4/5 ★ – Alrob22's review of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD.

Beat on 11/17/23 at ~39.5 hrs This is amazing of course, but honestly it’s a little overrated. To start with the good: This may perhaps be my favorite depiction of Ganondorf of all time and maybe one of my top Links and Zelda’s too since they all have some personality and reasoning. And these characters on top of the amazing story just make for an overall really interesting experience narratively. And of course I mean the whole vibe of this game is hard to beat; super cartoony and fun with and amazing sail-the-high-seas vibe. Super great Now for my issues: The dungeons were all actually pretty fun but nothing standout or mind blowing. Most of the bosses were eh as well. But I mean it was all enjoyable for the most part; I had a good time for the majority of my play through. And honestly I was a hair let down with the main hook of the game: the damn high seas adventuring. I know I just praised it and it is still really great, especially when it’s your first time. It’s just that playing this after BOTW and TOTK made me realize just how far we’ve came since this game. In those games I am just enamored with exploring; it’s all I want to do. But I hardly felt the want to go out and explore in this game. The sailing is fun for the first few hours but you get numb to it since it’s not super duper interactive. Most of the islands are super small and only a handful actually have some interesting stuff to them, most of which are tied to the main quest. And most of the time you’re exploring on your own it’s just for rupees and like ehhhh. Also at the beginning they restrict your exploring which is super lame. And you have to do the earth temple over the wind temple even tho it shouldn’t matter which is also lame. I actually really like the Triforce quest at the end cause it makes you explore and discover cool islands, which actively encouraged me to explore further. Again, it’s still super fun and cool, but the novelty has worn off personally. Honestly I’d love for a game like this with more in depth islands and a structure like BOTW and TOTK. I would spend my whole time at sea lol