THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: WIND WAKER FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Today is March 25, 2003, amid the Iraq War, I play video games, pretty much like I did during the first Gulf War, as I imagine many people are doing here in America. We are just going about our daily lives, while guys with guns figure out how to kill other guys with guns under the euphamistic heading of "Iraqi Freedom" while political leaders involved simultaneously attempt to justify it with an unsupportive international community. (Many American young people and innocent Iraqi civilians shouldn't die in a politically and internationally questionable endevor like this) So, today I went to Electronics Boutique and picked up my pre-ordered copy of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. I've already demoed this game, so I pretty much knew what to expect in terms of gameplay.

Foremost I have to alert players of Ocarina of Time that this game is distinctly different in style, which almost is self evident by looking at the graphics alone. The actual feel of the game is not like Zelda though, it's like playing an amalgamation of Super Mario Sunshine, Majora's Mask, a dash of Ocarina of Time, and something new thrown in. After playing for several hours, I have not yet been "blown away, and there hasn't been anything to make me go, "WOW!" I've also gotten to interact with the full effect of the graphics, and the best subjective description I can provide is that there are things that I like, and things that I don't like. It's a mixed bag overall. Some of the animation style is just too well basic, more like children's cartoons like Dexter's Laboratory or Spongebob rather than anything approaching the level of Anime as I would expect from Japanese Artists. Various effects and movement with the cel-shading is done very well, but the appearance of characters and their gross deformations is sometimes unsettling. Too many inanimate objects like boats and baggies have faces on them. Toon Zelda is just maybe a little bit too toony.

The gameplay is mostly what is keeping me going, as always this is where Zelda excels, there are tons of things to do and find in this game. However if you played Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask this will be all too familiar, with a few new moves thrown in. I have to complain about Link's items though, they have finally reached their lowest denomination of kiddyfied cutisification. It's just TOO cute. This is pretty much what I expected to see with Zelda: Wind Waker, but I just wish that Miyamoto would stray away from the same old Puzzle Dungeon Formula, it never changes, finding the keys, lighting the torches, moving blocks, find the main item, find the big key, fight the boss with item you found in the dungeon, etc. the same old deal. Also the whole "Ice Level, Earth Level, Fire Level, Water Level, Air Level" thing is old hat, and it seems like many Miyamoto games (aside from a few exceptions) just repeat this now antiquated "level/board" theme over and over and over. As I continue to play through Wind Waker I quickly discover that the games target audience is in fact preteen children. Sometimes the overt attempt at being excessively cartoony and psudocomedic is poorly executed. I do see though that this is perfect for kids to play, in fact I would recommend this to parents of children in that age bracket, but I have a feeling older teens and adult games might get a little bored with this one. It's a tough call. I do have to give it some praise for the increased amount of dialogue and total number of characters, which was badly needed in the world of Hyrule.

So far the music has been about on par with Ocarina of Time, and Majora's Mask, nothing symphonic, just MIDIs. Some of it is fresh, some is remixed straight from Ocarina of Time.

I've still got a lot more to do in this game, and I can't give it my final rundown until I'm finished, but this equates to a preliminary report so that potential players of this game can get a clear picture of what to expect. I have a lot more of this game to play so my viewpoints might modify by the time I'm finished playing the game.

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