I finished it yesterday too -- and at 100% completion for the first time. Still fantastic, and probably my favorite game of all time.

@rebonack

100% completion?!? You got all those figurines, too?

Got a link between worlds but I haven't even started it because I've been playing this game. Im really enjoying it. I figured I would find the swift sail in a certain place but a little fish confirmed my suspicions. It's been 11 years so this game feels fresh and I plan on exploring every nook and cranny especially when sailing is so much faster now. Anyone find my bottles??
:)

I ended up getting this game for Christmas - didn't ask for it or anything.

Not exactly excited to play this game, but...eh. Can't complain too much about what is essentially a freebie.

GameDadGrant said:

@rebonack

100% completion?!? You got all those figurines, too?

COME ON, REALLY? Those freakin' things.. I think I found 18 or 19 hearts, but definitely not all of them. I got that Heart Piece Chart/Map SO late in the game that it was completely useless. Didn't Outset Island have something like 27 Heart Pieces you can find there? Yeah RIGHT.

rebonack said:

@DrFinkelstein The figurine quest is probably still time consuming, but way less so than the GC version. You can get 12 figurines made each day (as opposed to one on GC), you can hold 12 pictographs (as opposed to 3 on GC), and the game tells you when you take a pictograph if it's good enough for a figurine. Not to mention that you don't need a firefly to get the deluxe picto box, and swift sailing makes traveling to get pics much quicker.

Wow, that explains it.

I just played over 3hrs last night and it's safe to say that I didn't really accomplish anything. Too busy exploring, re discovering secrets, shooting watch towers, getting rich and spending rupees. I'm noticing just how much the game has improved - from the speed of sailing to the ease of getting the man-fish's attention with bait (in the GCN version, it was sometimes a huge pain in the ass as you would throw bait but he wouldn't show up all the time if you were close).

It wasn't really a major wish to get it for Christmas - but I'm glad I did.. I am still surprised at how much I'm enjoying this game.

Bump!

So judging from a recent poll, a great deal of us will finally be getting TWW HD (as a freebie gift from registering Mario Kart 8). Already, I'm feeling the hype and reliving memories of my 2003 and 2005 playthroughs of this (wait for it) masterpiece. I'm almost as excited to revisit the Great Sea with my wife this time around as I am to try out Mario Kart 8!

So TWW HD owners, how'd the game hold up in your eyes? And who's with me in getting this game with MK8?

And by the way, I actually 100%ed this myself back in the day--yep, all heart pieces and figurines and everything. I was obsessed with Wind Waker for about half a year when it was my all-time favorite game. Eager to introduce Sarah to it at the end of the month!

@TriforceBun

As a fan of the original release, the HD version blows it out of the.............................water! HARHAR! But seriously, it fixed a lot of the little complaints that I had with the game and made it incredibly joyful throughout the hours you spend on the sea. The only downside that I can think of now is the swap in art style really made the game awkward in certain spots. It seemed to float between a HD version of Wind Waker and a claymation take on the game. Other than that, it just cemented itself as the second best 3D title for me.

But you gotta play on Hero Mode. It makes the first two dungeons really intense, especially if you are going for a 0 death run, and a couple bosses can sneak up on you later on with massive hits.

The gamepad, much like the second screen in OoT3DS, makes the game miles more streamlined as well.

I think it's a great version of a great game.

But I'll say this - and I'm sure this is idiosyncratic - it was a slight step down for me as it "fixes" things I didn't personally need fixing (the boat speed was never an issue for me, as I loved the boat more than anything else in the game) and broke something that was absolutely a key feature in my original enjoyment of the game (inexplicably, The Tingle Tuner, something that probably could have been coded for 3DS download play in a day).

I mark it as a net-positive and I'm glad it fixes things that other people felt were broken. But I'm about to utter a sentence heretofore unknown to the human race: I miss Tingle.

@kriswright

What is this I don't even...

Tingle is such a weird character. Not entirely sure why Nintendo has adhered to him so much. He made sense within the bizarre, "down-the-rabbit-hole" context of Majora's Mask, and the strange world of Termina. But when he started showing up in The Great Sea (and later Hyrule) it was...I dunno. Didn't sit right with me.

@kriswright Forget 3DS, they could have easily had the Tingle Tuner work on the GamePad whilst someone else controls Link with a Pro Controller. I'm baffled why they didn't do this, and I agree it's a missed opportunity.

I've been borrowing this game from the library on and off for the last month or so.

I've gotta say, I might be even less of a fan than I was before. Hero Mode seemed like a great idea, and it IS, in some ways. It does make you care about getting hit. But it's mostly just inconvenient, like when you take a bit of damage and have to play a whole area over again, just because you weren't being super cautious. The Deku Tree section was pissing me off to no end, especially when trying to hit that switch near the top of the mountain (after gliding to the little island with the figurine dude and having to climb up again). Trying to run past the Deku plants would cost me a chunk of life. Then I had to go through that long-ass plant spitting section. I'd get to the top, try to land in that little spot, fail a couple of times (is it even possible to land there, or do I have to use an item I don't have, or something?), lose a bit of health from falling and then another from landing out of bounds, and then have to do the whole fucking thing all over again. This repeated about 5 or 6 times before I just gave up and went on to the Forbidden Forest. I mean, give me a shortcut if I've already climbed to the top! It wasn't really difficult. Just incredibly tedious and repetitive.

So many collectibles in this game. It's kind of neat that you can steal stuff from enemies. But is it actually fun? Is it fun to pick up one of those seeds EVERY time you murder a plant? Is it even fun to fight a frigging plant in the first place?

Movement is not as smooth as I remember, either. Sure, the animation is nice. But the movement is pretty imprecise. Things that you seem like you should be able to do, like Deku Leaf into a ledge grab, are impossible. When I accidentally rolled off of the ledge at the top of the Deku Tree and had to climb up AGAIN, I was about to cry.

And the items are so damned clunky. Particularly the grappling hook. Why do you have to switch sticks to aim the grappling hook? Who wants to strafe while using a grappling hook? And why are some jumps set up such that I have to change my swinging direction before landing? A grappling hook in a game can be such a beautiful thing. But Wind Waker just makes it a pain in the ass. Metroid Prime did it about 100 times better.

The puzzles are pretty crappy, too. Hey, a door that's locked with vines! I can cut them, right? Oh, I can't reach the top vines. How about if I jump attack? Oh, still no top vines... Hmm, maybe I can use my grappling hook! No effect whatsoever, eh? Whatever, maybe I'll just throw this fucking walnut at the door. WHAT?! It worked? WTF???

I guess changing the wind gets easier in this version? But it's still tedious at this stage of the game, on top of the direction selection being kind of unintuitive. And when I accidentally glided into a peahat, I had to climb that stupid fucking tree AGAIN. Aggghhhh...

Fighting multiple enemies at the same time (especially while locking on to one) is kind of dodgy, as well. Even some of the evade attacks just end up with Link taking damage when other enemies are around.

I think that I'm changing my overall Zelda Shootout score for Wind Waker to a 1. (It's still pretty, though.)

@kriswright
Incredible. THAT is exactly what the Gamepad should display when you use it as a controller.

@Anand To be honest, I think movement in the 3D Zelda games, on the whole, is kind of too stiff. Link's jumping after Majora's Mask took a serious downturn.

@PogueSquadron
I agree that 3D Zelda is a bit stiff (unlike buttery 3D Mario). But I feel like Link's movement has improved quite a bit since Ocarina. I thought Twilight Princess controlled pretty well. I have to put more time into Skyward Sword to include it in the comparison.

I just remember trying to jump back into Wind Waker a while ago and being surprised at how weird it felt to move Link around.

Skyward Sword was a step in the right direction. Link just needs to be faster in general. One of my favorite things about the 2D games is how fast paced they are. I wouldn't mind a game where Link is just way more agile than we're used to seeing. There were few times in Skyward Sword where I wasn't holding that run button down.

I wouldn't mind if the 3D games were just faster paced, and maybe put less emphasis on a manual lock on mechanic. I wonder if they can do that while still making the game feel cinematic (that is, without some isometric view).

@PogueSquadron

Bunny Hood!

@Anand alot of his character models just feel stiff though, sadly

@PogueSquadron
I wouldn't mind if EVERY 3D adventure game was faster paced.

Except for Sonic Adventure, I guess. (Although that game stinks for different reasons.)