“Set in an era after the events in The Ocarina Of Time, this incredible adventure takes a different young hero named Link on an all-new quest. As you face monsters and try to think your way around obstacles, you’ll earn the Wind Waker — a special conductor’s baton that controls the winds”

I’ve always been the type of person who has trouble ranking their favorite games. It’s so hard when different series offer different experiences and pros / cons. The more I look back on it though, there were 2 games as a child I replayed on the Gamecube more times than I could even count: Luigi’s Mansion and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

If you somehow couldn’t tell already, I’m a huge Zelda fan. My first Zelda experience (as most people) was with Ocarina of Time, but for a 4 year old the game was hard to me after the Great Deku Tree. I actually wouldn’t have come back to beat it until high school with Ocarina of Time 3D. I don’t remember when we picked up The Wind Waker, in my eyes the game has always been around as well as the sea chart poster that came with it.

The Wind Waker is a Zelda adventure on the open seas, which of course gives off a pirate vibe (crazy how I love this game and came to watch One Piece huh?). You start on a chill island, Link’s sister gets kidnapped, and you join a band of pirates to rescue her. After that the full throttle Zelda story kicks in and you’re off on a quest to all sorts of islands with characters to meet and deadly enemies to fight. Everywhere you go, everyone you interact with, every moment you witness during cutscenes: it’s all insanely memorable.

The cel-shaded graphics have aged tremendously well and still hold up – more on that in the HD part. Link here is very expressive and honestly sometimes can be funny, you feel like you’re playing as a legitimate character and not an avatar (looking at you Breath of the Wild). The dungeons in my opinion are fantastic, although the Wind Temple is a bit annoying. The items are all fun to use, I’m surprised the grappling hook hasn’t been used since but I suppose the hookshot or being able to climb literally anything makes up for it.

The OST will never get old, whether it’s “The Great Sea”, “Windfall Island”, or “Dragon Roost Island”. Even the lowkey theme that plays in caves is good. Orchestrating songs with the Wind Waker obviously is great too.

So what does the HD version do for the game? For starters, there’s a new “bloom” effect which alters shadows and lighting The original as I mentioned still holds up, so this is a scenario where I would say the superior look is what you prefer. You can unlock an upgraded sail to move around the seas twice as fast – until you are able to unlock fast travel the sailing in the original does take a bit too long. You do not have to constantly change the direction of the wind while sailing, AND the Triforce quest towards the end of the game is massively improved. It’s all just fetching triforce pieces in random locations but now there’s less pieces to retrieve. On the Gamepad on Wii U, you could also have your menu up at all times to select items instead of having to press start and choose one to replace a slot every time. That was cool.

So yeah, this is one of my favorite games ever. It’s been a minute since I played on Wii U so as the entire Nintendo community has been saying, put The Wind Waker HD on Switch!