QCF: The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD

This Review was Freelanced by Cody Winn; you can find his other work here.

he Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker caused quite a stir in the days of its original release on the GameCube. Fans had wanted and expected a dark, mature tale akin to Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask, made all the more real by next-gen hardware. What they got instead was a painted cartoon world full of stubbly-legged characters and a vast, empty water world. Though received quite well by critics and eventually by fans as well, backlash from such a huge change hit it pretty hard. Despite all that, over the years Wind Waker has fought its way into history as a Damn Good Zelda Title deserving of every ounce of love it now receives.

10 years later, we've been given an HD remake for the Wii U, complete with prettier textures, Gamepad support, and access to Nintendo's social network-esque MiiVerse, where you can take Link selfies -- a great addition for the Instatweetbook generation -- and post them for all to see. I joke about it, but it's actually pretty entertaining.

The question is, even with a few changes and revamped visuals; can an experience like Wind Waker still hold up next to PS4 and Xbox One games that are right around the corner? When the love poured into a game is more important than how many polygons it has, hell yes it can.

Despite coming out two console generations ago, the game has aged incredibly well, giving the HD remake an even more powerful visual grip. Regardless of how soon we'll be stepping into the arena of Real Arm Hair Technology, the colorful, stylized, and playful aesthetics of Wind Waker HD truly shine (even more so than its slight overuse of lighting effects). The animation, both subtle and outrageous, brings Link and company to life, just as it did while pushing a little purple box to its limit. The world is teeming with creative uses of effects, from swirling smoke atop fiery mountains to the bubbles and foam of the ocean top, containing a color pallet that would make Jony Ive lime-green with envy. Though identical to the original in terms of style and scope, everything has been retextured and rethought for our newfangled hi-res Nintendo machines, lending clarity to a fondly remembered yet blurry world.

Having been built around its original system's controller (remember that big ol' A button?), the game works surprisingly well on the Wii U Gamepad, though accessing the right analog stick while using the X and Y buttons took some getting used to; expect more than a few arrows to miss their target. You can use the Gamepad's motion detector to aim instead, though my hands must be too shaky to do so as anything that required super precise aiming had to be left to the analog stick.

When not being wobbled about, the Gamepad's screen acts as a menu of sorts containing all of your weapons, items, maps, etc., making finding your way around the world or swapping items a breeze. You can do all of this on the fly or pause the game if you're not too good at multitasking. You can also forgo the two-screen business altogether and just plays the game on the Gamepad. It kind of defeats the purpose of an HD remake though, so you'll likely not do so very often.

Besting baddies in WWHD controls just as well as its GameCube counterpart thanks to some of the best battle mechanics in any Zelda game, allowing for parries, flips, and literally dizzying spin attacks. It also has an inventory chock full of items that never feel tacked on or useless as they do in other Zelda entries. There's also a new addition in the Swift Sail: a heaven-sent seafaring tool that always puts the wind at your back and jets you across the sea twice as fast as normal. It’s great for anyone who felt that the oceanic world was too large and sparse to spend so much time on it (though you'll be happy to know that certain Triumph Forks-related activities have been shortened and made all the better for it).

There aren't many drastic changes to the game beyond what I've listed above, but there don't really need to be when you have a game that still feels so magical, especially with so many wonderful characters both good and evil. I've only played through the original in its entirety about twice the past ten years, so it still feels like a breath of fresh air to me; your mileage may very. But hey, it's one of the best Zelda games ever created, reborn for an HD generation. It's got Tetra at her best, too, so how can you not love it?