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Review
By: |
Skrabble |
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Date: |
08/25/2003 |
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Released: |
03/04/2003 |
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Publisher: |
Nintendo |
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Developer: |
Nintendo |
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Platform: |
GameCube |
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Rating: |
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Alright, raise
your hand if you have not heard of Zelda. Hmmm. Just as I
thought, not a single hand raised. Nintendo has done the best
job of any gaming console to build up a quality stack of 1st
party titles (Mario, Donkey Kong, Starfox, etc), and their
latest update is on our pointy eared friend Link. The last
installment ("Ocarina of Time") took the world by storm and
was heralded by many as the best Zelda of all-time (a pretty
lofty statement) with the innovation of a 3-Dimensional world
for Link to explore, it was to say the least, outstanding.
Eyes really opened up for Zelda's future when Nintendo first
revealed the Gamecube at Spaceworld 2000 and showed a realtime
clip of a fully rendered life-like Ganon and Link going
head-t-head. The same eyes however, slammed shut wishing to
wake up from a nightmare once the actual new Zelda had been
revealed as nothing more than a cel-shaded cartoony kid, not
the full grown down-to-business Link everyone had hoped for.
Regardless of whether or not it was the right move, could it
still be everything you were wanting? |
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Instead of the
traditional storyline of rescuing Princess Zelda, there's a
slightly different approach taken this time around. You are
still the adventurous Link, but you are now rescuing your
sister from the claws of the one and only Ganondorf, and
instead of the typical dirt covered map you will be
investigating a world that is primarily composed of water. The
problem? Well, Ganon is at it again, he's kidnapping children
for some myserious use, either that or he's searching for a
particular child, one who could grant him power... did you
really expect me to tell you which? Play the game lazy bum. So
you will spend your time sailing, and you better learn to love
it because once you type in your name it's all H2O baby. At
the start of the game it's your birthday, at which time your
mother tells you you're at the age to wear the "Hero's
Clothes" (all green of course), shortly after that a gigantic
bird is navigated to your homie little island and decides to
snag your little sister. You attempt to rescue her to no
avail, and then decide to take the Master Sword into your
hands, but to do that you must collect three pearls. While it
does sound simple, there are plenty of little quests you must
do in order to complete said objective, and believe me, it
will take a few hours. Once you get the pearls, you'll have to
find the broken Triforce which has been scattered throughout
the vast sea, so just like any other buried treasure, you find
a map to guide you to each Triforce shard. Along the way
though, you discover that the ancient seas have been hiding a
very deep secret... Now despite what you may think, it takes
much more computer to beautifully depict a cel-shaded
environment. The graphics are absolutely astounding, there are
tons of minor things to gaze at, such as near the beginning
you enter a volcanic area and the wind is blowing around
ashen-lava particles, simply gorgeous. Once you are out to sea
though, there really isn't much to do with water, so they
focused on the sky and did the best they could. The sun, moon
and stars are all there, and if you look up at night you can
even see constellations up there, pretty cool. The excellence
does not quit there though, the lighting is sweetly done as
well. Every shift in the sun will produce shadow, or even
torches in the darkness will have a glow of their own. It
doesn't stop there, the environment is fairly active as well,
for instance if you're fighting an enemy and you knock him
into a vase, the vase will break, and if you pound your head
into a wall, if the wall has a shelf it is likely to break
(which is taught to you early on in the game).
Now the gameplay is pretty well thought out. You have maps,
items (even items that hold items), plenty of sword swinging
and grappling grabbing mixed in with boomerang banging. The
controller has not changed much since Ocarina of Time, the
principle is still there, you can hold several items plus your
sword and shield. The left analog stick allows you to
move/run/jump (the jump is automatically triggered when you
run over a ledge), the right analog (C-stick) is used to
control the camera angle, a magnificent benefit, the D-pad is
used for viewing maps. The left trigger allows you to target
(the old Z-targeting method, well, I guess it's L-targeting
now) and center the camera on Link, the Right trigger lets you
crouch, defend or grab/pull a block. The X, Y, Z buttons store
items for use, A is the action button (open, drop, speak,
grab/throw, check) which the top right of the screen will
notify what you are able to do in the given moment, the B
button swings your sword (hack away my friend) and the start
button takes you to your subscreens.
The game screen is pretty simple, the top left has your life
and magic meters, the top right has your items, the bottom
left has your map, and your rupees/money is on the bottom
right. The map screen is pretty awkward at first, but its
simplicity will seep through eventually. You usually draw up
the world map first which is composed of a large square grid
(7 x 7) of 49 squares in all. Each square contains a main
island of some sort (and usually a few tiny islands), they
begin undiscovered but once you get going you can begin
filling in the squares with actual drawings, but in order to
do this you must visit your sea-friend the fish who draws on
your map and tells you a secret about the area! However, in
order to do that you must feed him bait, and in order to get
bait you have to have a bait bag, which holds two kinds of
bait, fish bait and bird bait, and while it is called "bait",
don't get your hopes up because you will be eating neither of
the two. The other map screen from the overworld viewpoint is
the t treasure maps (you switch over by pressing "Y"), this is
where filling in the map squares becomes useful. As you get a
map whether, it's a treasure map or Triforce map, or even a
map to get a Triforce map, (oh yes they did) you will get a
view of the treasure map on the right screen which is a very
zoomed in view of a square detailing the location of the
treasure with an "X", this is on the right side of the screen,
on the left you have the overworld map to compare your
treasure map to so that you can match up the zoomed in shapes
with the zoomed out shapes and find out where the heck that
treasure is. Unlike most Zelda games, money does play a big
factor in this game, because some maps are unreadable (which
happen to be the maps that lead you to Triforce maps) and you
must take these pesky maps to get deciphered by an expert and
this will cost you some grip (money). The underworld map is
just like it has been since "A Link to the Past", you have the
floor level on your left, and the map on the right detailing
where you are and where you've been. If you have the dungeon
map then you can also see where you've been, go and get the
compass to tell you where the boss and treasure chests are
hidden then snag the Big Key and you're practically done!
The subscreen is composed of two primary areas, the "Item"
screen and the "Quest Status" screen. The item screen is just
what it sounds like, contains your selectable items of choice.
The Quest screen contains your "Save" and "Options"
selections, as well as your equipment (sword, shield), the
Pearls and Triforce you've found, heart fragments you've
collected (if you find four then you get an additional heart
container which lengthens your health), amount of treasure
charts you have, and finally your Wind Waker songs.
Near the beginning of the game you gain a Conductors baton
(music conductor that is), as you go along you learn different
songs which allow you to do different things, it's fun at
first but later on in the game becomes slightly annoying. You
typically learn a song through finding a stone that contains
the spell's notes. Some of the songs have to do with
manipulating the wind, but not all of them. It's fairly easy
to use once you practice a few minutes, the songs are not as
easy as OoT (Ocarina of Time), there are different tempos you
can conduct at which can create a challenge at times.
You do have a little friend that can accompany you on your
quest, his name is Tingle and he's accessible through the
Gameboy Advance, he doesn't spice it up much or make a huge
difference, but it's slightly entertaining if you have a
friend watching who is getting bored and wants to participate.
The fighting in this game is quite entertaining and doesn't
get old any time soon, the best part is the new addition of a
sword technique called the parry, which is a counter-attack.
There's also been an upgraded spin attack called the Super
Spin attack, believe me, it's super fun and super useful, some
enemies can only be penetrated by such an attack. There is a
plethora of enemies to munch on as the game flies through, not
very many are new, they've only been renevated for further
use. One of the cooler enemy features is that they are not
limited to hitting only yourself, they are also able to strike
each other, pretty nifty! The bosses can be somewhat
entertaining, but none of them present the slightest challenge
(which is fine by me). The magic bar is used very little, it
only applies to a few items, such as a magic leaf (I'll let
you reveal what this leaf does) and magic arrows. There are
two ways to extend your health bar, and it roots back to the
roots of the first Zelda, you can 1) defeat a boss and gain an
extra heart container; 2) go out and find a heart container.
There aren't nearly enough items to discuss them all without
spoiling some of the fun so I will leave it as an enigma for
you to discover, just remember this clue: if it can grab a
branch, it can grab a buried treasure. Yeah I know, not too
subtle.
The sound is good for what it is, it's used in dungeons and
the overworld, but minus the typical Zelda music. Very
disappointing to say the least, the overworld music is
extremely chipper and is precisely what you'd expect to hear a
small elf-child to be listening to while sailing his magic
boat. However, there is a classic remake buried deeply in the
game, waiting to be revealed toward the very end and it is
everything you'd want it to be and more, I just wish they
didn't use it so sparingly.
The fun factor is fairly decent here, plenty to do and plenty
to see, but it feels remarkably like busy-work teachers used
to give me at school, just something to keep me occupied until
the next big event. "Run here! Run there! Now go grab that so
that you can grab this and use this to open that which will
allow you to take this there to push that!" However, there are
a few outstanding battles and sights that simply must be
viewed if not played, the final battle is simply amazing and
there's a building buried underwater that is great, and the
graphics are pretty darned sweet.
My impression as I reflected once the game ended was not what
one would hope or expect from a Zelda game. It was short, not
nearly enough levels or dry land to explore, not enough bosses
to battle or weapons to choose from. For me, this will always
be the game that could have been, a perfect oppurtunity to
take it to the next level, the only thing they give enough of
was seawater. Yuck. I know I know, there was plenty of sea to
explore, but it felt so much more tedious than rewarding, I
mean come on, there's only so many treasures I want to find
full of 20 rupees. There is hope though, there is another
Zelda in the works by Capcom, now don't get your hopes too
high since it will more than likely be using the same engine
as this one (read: cel-shading), but that has a huge upside of
not taking too long to design another game, because let's face
it, the Zelda we want won't be close to being done until the
next console. Until then, I'll just go pick up the Gamecube
version of Ocarina of Time.
Skrabble Rating:
4 out of 5 Planets
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