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.
