Wow, that's so weird. This game is my all-time favorite and I never knew I was pretty much alone in that opinion. I haven't played any SNES and N64 zelda's but the wind waker was a huge, HUGE disappointment to me. I bought the system for that game alone and it has been gathering dust ever since.

Also, I didn't think the game was hard at all (although I now know where everything is so presumably it was more difficult back then) and I have never had to level up to beat certain enemies. Are we talking about the same game here?!?