Revisiting The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

The Legend of Zelda's development crew is currently hard at work on a new 3D installment in the series for the Wii U. However, seeing as Skyward Sword came out five years after Twilight Princess, the previous fully 3D installment, we may have to wait a while. Normally, we'd take this chance to speculate on what the new game will be like once it's finally done. However, this time around, Nintendo decided to keep us from crapping on a game that hasn't even been released yet by throwing an old one back in the spotlight.

A remake of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker will be released for the Wii U later this year, with redone, high-definition graphics, GamePad functionality, and who knows what else. To celebrate this occasion, I think it's time for me to revisit one of the games that defined my first few years of gaming.

Wind Waker was released in late 2002, much to the disdain of everyone. See, when it was announced, people were a little more than skeptical. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask had already defined an art style for 3D Zelda, which carried on to a tech demo for the Gamecube that showed off what the console could do with the style those games had established. To see Nintendo throw that all away for what seemed like an overly simplistic style that didn't make use of the Gamecube's power was surely a turnoff for many of the fans of the N64 pair of Zeldas. People thought the art style represented what the game was going to be like.

And... they were right. But mostly wrong.

Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 Review

The refinement of the reconstruction.

Before I begin, let me just say that if you haven't played either of the first Pokemon Black and White games, don't read this review and go pick one of them up. Black and White reinvented the Pokemon series by practically starting from scratch, using only new Pokemon for the main game. This allowed the developers to completely fix the balance issues from the previous games. Black and White didn't only reinvent the series gameplay wise, but cinematic wise as well. The Unova region is filled with architecture that makes everything feel grand, with neat camera angles and atmospheric music at its side. But by far the most important reinvention that took place in Black and White was the story. The morality of Pokemon training is questioned, leading to a thought-provoking adventure full of well-defined characters and loads of twists along the way. I can honestly say that playing through Pokemon Black for the first time was one of the greatest experiences I've ever had with a video game. Whether you're new to the series or not, it will make you go "wow."

Black and White's story was so expansive that director Junichi Masuda decided it couldn't be completely held in one-err, two games. Thus, instead of getting a third version of the main games like we got with the previous gens, we got full-on sequels. Do Pokemon Black 2 and White 2 excel as sequels and, more importantly, games? Find out after the jump, I guess. By the way, I'm going to refer to only Black 2 for the rest of the review for simplicity's sake. It's not like White 2 is all that different.