It’s been more than a decade since The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker launched on the Gamecube, and although the game earned its fair share of praise at that time, Zelda head-honcho Eiji Aonuma says that The Wind Waker HD for WiiU is the definitive version of this classic. Is he correct?

 

 

We should know the score with HD remakes by now, for they litter both the Xbox 360 and PS3 libraries. Or at least that’s what I thought. You see, the HD remakes we’re used to are basically the same game, upscaled to 1080p, and then released, with other changes usually being nothing more than minor bug fixes. Well, let’s hope that The Wind Waker HD has bucked this trend forever, because everything in The Wind Waker HD is more beautiful and coherent than ever before.

For those who aren’t in the know, The Wind Waker follows the story of a young boy raised on Outset Island, an island at the edge of The Great Sea. The boy’s name is Link. Bet you didn’t see that coming! Link lives with his Grandma and younger sister, Aryll. All is peaceful until Link’s birthday where he “comes of age”. Garbed in green, as is tradition on Outset, fate seemingly sets in motion, and Aryll is kidnapped, and Link finds himself setting out to sea with a gang of unusual pirates.

Most of the early shots of The Wind Waker show little more than Outset Island and Windfall Island, which are likely the two locations where you’ll spend most of your time. In this HD update, it’s certain that Windfall Island has seen the biggest improvements, with buildings looking incredibly rich and detailed.

 

Similarly, when it comes to character models, Link has seen a huge update, rounding those rough edges wherever there may have been, and Link’s pirate pal Tetra has seen the same treatment, but most of the game’s NPCs still look somewhat rough, with their sharp edges being more noticeable thanks to the HD treatment.

But this never takes away from the experience of the game. The Wind Waker is beautiful from start to finish, and constantly impresses. Smaller updates include being able to move whilst aiming items in first-person (Grappling Hook, Bow), giving extra versatility to those weapons.

Traversing The Great Sea has also been streamlined, with the purchasable Swift Sail. The Swift Sail constantly moves the wind behind your back, and makes your boat move twice as fast against the waves. Anyone who played The Wind Waker the first time around will remember how often it was necessary to change the wind’s direction, and how frustrating it could be! Well, frustration be gone, because this is certainly a huge improvement.

Other changes are minor but meaningful. When waves now come into contact with beaches, the water changes from a deep blue, to a lighter hue, then washes back into the ocean. The entire game truly feels like art in motion.

 

 

Music throughout the game has been remastered, but as with most of the graphics, the changes are fairly minor. But this is by no means a bad thing, as the soundtrack to sailing across The Great Sea remains as one of the most memorable pieces of video game music I’ve ever heard.

One huge difference in The Wind Waker HD is, of course, the Wii U GamePad. The GamePad acts as an item interface and map screen all in one. This greatly assists searching for treasures and navigating between islands, and of course, switching out items. There really isn’t anything negative I can say about the GamePad, aside from the visuals don’t look quite as good when playing in GamePad-only mode. But, since the screen is not HD, that is to be expected.

 

MINOR SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT!

 

One thing I was curious about but was unsure of was the Triforce Fetch Quest near the end-game. You may have heard that this quest has been streamlined, but you might not know exactly how! Well, previously, you had to find a map for each piece of the Triforce you were collecting. These maps then had to be translated (for a hefty fee!) and then the Triforce piece needed to be excavated. Well, to speed things up this time around, there are only a few maps, to be translated, and the other Triforce pieces are in the locations where the maps were previously. A minor update, but it definitely speeds up a quest that used to bring the game’s pace grinding to a halt.