The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GameCube)

While Nintendo has a wide array of classic characters in its repertoire, The Legend of Zelda has become the company's flagship series. The last big Zelda game, The Ocarina of Time, basically reinvented the series for the polygonal generation, retaining the basic elements that have made the series great while unveiling new standards, such as the Z-trigger-based lock-on targeting system that made combat easier to manage and more exciting. The newest installment in the series is finally upon us in the form of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which sticks quite close to the blueprint drawn up by 1998's The Ocarina of Time. But what truly makes The Wind Waker a landmark event and sets it apart from most other games on the market today is its high level of polish.

The game's characters are extremely expressive in their motion and appearance.

At the start, The Wind Waker's story feels really separate from any of the previous Zelda games, though it ends up tying into the rest of the series pretty well. The game opens on the appropriately named Outset Island, where you live with your sister and grandmother. It's your character's birthday, and he's reached the age when it's customary for boys to wear green clothing that honors The Ocarina of Time version of Link, who is now known as the "hero of time" in the legends that speak of his Ocarina exploits. Shortly after you wake up and don your classical Legend of Zelda garb, all hell breaks loose in the form of a giant bird carrying a small girl toward the island, with a pirate ship giving chase and firing cannonballs. Eventually, the bird makes off with your sister, and you team up with the pirates to follow the bird and get your sister back. As luck would have it, this series of events grows into something much larger as you proceed, and as you'd expect, the very fate of the world hangs in the balance by the time you reach the game's final confrontation.

While The Wind Waker does have its own twists and turns--much of the gameplay involves you sailing around the world in a talking boat known as the King of Red Lions, for example--the gameplay is very similar to that of The Ocarina of Time. The control scheme is nearly identical, using the GameCube controller's L trigger for lock-on targeting and the Z, X, and Y buttons for any inventory items you choose to assign there. The combat is also very similar, though there is a new counter move that lets you easily sidestep or leap over incoming attacks and strike at a foe's back. The combat in The Ocarina of Time worked really well, so it's no surprise that the combat in The Wind Waker also works very well.

Like in other Zelda games, progressing in The Wind Waker is tied to having the right items in your inventory. More often than not, you'll earn your new items in the game's dungeons and then go on to face a boss battle that requires you to use your new item properly to emerge victorious. The classic items that we've seen introduced over the course of the series return here, including power bracelets, bombs, the hookshot, the boomerang, multiple types of arrows, empty bottles, and, of course, the master sword. The returning items behave in a pretty standard fashion, though the boomerang has been upgraded this time around to target up to five enemies or objects at once. One or two puzzles in the game require you to use this new functionality. New this time around are items like the grappling hook, which can be used to steal items from enemies or swing from place to place using specially marked targets. The deku leaf can be used like a hang glider or parachute of sorts, and it comes in handy when you need to cross large gaps. You can also use the leaf to blow gusts of wind at objects and enemies. The wind waker itself is a conductor's baton that has the power to control the wind. Much like with Link's ocarina, you'll learn songs throughout the game that have various magic effects. One warps you from place to place, another turns night into day, and yet another lets you control the direction of the wind, which, as it turns out, is very important indeed.

The Wind Waker makes fantastic use of the GameCube's ability to link up to the Game Boy Advance.

The world of The Wind Waker consists of a large collection of islands. Once you've completed the first few portions of the game, you're given access to the King of Red Lions and the watery overworld. Your talking boat will basically guide you through the game, and you'll use a sail, a sea chart, and the wind waker's ability to change the direction of the wind to move from island to island. While the world is quite large and full of all sorts of little side quests, the game is also very good about marking sectors and islands on your chart when they become important to your progression, so getting lost or stuck in the game's large overworld is actually pretty difficult. The sailing can be a bit much at times, but once you've learned a warp song for your wind waker, you can skip around to the more important locations with ease. Once you set foot on land, you'll find a variety of locales, including towns, fortresses, fairy caves, a ghost ship, and dungeons.

While The Wind Waker has a lot more overworld and town work than some of the previous games in the series, you'll definitely be spending a fair amount of time in the game's dungeons. None of them ever get as devious as The Ocarina of Time's water temple, but these portions of the game definitely have their own sets of challenges. The game's different dungeons have different themes, such as fire, ice, plants, and wind. Two of the game's later dungeons throw in an extra, Ico-like twist by forcing you to bring another character along with you. These helper characters have abilities of their own, which come into play when solving puzzles in those dungeons.

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