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The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker Preview

Chris Leyton

04/12/2002

Now that we know the official name we take a closer look at Link's return along with a handful of new screens.

Itâs fair to say that by now the uproar surrounding The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker visual style has died down somewhat, as gamers have begun to get accustomed to the new look of Link and realise that another epoch-making Zelda title is on the way.

As many Zelda fans will know, the latest title in the series is set around the time of Linkâs 12th birthday and sometime after the events of The Ocarina of Time; although the game will be a self-contained story, it has been claimed that links to previous Zelda games will feature, in fact weâve already seen Tingle appear (returning from Majoraâs Mask) with his collection of maps and handy âTingle-Ceiverâ, which activates when you plug in a GameBoy Advance.

The game is set on Monster Island, where Link lives with his little sister and grandmother; after a brief bit of exploration and communicating with your fellow village members, youâll be given a telescope and your famous green tunic as birthday presents from your sister and grandmother respectively. This raises a few questions, if The Wind Waker is set after The Ocarina of Time, why does Link receive the green tunic now? Unfortunately it looks like weâll just have to wait for the answer to this and many of the other questions surrounding the title.

Itâs not long into the game before an evil bird appears and snatches your sister away leaving you to rescue her, on the way youâll meet up with a group of pirates, but to be honest specific plot details are still a mystery to anyone but Miyamoto and his team.

The latest title gets its name from Linkâs ability to manipulate the wind, much like his ability to control time in The Ocarina of Time. Itâs known that Wind plays a crucial aspect in the game, as influencing the wind will provide the solutions to many of the games puzzles, whilst also allowing you to do cool things such as glide on deku leaves! However it plays a larger role and one that we have to begin speculating to understand, take this one scenario if you will.

To be honest the whole storyline and limited nature of Monster Island seems a little under-whelming in comparison to the epic-sized proportions of recent Zelda times. We all know that sailing in a boat makes up a large part of the game, and that Linkâs ability to control the wind coupled with his telescope gives him the ability to sail to new lands when the right conditions are met; could it be that the whole sequence that many have seen and played is merely a prelude to the actual main events of the game? Could the new Zelda place more importance on exploration then has ever come before??

A lot has already been said about the visual style in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker; to be fair you either love it or hate it. We personally fell in love with the new look from the first moment we saw the historical premiere at SpaceWorld 2001; where Miyamoto shocked the videogames world that were previously expecting a realistic look featured in the GameCube tech demos. Whether you like it or not, the new visual approach lends many distinctive qualities to the actual gameplay; for starters an animated look allows each character to express a range of emotions through exaggerated facial features that couldnât have been possible with a realistic look. A lot has also been said about Linkâs eyes, which play a pivotal role in the game, highlighting the direction of enemies, secrets and reportedly removing the need of a first-person view. In our opinion the visuals hark back to the days of the original NES and SNES Zelda titles - cartoon worlds populated with caricatured people â“ itâs also worth noting that every time weâve seen the game in action, we feel that the new title feels more like the original NES and SNES titles as opposed to the two titles released on the N64.

Although the series may have moved away from the N64 titles, the actual gameplay is closely reminiscent of the basic fundamental set out in Ocarina of Time; Z-Targeting still features (although this has now moved to the Left Shoulder button), items can be mapped to the X, Y and Z buttons, whilst the A and B buttons perform a variety of context-sensitive actions. Youâll also find a number of items have returned; for starters the grappling hook is back and better then ever, whilst the staple items such as bombs and boomerangs return, Link can now grab hold of a foeâs weapon and use it against him!

Itâs also looking more and more likely that the Ocarina of Time/Ura Dungeons bonus-disc will become available in the West, however expect the package containing it to cost substantially more then the standard price; the major stumbling block is in regards to the translation of the Ura Dungeons which were only released in Japan, translations to all European languages could take some time!