WW-Wii U Was Wind Waker Intended for a Younger Audience?

[Not Take Mirror]

Compared to other Zelda games, do you think the Wind Waker was intended to be marketed to a younger audience?

Besides the graphic style, the level of difficulty is laughably easy at times, especially the combat. It's one of the criticisms about this game, I never even came close to dying.

(Well, actually I did die once because my controller just stopped working in the middle of a boss fight. Turns out my batteries were dead. But I'm not sure that really counts.)

However, for a young kid new to Zelda and just video games in general, the difficulty might be just right.

So do you think Nintendo was intentionally pushing at a younger audience when making the game?

 

[Ninja YoungLink]

Nope. I remember that the only thing they were "aiming" at was their Japanese audience to come back. As less and less Japanese people were buying after the games that came before it.

 

[Justac00lguy]

I assume that most people on this site are in mid to late teens- or adults.....
Most of us would have played Zelda when we were kids yet we tend to moan when Nintendo tends to younger audiencees Etc. So this topic is quite confusing for me......On one level I feel that Zelda is for more mature gamers yet most big Zelda fans were playing it when they were kids.

I think Nintendo are really clever Zelda games can attend to casual gamers and younger audiences yet as we get older we recognise the charm and clever references throughout the game.....

 

[Ventus]

As a kid, TWW's difficulty wasn't mind-numbingly hard, but it was hard enough to make me think about what to do next. Now that I'm older (and completely forgot how to play TWW lol, been about two years since i last played), I think TWW would be much easier simply because I know the workings of a Zelda game. This isn't de facto proof that TWW was made for kids, but I'm just saying that hte game lacks a certain difficulty that older people would only be able to figure out.

The art style is definitely marketeted towards kids, though, as is the story's overall lighter graphic tone.

 

[DarkestLink]

Yeah, the whole pirate thing too. One of three things kids love. Pirates, dinosaurs.....and trains. The game was patronizingly easy. But its easyness alone didn't make it childish. OoT was easy. MM was even easier. TP was easy. SS was easy. Wind Waker though? It was intentionally patronizingly easy. The enemies looked stupid and acted stupid. Friendly fire was on and they would kill each other for you...all for the sake of laughs. The story (which could have been dark and dramatic) had unnecessary humor added to it.

Link's sister getting kidnapped. Link does something hilariously stupid.

Dark Scary Forsaken Fortress. Tense moment destroyed by the whole barrel scene.

Epic reveal of the Tower of the Gods. Slapstick comedy added in to make it funny instead.

Finally they try to make Ganondorf a deeper character, but add in a stupid funny face from Link to lighten the mood...again.