about the game: Graphics were mostly just OK, sometimes the boss scenes were dazzling. The story was a bit involved in the beginning, too much reading for my taste, then story seemed to go away, convolute, or ceased to be relevant. The controls and game mechanics were fine. A lot of power-ups and unique items. Early enemies and bosses are easy and fun to fight, but it was hard to make progress without having to read a lengthy walkthrough at every step, and then to complete the increasing difficult tasks. While the tasks were mostly enjoyable, and your efforts rewarded with dynamic gameplay, a lot of it required hard concentration. Others complained about sailing long distances, but I found the sailing to be pleasant, and late in the game you get warp ability. If you're up for a challenge, this is the action RPG for you. Not for those wanting a more intuitive RPG, or an arcade game.  Fun at firsts, then micro-tasked to death. Too much thinking, when just wanna blow off steam.

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