[Fred]

I must admit, I was pretty impressed with the graphics and art design of this game. At least in the preview systems running at EB and Gamestop.

The character is horrendous to look at, (whoever made Link look like that needs to be drawn and quartered) but the rest of the world is quite splendid. Nice shadows, big colorful cellshaded textures, topnotch texture filtering and the aliasing is hardly apparent. Nicely done.

[marconelly!]

If you want to see how attrocious Link would look if they made him 'mature', look no further than Soul Calibur 2. Thank God then make him the way they did for the Celda. Much better than the ugly Peter Pan wannabie, in my opinion.

[iscariot]

[Blade]

Link's new character model really started to appeal to me after th' slight tweaks.

It's not the Link that I know and love from every other Zelda game.. but it's Link. Totally revamped and lookin' good!

[Goldni]

I agree 100% marconelly. I love the new look. This is cell shading like you've never seen it. And I'm glad Link looks like this rather than SCII Link.

I'm very excited about this game. My local TRU kiosk TV is pitiful and it still looked remarkable. My local SE and EB already have more preorders than VC did in total. No kidding! ANd the ad campaign has'nt even begun. But i'm sure that it's the hardcore players that have reserved it. I mean the 'foot traffic' wont even compare to VC's. I'll go on to predict WW to be the fastest next gen game other than VC to reach 1 million units sold.

[Ozymandis]

I still think the new look sucks, but the rest of the game looks quality so I'm going to get it

[wazoo]

Originally Posted by Goldni

I agree 100% marconelly. I love the new look. This is cell shading like you've never seen it. And I'm glad Link looks like this rather than SCII Link.

I'm very excited about this game. My local TRU kiosk TV is pitiful and it still looked remarkable. My local SE and EB already have more preorders than VC did in total. No kidding! ANd the ad campaign has'nt even begun. But i'm sure that it's the hardcore players that have reserved it. I mean the 'foot traffic' wont even compare to VC's. I'll go on to predict WW to be the fastest next gen game other than VC to reach 1 million units sold.

OOT sold 6M worlwide in 6 weeks around christmas. That is beyond what WW will do of course siince OOT had a combination of very good factors including very few competing games and the hype was much higher.

I predict 5M by the end of the year, SMS sold 2.5M in 3 months wordlwide by comparison.

[Crusher]

If I wanted to play a cartoon, I'd play Dragon's Lair. Can't say I'm too disappointed with The Wind Waker though, since I never held Zelda games in very high regard to begin with. The only one I really enjoyed was A Link to the Past.

[V3]

Celda started out good, but it kinda slow down at the moment.

Anyway I want them to make another new GBA Zelda maybe one base on Zelda 2. With the new GBA player coming soon, I prefer the old 2D Zelda than this 3D ones.

I love Celda Link. So cute.

[Almasy]

Originally Posted by wazoo

OOT sold 6M worlwide in 6 weeks around christmas. That is beyond what WW will do of course siince OOT had a combination of very good factors including very few competing games and the hype was much higher.

I predict 5M by the end of the year, SMS sold 2.5M in 3 months wordlwide by comparison.

I suppose you are expecting an incredible sales-related performance from both the american and european markets. Since Celda´s performance in Japan was poor relative to OoT(700k to OoT´s 2 million units I believe) make me think that the new is affecting drastically its sales performance when compared to previous installments of the franchise.

I will be very surprised to see Celda surpass 3 million units by the end of the generation.

[Teasy]

Since Celda´s performance in Japan was poor relative to OoT(700k to OoT´s 2 million units I believe) make me think that the new is affecting drastically its sales performance when compared to previous installments of the franchise.

Your comparing numbers for OOT in Japan in its whole lifetime with a 6+ million Jap userbase (that's a guess but OOT was release quite late so it must have been around that or maybe even more) vs Wind Waker numbers for only 2 months with just under a 3 million userbase. That's a seriously flawed comparison.

I will be very surprised to see Celda surpass 3 million units by the end of the generation.

It seems pretty obvious to me that it will easily pass 3 million this generation, its still on the top 10 sales charts in Japan last time I checked (a week ago). Its sold over 800,000 in Japan alone (media create numbers) with under a 3 million userbase. It'll sell another 2 million at least in the U.S and Europe pretty quickly and as the userbase grows in each region so will Zelda's total sales (its deffinately one of those games that'll keep selling right accross a consoles life). I'd say 5 million at least by the end of this generation. Amost certainly allot more though.

[zurich]

Japanese Console Game Chart
(Updated: February 7, 2003)
From: Jan 27 - Feb 02, 2003

15 18 Legend of Zelda: Baton of Wind Nintendo GC A.RPG 8,313 595,863

21 30 Mario Party 4 Nintendo GC VAR 4,970 736,521

Dunno how long Mario Party 4's been out, but its sold more than Zelda (which is just odd). I haven't really been too fond of Zelda, ever, but even I'm a little surprised at its not-so-hot sales in Japan.. especially after the OoT craze.

[wazoo]

many points to answer.

1/ sales of OOT
http://ign64.ign.com/articles/072/072580p1.html

Japan : 1.5M on the lifespan of N64 compared to 600K on Famitsu (80~% coverage means 800~K sold) for 2 monhs


2/ effect of Link look on sales : purely a projection of your opinion on the reality, I could argue that the 100K sales of SH2 are a result of SH over realistic look. They should have gone with a cellshading look, what do you think ?

3/ MP has always sold well, and it is not a surprise that MP may sold as much as SSMB. Same family oriented multiplayer market.

[CaptainHowdy]

If I wanted to play a cartoon, I'd play Dragon's Lair

Uhm, big difference is, Dragons Lair Sucks.
the key word is PLAY, Dragons lair was a cartoon that let you basically make two choices every few minutes, not exactly PLAYing a game...
We loved it as children, because, it was a cartoon, we had never seen anything like it before, and had no idea that it sucked, because we had no idea what we were doing.

now going back and playing this game I thought was so amazing, I realise, my god, this blows... Then I see Dragons Lair 3d coming out, and I think wow, that is actually cool, they take the old game, and make it so you can actually play it, good idea.. too bad it came out sucking too.

Wind Waker has already climbed to the top 5 games of all time on gamerankings, must just be a fluke eh?

[Teasy]

Mario Pary has been out for over 4 months. Its sold extraordinarily well for some reason (it didn't exactly get fantastic reviews AFAIR). It must be at 1 million in Japan by now (considering the nunbers you posted from Famitsa are always quite a way behind the real numbers).

I think MP still being ahead of Zelda at this point is more down to MP's incredible sales rather then poor Zelda sales. Still Zelda has sold better then MP though. As far as which game should have sold better obviously MP has acheived the most in selling like it has. Simply because its nowhere near the sort of game Zelda is. But comparing them apples to apples Zelda has still sold better. 800,000 in 2 months for Zelda vs 1 million in 4+ months for MP.

[Fafalada]

If I wanted to play a cartoon, I'd play Dragon's Lair

Right...
and if I wanted to play realistic/movie looking games, I'd play O-Story.

I guess between those two, we only have non-graphics games left that are worth playing :P

[Rodéric]

Gameplay rules.

Having seen Zelda : The Wind Waker in motion on a gamecube, I can see it's really impressive, and screenshots or movies don't do it justice.

I've not played it yet, as it's not released in here atm.