Ringbearer Eowyn Explains: I got the game about a month ago, and the moment I turned on my GC I was hooked for hours. Literally, hours. This game is so beyond awesome it'll blow your mind, but if only some nosy brats would stop complaining about the graphics and try it for a spell. Remember all those impressions everyone voiced about Ocarina Of Time? About how the music sucked,and how the ending could have been better? All of our opinions, cried out in sheer dignity and loyalty to the Zelda series, our opinions wanted to be heard. And they were heard.

Don't you realize Nintendo has been visiting your site? C'mon, think about it. I'm surprised no one has ever realized this until I came along. Remember that annoyingly impossibly difficult search for the Triforce? We've been voicing our opinions about that one for ages. And now, in "The Wind Waker", you can obtain the section of the Triforce that is rightfully yours. Yep, that's right. The Triforce Of Courage is yours to keep on your status sub screen in the middle of the game, not the end. And the lack of high-quality side quests in Zelda 64? More than half of the Wind Waker is packed with side quests! Link once had nowhere to live or hang out for the leisure of it in his spare time. Now he has his very own oasis cabana! And you can carry so much more stuff now. And all of it's handy for battle, instead of using just the sword because-everything-else-isn't-quick-enough. But nothing's changed about death. Link , as VGX said, quote,"falls flat on his face no matter what kills him.' But there's slight variation in this game. He stands up for a second, giving us some idea of what it's like to be beat to death through his slurred choking and moaning, THEN he falls flat on his face like he's suposed to. And Hyrule Field was just a flat wasteland with nothing to do for a mile and a half. BoRiNg! Now, the Great Sea in the W.W. is HuGe! With tons of stuff to do in between. And the ending is awesome! ChEcK tHaT oUt! I absolutely loved it. Now, the graphics are about as bad as they can get, but I can't believe some people have made such a damn fuss over it! I can't believe it hasn't sold out yet. Trust me, Nintendo's been listening to the pros and the cons that came from us, the insignificant gamers as a whole, cooked up a new, revolutionary type of game, and released it out into the big wide world. If you people out there who are now reading this spit at the graphics, I've got a message for you; quit the damn whining and get the game! You'll love every second. Believe me.

April Hale Wrote: Hey Video Gamer X. First off, I'd like to say I love your site. It's one of the greatest Zelda 64 sites I've ever seen. Oh, and there will be spoilers in my little mini-review here. My Wind Waker impressions are the least popular with the fanboys, but there are quite a few people who agree with me, so here I go. This is a bad game. A very bad game. It doesn't deserve the name Zelda. The designers are either lazy or just seeing what we gamers will tolerate. The whole game is far too easy and the dungeons were poorly put together. It's as if no real thought was put into the puzzles. On top of that, there are only five dungeons, and one mini dungeon you visit twice. They try to make the game longer by adding a bunch of boring and useless sidequests. Most of the sidequests just land you a useless piece of heart. And yes, they are useless because most enemies hardly even hurt you if they hit you.

The sailing is by far the worst part of the game. Even after you get the Ballad of Gales, it still sucks to spend so much time getting from place to place. And the Triforce Scavenger Hunt at the end is just an insult. They couldn't be bothered to make fun dungeons in the first place, so instead of making a few more mediocre ones which wouldn't have been too horrible, they send you on this idiotic scavenger hunt that takes too much time and kills any momentum you had before Ganon's Tower. Just the thought of spending all that time sailing to get a chart, then going Tingle to get it deciphered for 400 Rupees makes me sick. I've been playing Nintendo and Zelda for 14 years and never before have I tossed a game under my bed never to be seen again. Wind Waker now rests with the dust bunnies under my bed. None of the used game stores in this area can offer more than 10 dollars for this game because they can't even sell it for twenty. If I hadn't gotten Zelda OOT/MQ as well, I would have considered this a complete waste of 50 dollars. Maybe I should dig it out and use it as a coaster so I'll get at least a little bit of use from it.

Genesis Quintero, 13, Adds: It was a good challenging game but I think it was to easy you know and they sort of screwed up on the fight against Ganondorf it was to easy. If you beat orca with 500 hits without him hitting you three times. I thought it was too short and easy. That�s what I think.

Shabnam Assar Writes:Hi: I want to tell my impressions about the game. Today I finished the game. Finally!! However, the ending was lame. I loved the whole game from the begining to the end, but it was kind of sad that old Hyrule had to be destroyed and Zelda turns to Tetra again. I was expecting that after Ganandorf is defeated, Hyrule will be return to its original time. Also, Link put the Mater Sword through Ganandorf's head, and Ganandorf turned to a stone. I think there is a possibility that the game will continue, when somebody else pulls the Master Sword out. Think about it, Ganondorf can return again! I almost forgot. I don't have a scanner now. But if you have TI-83 Plus calculator, look at the manual, on page Activities 17-7. There is a picture of the Triforce. The three triangles all together is called: Sierpinski Triangle. Could the creator of the Zelda games got the idea of the Triforce and how it looks like from this triangle? As soon as I get a scanner, I will scan the picture and send it to you. Anyways, thanks for listining what I said.

Mattie Puts In: The graphics are...not the best, but I don't notice it at all after awhile. The storyline of the game is so good, I hate to say it but better than 64. The sword play, not alot, is really fun, I like the special attacks for the special monsters... like the Iron Knuckle type things. The game is good but one thing is bothering me...Zelda looks so wrong, she looks very ugly. I was used to the 64 version but now she has a foot ball head.

Lady Whylin Says: After many, many tries I finally was able to kill Ganondorf and man . . . I have never felt like I played such a great game. It was like, I was playing my first Zelda game. And I was really Link. Let me back up a bit, already I had gotten ahead of myself. I had scouted around on the net for a while, searching for every little bit of info on the new �GC Zelda� when I found the info I wanted. Zelda was now Celda. After staring wide-eyed and dumbstruck at the new �Link� I was angry. I cursed in 3 languages and even emailed Nintendo about �their mistake.� After seeing more and more screenshots I began to grow accustomed to the new Celda. Finally, I decided I�d wait and play the game before I judged anymore. Needless to say, I was very impressed by what I saw when I played the demo at Wal-Mart. The animations where superb . . . I just stood there mouth open at the animation alone! If there�s one thing I love about Nintendo its ability to make �fluid� motion. Being an artist I�ve studied the way people move and seeing him react in the simplest ways . . . that was truly mind-blowing. I fell in love with it in a heart-beat. I begged my grandma the day it hit shelves to get it for me. The next day I stayed home from school for I was really sick. She came home with it and played it on my pillow then waited for me to wake up and find it there. I was so happy . . . I had to play it then. And I did. All the way through the game I just sat drooling over WW. My eyes would not allow me to drift away. If individuals think this game is a waist of money, DON�T! This was anything short of a waist. My Grandma even liked it and she can�t play video games. . . definitely worth it.

Andrew Knappenburger Brings Forth: Dear Video Gamer X, I have finished Wind Waker and these are my impressions: I think that the cel-shading was a great idea for this game. It allows the characters to have some life in them, instead of being just a random collection of polygons. The graphics just suck you in after the first few hours, and it seems just like real life. It's too bad that so many Zelda fans hated the appearance so much that they didn't buy this game. The plot was a lot better that any of the other Zelda games I have played, and the ending left me very fulfilled. I really felt like clapping when the credits started rolling, and that's never happened to me before. The dungeons were very well-mapped, the AI was excellent, particularly when you are fighting two Moblins, and one whacks the other with his spear. I never expected the AI to be that advanced. I really liked the sea, with all those little islands to explore. That brought a lot of replay value to the game. I may never find out all the stuff in the game. The Wind Waker (the item) was a great replacement for the Ocarina, but changing the direction of the wind was a hassle. Granted, that's the only complaint I have about this game. Nintendo truly created a masterpiece when they brought out this game. My hat goes off to you, all those who made this great game possible.

Lynxtor Writes: Dear Video Gamer X,

Thank you for creating such a rich and informative Zelda site. I am writing in regards to my impressions on Zelda: The Wind Waker. Before anyone reads this, note that my email contains some spoilers.

When I first saw how Nintendo had mutilated Link's formerly perfect appearance into a mutilated piece of cel-shaded garbage, I was saddened to see that Nintendo had once again let down its fans in the name of "innovation". Not only was I sad, but angry; so angry that I vowed to myself that I would never buy this game.

After a while, I cooled down, and by the time The Wind Waker came out I was level-headed enough to give Wind Waker a go. Borrowing the game off a friend, I played the game and was greeted by a nicely presented (albeit depressing) introduction. After then playing through the first few minutes of the game I was impressed by the depth of character that Nintendo provided. One thing I did not like though, were the graphics.

They were god-awful. I hated them. It didn't even seem like cel-shading or like playing a cartoon, it seemed like 3D models with poor textures and weird lighting. I hated everything about the graphics. The appearance of smoke, Link's stubby legs, the waves in the ocean all gave me the impression that Nintendo came up with the already awful idea of cel-shaded Zelda, then implemented it so poorly that the entire thing looked like a children's cartoon made by a one-man production team with no fingers.

It got worse. The first major dungeon in the game, the Forsaken Fortress, was little more than a game of hide and seek, hell, YOU DIDN'T EVEN GET TO USE YOUR SWORD. After completing the little game of "dodge the guards" I got into the later parts of the game. I won't elaborate on there but I'll provide an insight into what I felt.

I cannot believe that Nintendo did such a dangerous, childish and plain ridiculous gamble with their most successful franchise. As a devoted Nintendo gamer who has had to put up with Nintendo's unconventional hardware, "innovative" playthings such as "Pokemon Snap" that they pass off as GAMES, and ridicule from other games because of their "kiddy" image, I felt like a slave that had been kicked in the back too many times. After actually FORGIVING Nintendo and TRYING to play this game, I was so sickened by what I found in the game itself that unless they decide to mature and try to appeal to the gamers that GREW UP WITH NINTENDO AND ARE NOW ADULTS, I will switch over to Sony. The Wind Waker is nothing but a watered-down Ocarina of Time with horrible graphics, a painful method of transportation, useless dungeon design and an amount of difficulty that only a retarded five year old child would find hard. Not only has Nintendo released a disappointing chapter in the Zelda storyline, they've decided to BURN THEIR BRIDGES by having the old Hyrule DESTROYED. No longer will we have Kakariko Village, Lake Hylia or Death Mountain, with their many races and dungeons, we're going to have a giant puddle with miniscule islands thrown in.

Thanks Nintendo, you've really served your fans a lot with this one, and cleaned up your "child gamer" image perfectly. You've chosen the best way possible to reverse declining sales! And now, with publishers leaving from left, right and center, things couldn't look brighter!

Thanks for listening to my opinion.

[email protected] Advises: Wind Waker was a good game, but one thing and one thing alone ensured that it never would achieve the greatness of OoT. I'm sure you already know what that is VGX. It doesn't have the endless glitches and tricks that OoT had that extended the playtime far beyond the original game and made OoT worthwhile even if it had no storyline. Of course you can't pull up on a disk and go through barriers like you can a cartridge, but Miyamoto could have at least put in a few hard to do tricks/intentional glitches that we could play with. Like he could have at least put a flying boat in the game so we could fly up and look at the towns from above. That is pretty much all I didn't like about it.