Many good and heartfelt thanks to my friend Pinkhaired August for the banner.
So, once more we return to the Legend of Zelda, and a lot has changed since we last played. Last time was Ocarina of Time, and since you all voted for Wisdom it’s time for ADVENTURE! So as it turns out, sending Link back to the present in Ocarina of Time split the timelines up a bit, so now there’s a present day that’s all post Ganon take over and the hero’s just up and gone. So they’ll have to deal with that however they do. But that’ll be for later, for now let’s focus on the task at hand. The Wind Waker was originally released for the Gamecube, and shocker of shockers a lot of dumb nerds didn’t like the art style. Then a couple months passed and people started actually playing the game and realized they were dumb and the game is great. We’ll be playing the Wii U’s HD rerelease of the game, which fixes some of the problems and changes a handful of things that we will touch on as they come up.
This’ll be a 100% run, everything will be got. As I am at least half decent at this game I will actually be trying to be GOOD at this game compared to my sort of vague flailings that usually happen. Updates will be Monday and Friday as regular, though I can’t 100% promise I’ll hit every day since I’m starting a new job soon and it looks like it’ll suck scheduling wise. But I’ll do my best every time I say I’ll miss an update I end up not doing so so hey. Without further ado let’s get going with The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker!
Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [1] Outset Island
Video Length: 23:04
After a beautiful opening scene, we open properly onto Outset Island, a peaceful little island village. Aryll, our sister, runs up to the lookout tower to wake us up because it’s our birthday! Grandma wants to see us, so let’s go give her a look. After some un-intrusive optional tutorials that tell you how some of the basic mechanics of the game works within the context of the lives of these people. We do get the forced tutorial of how to do Z Targetting but given it’s such an important thing and SOME people are really stupid and don’t know how to grock it properly it’s honestly something worth tutorializing. Of note is that this small old man’s house is full of other simple Instruction Book level tutorial things which you can read at your leisure, and I think that’s cool if not entirely needed. Games should have a way to refresh your memory on the controls. I can’t even begin to count the number of GBA games I will never be able to play properly due to a lack of instructions.
But yes, an idyllic and happy life where we get given a job for our birthday to find some pigs (which rewards us with a cool 60 rupees total, nice) and, once we go talk to our Grandma, a nice green tunic and hat. Which given the tropical nature of this island would be HORRIBLE to wear, and the game makes it very clear this is not an enjoyable bit of clothing. But it’s only for one day, right? It should be fine. We go back to the lookout to find our sister, and she gives us HER gift, and it’s actually a good one! The spyglass, our first time! Spyglasses and telescopes seem like something all games should have, because there’s always a need or want to zoom in on things in games nowadays, given how good they look. We quickly make use of ours to spy the birdman mailman, but…trouble is afoot! A pirate is being carried off by a giant monster bird and it’s being attacked by her pirate crew and oops they hit it but now she’s fallen into the forest!
This is clearly something we need to investigate, but first we need a weapon. And it’s here we find the biggest change in Wind Waker to it’s contemporary Zelda’s. The combat has a lot more focus on it, feeling a lot more involved than Ocarina’s did. It’s way more animated and feels more organic, and the way your hits flow with the music creates a sort of magical feeling. It’s not the best Zelda combat system but it FEELS so good. After training with the gruff old man, we get given the sword as a keepsake. Next time, join us as we go to rescue the purloined pirate and see what this is all about anyway! I hope you all enjoyed, I’ll see you guys next time.