Review NaN of 113
Summary:
A long time ago, Nintendo was just announcing it's new system, the Gamecube. Among their first demos for the new hardware was one that caught fan's breath...an incredibly animated short of Link vs. Gannon, all done in an impressively realistic style. It seemed to be a vision of the future: perfectly realistic, incredibly detailed worlds, in which you would battle frightening monsters and explore incredible realms in the ongoing war against Ganon...
...And then, years later, Nintendo instead released this...perhaps the most controversial of its first-party games yet.
Zelda: Windwaker represents a massive departure from the classic Zelda theme...both in graphics and playing style. The cel-shaded look drove many fans away from the series, and is at best a questionable choice, and the gameplay is decidedly less action-based and more linear. There isn't much one can do to explain the graphical differences, but allow me to elaborate on my other point.
The Zelda series is based upon a combination of puzzles and battling, with a decided bias towards battling. This was reflected in the series' dungeon-centered gameplay...although there was certainly a lot going on in the overworld, the dungeons were the meat of the game. Players traversed the overworld to, for the most part, get to other dungeons. The dungeons, in turn, focused on the monsters. Yes, there were puzzles...but most of them involved...you guessed it...battling monsters...in order to get to specific points, such as a switch or another room. In each dungeon would be a mini-boss halfway through, with a full boss at the end.
The dungeons were, in essence, the cornerstones of the game. The overworld was basically a distraction...a place to stretch out.
However, in Wind Waker, this is reversed. The overworld is the main part of the game...dungeons serve as key points, of course, but most of your time is spent in the overworld, and an awful lot of it has to do with quests contained entirely *within* the overworld. Once you finally get to a dungeon, the focus is not monsters, but puzzles.
But this is not the largest change in gameplay. For the Zelda series, despite its Dungeon A to Dungeon B to C to D etc. formula, has always tended to be awfully non-linear. Dungeons were often sprawling things you would basically get lost in, wandering around and wondering where to go or what to do.
Windwaker also changes that, also. Dungeons are almost entirely linear...no more do you wander around aimlessly, you basically progress in a straight line from room to roo. Puzzles, too, are amazingly linear.
In short, the game is both more linear and more puzzle-based than previous Zelda games. With this in mind, also taking into consideration the graphic's style and oceanic theme, the game is a massive departure from traditional Zelda. However, perhaps this games downfall is that it tries to pretend that it isn't. Report this review >>
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