Game

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

2002 · Nintendo GameCube · Puzzle · Adventure

89IGDB player score
1,063 ratings

Previously Take

An 89 average across 1,063 ratings. Firmly in the "everyone should try it once" tier. Adventure in the classic sense, from Nintendo: fantasy, forward momentum, and places worth seeing. One player, no compromises. This was built for the solo run.

About this game

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is the first Zelda game for the Nintendo GameCube and also the first in the series to employ cel-shading, a lighting and texturing technique that results in the game having a cartoon-like appearance. Like its predecessors, The Wind Waker is an action game with puzzle-solving and light role-playing elements. Basic gameplay mechanics are similar to those found in Ocarina of Time, but it differentiates itself with its massive Great Sea which must be explored using a boat named King of Red Lions.

Set hundreds of years after the events of Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker finds the hero Link living with his grandmother on the Outset Island, one of the many small islands lost amidst the waters of the Great Sea. On his tenth birthday, Link encounters a giant bird carrying a girl. He rescues the girl, but as a result his own sister is taken away by the bird. The girl is a pirate captain named Tetra, who agrees to help Link find and rescue his sister. During the course of their journey, the two of them realize that a powerful, legendary evil is active again, and must find a way to stop him.