Ocarina of Time or A Link to the Past. You’ll most likely hear those two titles as answers from many folks when the question, “What’s your favorite The Legend of Zelda game?” is asked. Both those games are well deserving for that title, and can even be argued for a couple of the best games ever made. For myself though, The Wind Waker is my favorite Zelda game. Yes, it has a lot to do with how the game looked and played, but it also holds a bit of some meaning for me. The Wind Waker is my first real experience with a Zelda title. I did play previous Zelda titles, but never finished them and watched most of it while others played. So Wind Waker is my first full Zelda experience that I’ve got to play all on my own from beginning to end, and that has always been a memorable moment for me in video games. So when Nintendo first announced that Wind Waker will be receiving an HD upgrade for Wii U, I was quite excited and all those happy memories came rushing back.

That beautiful cel-shaded look is now in HD.

The Good: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD is just as the title says. It’s The Wind Waker game that originally released on GameCube back in 2003, but now with an HD upgrade. That iconic cel-shaded look that looked great back then, and still does now, has all been redone and is now more sharper and colorful. Wind Waker HD is easily up there as one of the best looking games on Wii U. It is also just as good with its audio, with much of the music and sounds in the game getting a boost. Wind Waker has a couple of my most memorable game tunes in it, and hearing them remastered was a great treat.

Gameplay changes have also been made from the original Wind Waker. The main change is with the addition of the Gamepad controller. As seen in Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks for DS, the long travelling is really helpful when you have a map shown on a second screen as you’re moving. This usefulness can now be had with Wind Waker, thanks to the Wii U Gamepad. So you now travel the ocean without having to always switch between menus in order to see where you are at. Overall, the usefulness of the Gamepad is with menu navigation. You can switch items around by touching and dragging them over on the Gamepad touchscreen. You can view your position in a dungeon, also look at all your treasure charts, Wind Waker melodies, and other things without having to pull up a menu. This really keeps the flow of the game going and helps you stay immersed in the world.

Lots of great moments.

Speaking of keeping the flow of the game, one of the main arguments that folks have had with the original Wind Waker was with the sailing and the Triforce fetch quest that occured in the later half of the game. I never had a problem with either of those things, since I really enjoyed the sailing. However, those problems are understandable, and Nintendo has taken note of those things. There is now a Swift Sail, which can be obtained quite early, that will enable you to sail twice as fast. It will also have a wind current always behind you, even when you switch directions. This really speeds up the sailing portions and makes them less of a hassle to deal with, since you don’t have to constantly change the wind direction. The quick sailing also helps quicken the Triforce fetch quest, but other changes have also been made to that as well. It is still there, and the objective still remains the same. However, it has been tweaked a bit so that less steps are needed in order to complete it.

There are a couple other smaller additions that also enhance the experience. The Tingle Tuner is out, which was something you enabled when you’ve connected a GBA to your GameCube. In it’s place though are Tingle bottles. These bottles tie in with the Miiverse functionality of the game. Once you obtain these bottles, you can put a message in the bottle and throw it out to sea, this is how you post to the Miiverse. You’ll also see various bottles appearing the ocean as you play the game, and you can pick those up in order to see Miiverse posts from other players. It’s a neat way of integrating the Miiverse into the game. Another small change is that you can now take self pictures of Link with the Pictobox, which leads to some funny pictures on Miiverse. There is also gyroscopic functionality with the Gamepad when using items like the bow or telescope. The animations for a couple of things like pulling up treasure from the ocean depths and playing your Wind Waker baton has also been shortened.

The combat in Wind Waker was especially good.

The Bad: I view the original Wind Waker game as a perfect game, so I have no real problems with it. However, I do have a couple disappointments with the HD remake. My first problem is with the price of the game. Wind Waker is a great experience, and well worth the $49.99 price tag. However, I feel that the sweet spot for this HD remake would have been at $39.99, since it is just an HD upgrade. My other disappointment is that they didn’t add more in terms of gameplay content, like an extra dungeon or some new secrets. With the rumor about a dungeon being omitted in the original game, it would have been great to see that being added in. With the much upgraded hardware, there was certainly room for them to add some extra content, which would have perfectly justified the $49.99 price.

Those things are a bit more on the wishlist side of things and don’t exactly ruin what’s already there. Although, I did have one minor gripe with the actual gameplay, and that’s with the framerate. It mainly occurs when sailing the ocean and attacking numerous enemies with your cannon, or fighting groups of enemies in a small room. So mostly when the screen is filled with lots of activity going on. It doesn’t occur anywhere else with the game, so it’s not something you’ll experience often, but it was disappointing to see.

Framerate drops can occur when in heavy combat.

Overall thoughts: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD is a great high def representation of a game that released in 2003. The Wind Waker itself is a game that totally holds up after all these years, so players will easily come to enjoy this game, whether it be once again or for the first time. It looks great, sounds great, and plays great. More people definitely need to experience The Wind Waker, and this is a great way to encourage those folks to jump into The Wind Waker universe. It’s a must-have for Wii U owners, not just cause it’s Wind Waker, but it’s also another great representation of what Nintendo can achieve with HD hardware. I would love to see another Zelda entry with this cel-shading style on the Wii U, perhaps a HD makeover of Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks or a sequel to any of those.