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Let's revisit the Wind Waker debut trailer! [roundtable]
 
You know the one...



Yeah, so I loved this trailer from the get-go. I watched it, like, 7 times that day and was bewildered (though highly amused) by the web response (OMG, Link's face is stylized, OMG!!). I took this trailer to mean that Nintendo was shaking up the Zelda formula by smoothing out the control (one of my main issues from OOT), making the action and maybe the platforming more dynamic, adding traps and more elaborate context-sensitive moves, and just generally making a game that played like a Tex Avery cartoon. And then we got Wind Waker. Which played exactly like Ocarina, except slightly less stiffly and with a boat. And with much less content. The only new idea from the trailer that really made it into the final game was the timing-based counter move.

Now, it's possible that I interpreted the trailer wrong all along. Maybe it was always meant to be sort of a mood piece, like Kojima's trailers. On the other hand, none of those scenarios seemed too far-fetched, and things like the stealth DID make it into the game (unfortunately), so...

Suffice it to say, I did not feel the final game lived up to that trailer. And Wind Waker might be my least favorite Zelda.

So how did it go for you guys? How did your perception of Wind Waker change over the years? Feel free to include SpaceWorld 2000. And WW's legacy, compared to Twilight Princess (clearly the superior game in every non-superficial way).

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11/30/10, 18:17    Edited: 11/30/10, 18:32
 
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GameDadGrant said:
@Simbabbad

Wait... did people actually complain about the final battle with Ganondorf? I know people complained about him being included, but... the actual sword battle itself was the fulfillment of nearly 6 years of broken promises.
So...that would be a kept promise then, right?
12/02/10, 07:08   
@TriforceBun
Well, I thought the outcry seemed to dissipate pretty dramatically after the game came out and everyone kind of collectively realized they had another Zelda masterpiece on their hands. The Celda meltdown probably was worse now that I think about it because it was Nintendo fans everywhere, not just IGN users who were upset about IGN's scoring of Double Dash. And then I remember at E3 2004 after Nintendo first showed off the trailer for Twilight Princess, Nintendo fans were beside themselves with happiness and glee. On IGN's front page, it said "The Legend Of Zelda Reborn!" I'm thinking....reborn? Reborn from what? Wind Waker? One game? And then Twilight Princess comes out and Nintendo fans grumble that it was too much like Ocarina of Time. But isn't that what you wanted?

12/02/10, 07:14   
Edited: 12/02/10, 07:16
@GameDadGrant

Thats cool. I respect your wanting different villians.Unfortunatly, other than Majora's Mask, all the other games are handheld games. I have nothing against handheld games, their just not for me. I will admit I will be buying a 3DS. I'm actually as excited, if not moreso for the 3DS than any other Nintendo console launch.

I hope the 3D effect pulls me into handheld gaming. I just prefer playing games on a large screen with the volume turned waaay up.

Reasons why I never got into handheld gaming:

1) Size-video screen too small, sound not loud enough
2) Small Size make my hands cramp(yes even when I was younger)
3) Most handheld games just don't have that epic/polished feel(remember I said most, not all)

I am expecting the 3DS to hopefully change the way I feel, esp. with points 1 & 2. Maybe having the analog stick will help reduce the crampy feeling I get while triing to use a dpad. I know the screen will be bigger and of course putting on headphones will make the sound seem louder. Even with past handhelds, using headphones, the volume still needed to go up a few more notches to please me.
12/02/10, 07:57   
Ugh, that "reborn" subtitle was really annoying. For a time, people started referring to it as "Zelda Reborn," and I thought that was just ridiculous, like it was insinuating that the series died with Wind Waker.

I love Wind Waker...
12/02/10, 08:17   
gamewizard65 said:
3) Most handheld games just don't have that epic/polished feel(remember I said most, not all)

Epic? I dunno. Polished though, hell yeah handheld games are polished. In some ways, I think a lot of them are more polished than console games, if only because there are so many 2D handheld games so they don't have to worry about unpolished cameras and unpolished 3D controls.

Sometimes I think a lot of people aren't into handhelds because they have this notion of handheld games all being shallow pick up and play games, and that is a very antiquated notion. There are a lot of handheld games that have as much or more length and depth than console games.
12/02/10, 09:17   
Zero said:
gamewizard65 said:
3) Most handheld games just don't have that epic/polished feel(remember I said most, not all)

Epic? I dunno. Polished though, hell yeah handheld games are polished. In some ways, I think a lot of them are more polished than console games, if only because there are so many 2D handheld games so they don't have to worry about unpolished cameras and unpolished 3D controls.

Sometimes I think a lot of people aren't into handhelds because they have this notion of handheld games all being shallow pick up and play games, and that is a very antiquated notion. There are a lot of handheld games that have as much or more length and depth than console games.
True, but to be fair, the biggest dev teams rarely if ever work on handhelds. Every now and then there'll be some huge, ambitious project, but the stigma of handhelds equaling smaller experiences has stuck since the Game Boy. The budget typically isn't large for portable games. I mentioned it a few weeks ago, but it's one of the big reasons why the GBA and DS (excellent gaming systems they may be) don't have the number of extremely high-quality games that the SNES does, despite them both having around the same power and similar types of games.

Every rule has exceptions--I think people like Gunpei Yokoi do/did a terrific job of keeping the systems' libraries quality. And there's no doubt that Shigesato Itoi poured his heart and soul into Mother 3 and its huge, several-year production cycle.
12/02/10, 09:25   
Edited: 12/02/10, 09:26
Well, if by "extremely high quality" you mean Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Super Mario World, and Yoshi's Island, yeah, we will probably never see handheld games at that level. Throw in a couple of Squaresoft RPGs. But once you move beyond that small tier, I think the DS can stand with the SNES, if not surpass it.

Also the SNES had nothing like Advance Wars. NOTHING. (Except Super Famicom Wars, but that never made it over...)
12/02/10, 09:47   
Well, also it was Microsoft and Sony making complete asses of themselves with all their casual Wii game rip-offs.
12/02/10, 11:46   
The funny thing about '7.9' is that nobody realized that Mario Kart 64 had also received pretty bad scores from some outlets, including IGN. MK64 probably deserved them (except for the godly battle mode), though, unlike DD.

The DD vs. MK64-MKWii divide is such a hard, binary thing. There are two kinds of people in the world...
12/02/10, 17:38   
Edited: 12/02/10, 17:39
@anandxxx
In my opinion, MK Wii > DD > MK 64. Where do I fit in?
12/02/10, 18:00   
You are an anomaly. An outlier.
12/02/10, 18:26   
Two outliers.

I actually didn't even like the Double Dash Battle Mode that much, although it wasn't an abortion like MKWii's. MK64's and even SMK's Battle Mode were way better. But I really enjoyed the racing in Double Dash. Particularly the weapon balance and innovation. The radical changes to the system made it fresh for me. Also, the animation and framerate were fantastic, and the co-op options were fun. Time Trials were good, too, although they're also great in MKWii.

I've probably gone on at length about the strong points of Double Dash elsewhere, as I have about the bad points of MKWii. To be honest, 90% of my Double Dash time boiled down to having multiplayer Death races on Baby Park. But goddamn, was that ever fun. Fast, furious, and skill-based. MKWii just annoys me most of the time. It's generally geared towards online play over local multi, and the online has some serious flaws, as well. The new items are just irritating, and the track design is often too busy and visually cluttered. And wiiiiiide. Like I said, I'm sure I've rambled about this elsewhere. Maybe I'll try to find a more structured argument later.

In the end, it probably comes down to differing priorities. Just like the Zelda 'debates'.
12/02/10, 18:39   
Edited: 12/02/10, 18:41
AND me. Except I'd probably rate MK 64 higher overall due to battle mode kicking ass and taking names, but if we're just talking racing...

DS > SMK (back in the days) > Wii > DD > 64

Haven't played enough of the GBA game to comment on it.
12/02/10, 19:28   
That's similar to my list, except that SMK probably takes the post, DD passes DS, and Wii moves to the back of the pack (but still ahead of 64). The GBA game is actually pretty underappreciated.
12/04/10, 15:47   
So its similar to your list except completely different?
12/04/10, 20:10   
Pretty much, yeah.
12/04/10, 21:09   
I have always been a Nintendo fan, though I was starting to embrace PS1 slowly towards the end of the N64. The Spaceworld 2000 technical demo kicked all kinds of ass (for its time) and got me hyped for the next Zelda like no other title ever since. Link's character looked more realistic than ever and coming fresh from the darker Majora's Mask game, I expected the next Zelda to be Nintendo's answer to Sony's traditional "mature" games.

So you can imagine my disappointment when the first Wind Waker trailer was revealed. Not only didn't I like a single thing from the trailer, but I got infuriated against Nintendo at large. I therefore bought a PS2 shortly after and ignored GameCube for the most part of that year.

When Wind Waker was approaching its release date, Nintendo added the sweet Master Quest pre-order deal and I was forced to get the game even though I didn't want to have anything to do with it. About 2 dungeons in the game I realized that cell shading was the perfect style for the world that Nintendo had designed. Everything ticked perfectly, except for Link's and Zelda's designs which I never got over with. I hated Link's looks since it went against everything that the franchise had traditionally stood for. You cannot have an epic adventure with a design that looks like it was done by a 2 years old. Nor could you take any sort of drama in the plot seriously. And while some people think that Link's wink is adorable, I simply loathed it.

I learned to live with that design as the time went by. I was a lot more acceptive to games like Phantom Hourglass, partly because it was on the handhelds, partly because it looked stunning for a DS game. However I am not fond of cel-shading in general, unless it is done in a more mature manga style or without character features exaggerations.

That said, I would still prefer a Zelda game that uses the Wind Waker art style (minus character designs) rather than some random "style" like Skyward Sword which IMO fails to be impressive at anything. For starters, the world and characters do not seem to get along. In addition, 1:1 controls don't really justify another Ocarina of Time clone to me. In terms of character design, even though I am a fan of the adult Twilight Princess Link, I think that a Young Ocarina Link would fit Skyward Sword's art style better.

Either way, I hope Nintendo releases a kick ass Skyward Sword trailer REALLY FAST because so far I am completely indifferent to it. Unless Nintendo proves us otherwise, SS seems to be another Zelda by the numbers, motion controls or otherwise.
12/09/10, 00:29   
Edited: 12/09/10, 00:33
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