Should Zelda Wii be like The Wind Waker?
Posted on June 10 2010 by Mases Hagopian
Do you think that Zelda Wii should take a lot of the aspects from The Wind Waker? Our friends over at The Hidden Triforce have recently written an article in which they firmly believe that Zelda Wii would be amazing if they borrow a bit from The Wind Waker. Here is a small tidbit from their recently posted article.
Nintendo’s best Zelda games are those which revolutionize the series in some imaginative way and in my opinion The Wind Waker did that the best. The Wind Waker was an overall masterpiece and one of the best games in the series. The mysterious plot, risky but beautiful graphics, amazing music, and the exploration based overworld helps to make The Wind Waker as extraordinary as it is.
If Nintendo can take the elements of the Wind Waker, that made it so great, and apply those concepts to the upcoming Legend of Zelda title for the Wii, then we will have ourselves one of the, if not the, greatest Zelda games ever made.
I personally think this viewpoint is just a tad bit contradictory. Some of the elements that made The Wind Waker great, as the author writes, are it’s beautiful graphics, the music, the plot, and the massive sea of exploration. However, a return to The Wind Waker style graphics, or an overworld filled with set islands or locations would not be revolutionary at all. In fact, the graphical style has been reused in recent games and the whole island concept is exactly what we saw in Phantom Hourglass, just to a lesser extent, and this was later carried over in a land variation with Spirit Tracks. So really, the more recent Nintendo DS Zelda games have been more like The Wind Waker.
Perhaps what the author was really trying to get at with the article is that The Wind Waker was quite unpredictable. The graphics were a huge risk and the sea exploration was something dramatically different from any of the previous Zelda titles. This shock and awe that we got when we first saw the game in motion and when we first got our hands on the game is what many of us remember from The Wind Waker. It is this sense of surprise that was missing from Twilight Princess, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks in recent times as they all seemed to somewhat take after a previous Zelda title. The Wind Waker on the other hand, while it obviously had its fair share of references to prior Zelda games felt very new and very fresh in many aspects. It is this ‘newness’ that we want out of Zelda Wii.
It is now less than five days until the Nintendo E3 Press Conference, at which time we will likely get flooded with so much news in regards to the new Zelda. It was all the way back 6 years ago at E3 2004 where we got our first glimpses of the previous console Zelda title, Twilight Princess. While at the time it seemed awesome since it was a return to the ‘mature’ look, it seemed the hype was basically because it was just a new Zelda game announced. With Zelda Wii, I don’t think just a new addition in the series is what is causing all the hype. It’s the mystery behind the title, the unknown. How will Motion Plus actually work? What will be different if this is really an older, more mature Link? I don’t think these changes are going to be just new themes for this particular game, but I think we are in for much more than that. A revolution? Perhaps that’s too grand of a word to label this game as, but as the drum roll that is the hype of Zelda Wii continues to pound, the more I believe that this game truly will be special and something that we will look back upon years down the road and point with our finger and say, this is when the Zelda series made a significant change.
Be sure to stay tuned right here at Zelda Dungeon as Nintendo’s E3 Press Conference is set to air next Tuesday morning. Until then, let us know what you think of the article in this news post. Do you think aspects of The Wind Waker would fit with Zelda Wii, or is it really just the shock and awe that you are looking for?
