The Wind Waker - Got Impressions?

[Teasy]

Ben

I just don't get your insistance that OOT looks better then WW. AFAICS OOT is a blurry blocky mess compared to WW.

Of course I won't argue with you on gameplay because I haven't played the game yet.

 

[jvd]

WW is a great game and one of the best this generation. Its not hard. Its difficult enough with out mindless dieing and almost impossible bad guys you find in other games to try and make the game harder .

Calling the game ugly is just way to harsh. Its a diffrent way of putting graphics on the screen. If you don't like it fine. But to call it ugly when its clearly not is an outrage. That be like me going into the sh-3 thread and calling it ugly. I'd be flamed to death.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Visually I don't really have a problem with Wind Waker, except with regards to the human characters, including Link. They look HORRIBLE. The creatures look cool, there are some nice particle effects, and the environments are varied. I'm not crazy about some things, like the poor grass and water, but most of the indoor and earthy-type environments are really well done.

From a gameplay standpoint: It's decent. It gets harder as you go, but it's still not a huge challenge. The biggest problem is that it's the same game they've released over and over again with a few tweaks. Since I haven't really played previous Zelda games this isn't a problem for me, but I hear a lot of complaints from others about this issue.

I still think it's a 9/10 game. There's just so much to do in the game and it's still fun in short 2-3 hour dosses.

 

[Tagrineth]

I played throug to about half way through the third dungeon before becoming bored to the point of tears. The game offered zero challenge up to that point, it was little better then a FMV fare game. Yes, you have to move the controller around and press a few buttons, but I did not come close to facing death once. The puzzles seam like they were aimed more at the PS2 set, stupidly easy to solve. The game itself plays like a PS2 title actually, incredibly easy puzzles combined with incredibly easy gameplay mechanics and not offering a hint of a challenge.

I dunno, the tree dungeon needed a little thought, and you have to admit the boomerang kicks big time

WindWaker has nearly convinced me to never buy another piece of Nintendo hardware. If I want dumbed down stupidly easy PS2 level games I'll buy games for the PS2. Hearing the comments from Miyamoto it seems like this will be a continuing trend, dumbing games down to appease to the casuals(SMS too hard...... please ).

Well, consider that we here are almost all jaded powergamers. Casuals who're totally new to the series will probably have a lot more trouble figuring things out... though yes, the fighting isn't too difficult (like, the old man... get 500+ hits before he hits you thrice - way too easy).

Now that I have had a few hours of hands on time myself and watched my wife play through the game a great deal(she beat it a while back) I have to say my views on the visuals have changed a bit. Before I thought that OoT slightly edged out WW, now I think it kicks it in the face repeatedly until their is nothing left but red, runny pulp The game is simply hideously ugly. The artistic style is insanely disjointed, the singular aspect of the game that had a hope of offering some potential was likely the poorest aspect of the game.

So you like realism and despise cel-shading; that much is obvious from this statement - since, technically, TWW's graphics take OoT's and throw them to the floor, then blast them repeatedly with arsenals which look like they'd otherwise be used to defend the Pentagon.

Smoothly flowing sail on top of a ship that is cutting razor sharp waves in the water, WTF were they thinking?

Razor sharp waves...

Have you ever seen the wake of a real boat? The waves cut from the front of the boat look just like the ones in TWW - roughly cone-shaped with some rough edginess. If anything, the waves are a little TOO rounded coming off the front of your ship.

And if you watch the ocean from a stable vantage point, like one of those lookout towers, you'll see that the water rolls wonderfully smoothly; you just can't tell thanks to the uniform lighting used (probably for performance - that's one f---ing gargantuan mesh right there).

After playing WW I find it beneficial to fire up OoT to rinse away the realization of Nintendo destroying one of my favorite franchises, and am regularly impressed by how much better the visuals are. Sad really, at the moment I'm can't think of a single first party Nintendo title that I'm looking forward to. If not for come of the upcoming Capcom/Sega titles the Cube would likely be getting packed up about now. Between MM and WW the Zelda franchise is now a joke IMO.

I'm sorry you feel that way.

So far my only problem with TWW is that sailing across the map gets really old, really quickly.

 

[Quaid]

So far my only problem with TWW is that sailing across the map gets really old, really quickly

That's why you have the warp spell (song, whatever)

 

[CaptainHowdy]

I like the sailing, I always forget to warp... its calming to me
after tense moments or just frustrating ones.

 

[Tagrineth]

So far my only problem with TWW is that sailing across the map gets really old, really quickly

That's why you have the warp spell (song, whatever)

Don't have it yet. ops I haven't even put all three pearls into their slot thingies (I'm trying to get as much map data as I can first)

 

[Evil_Cloud]

Just how big is the Wind Waker compared to Majora's Mask or Ocarina of Time? (maybe compare it to OOT's hyrule field )

 

[zidane1strife]

Just how big is the Wind Waker compared to Majora's Mask or Ocarina of Time? (maybe compare it to OOT's hyrule field)

Well dungeon wise there are fewer(real dungeons.), but there are several mini-dungeons, as for the overworld/ocean it's several times the size of OOT hyrule field... I'd say more than 5x the size of what I remember of OOT's field.

But in reality most of it is just a near endless sea(that is to say, it's not filled with true thrilling gameplay.). So when you sum it all up Windwaker, IMO, is a little shorter(smaller in terms of real gameplay areas...) than OOT, I'd say it's about 75%.

 

[Quaid]

Just how big is the Wind Waker compared to Majora's Mask or Ocarina of Time? (maybe compare it to OOT's hyrule field )

I would say that some of the towns in WW are bigger than Hyrule field. there are also many towns in WW that are very small. so overall, maybe between 5x and 10x more terrain to explore.

If you count the sea, then its maybe 100x the area.

 

[zidane1strife]

Wow, so it's larger in comparison than I thought...

If you count the sea, then its maybe 100x the area.

hmmmm..... maybe you're exaggerating a little, don't you think.

 

[Natoma]

One caveat that I must include is that I never played OOT or MM. So basically I played TWW clean. The last Zelda experience I had was the first one on the NES.

However, after getting into OOT, I can see why OOT fans would be somewhat jaded. There are vast improvements in terms of the camera system, music, and graphics, but in terms of the actual gameplay, it's basically a tweaked OOT. Some play elements replaced with others, most notably the Ocarina with the flute, errr, The Wind Waker. hehe. And the horse with the boat. etc etc etc.

Given that, I understand the complaints in this thread from people like Ben. However, please keep in mind that many of us didn't hold onto their N64 long enough to experience OOT. So for someone like me, and I'm assuming there are a lot of 'us,' TWW is near perfection in every way.

I think everyone needs to keep that in mind in terms of looking at why some people have negative opinions of the game and others do not. Why some are utterly and totally wowed, while others are simply 'meh' by the game.