Topic: Why is Wind Waker so tedious?

So last month I began playing Wind Waker as I've owned it for a few years and never got around to playing it. I picked both it and TP up after playing BOTW thinking that I'd missed these great GC Zelda games for some reason, while absolutely loving ALTTP, LA, OoT, and MM. I played until just after death mountain in TP before I got bored a few years ago.

Fast forward to about two months ago and I had played through ALBW and loved it, so I wanted for traditional Zelda and went to play through this game due to the high praise it gets...and it's just not fun. The sailing is boring, having to play the wind waker to change directions with the animation every time is annoying, dungeon design isn't good, and the constant back and forth just wears you down.

Tonight I think I decided to take it out of my GC and put it away. I just completed the wind temple and now I'm supposed to "rebuild the triforce"? So I looked up a guide; go to these islands and do this stuff, starting with a pirate ship that only appears in certain places at certain times, then save up 3200 rupees to pay tingle to read all of these charts. It's all just busy work for a game that isn't even fun. Why do people hold this game in such high esteem?

@Trajan Honestly, the Wii U version improved some things about the game. However, it's understandable how some people probably won't like it. Not every Zelda game is for everyone. Some people really really love Skyward Sword, but I absolutely despise everything about it except for the lore itself. Honestly, I'd say if you aren't having fun with Wind Waker, you should probably try another game in the series. Majora's Mask is pretty good. Twilight Princess has a better story in my opinion, and I like it's dungeon designs.

Wind Waker HD completely replaced the original game for me tbh. I don't recommend people go back to the original at this point, even compared to most other Zelda remakes.

It's weird because I played the game a couple times as a kid, and I don't really remember that part of the game bothering me back then.

When I think back about the game, most of what comes up is "adventures! blue ocean! pretty music!".

I guess I always had enough rupees? I dunno. Back then my understanding of English was at like 10% anyway, so I honestly have no idea of how the whole process went. Kids work in mysterious ways.

@Eel I remember being little and grinding so much in pokemon platinum that my starter evolved before the first gym, and then replacing all of it’s attacks with status moves.

@Trajan I had a very mixed experience on my first play through of the game, but the main reason for that was coming up against frustrating points where I didn't know how to progress. Now that I've beaten the game and have a fair idea of what I'm meant to be doing, when I go back to it I love it.

Personally, I love the way it looks, the way it controls, the music and island-hopping adventure vibe. I get that changing the wind direction frequently can seem tedious, but there is a way to overcome that - it's just that the way to do it is not obvious (one of my frustrations on my first run).

I find it could so with some more dungeons. Apparently they cut two dungeons from the game to make sure it would meet it's release with the shard fetch questions put in to make up for it while the two cut dungeons where then repurposed for Twilight Princess.

@VoidofLight haha I did that in Pokémon Blue, getting a fully evolved blastoise before Misty.

My younger me deemed any move that did not cause direct damage to be completely useless though!

@Trajan When I played Wind Waker when it launched on gamecube, I thought the sailing was tiresome too. When Wind Waker HD released, I distinctly remember that reviews citing that Nintendo decreased the sailing times, and it was a very welcome improvement.

Here's what IGN said:
"As important as what's added, though, is what's been taken out. One of the biggest gripes back in 2003 was how much time you have to spend navigating the open seas; Nintendo heard that complaint and created a new swift sail, which decreases travel time by half. It’s still too long, considering ship-to-ship combat isn’t nearly as interesting as fighting with your feet on the ground, but I appreciate that change. Also, streamlining the Triforce fetch quest definitely helps pick up the pace near the end game relative to the GameCube version. Removing those two hangups makes Wind Waker an almost caveat-free recommendation.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/09/17/the-legend-of-zelda-t...

Ninetndolife review:
"Moreover, it’s vastly improved thanks to a number of minor — yet notable — refinements.

For example, Link now has access to a new and improved sail, which allows him to travel the seas at a greater speed than was previously possible. The best thing about this, however, is that you never have to change the direction of the wind when using it, thus reducing the frequency on which you have to depend on the Wind Waker. "
https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/wiiu/legend_of_zelda_the...

I think most of the game is fantastic, a true work of art.

For me the triforce hunt was just a waste of my time. They clearly wanted to lengthen the game and didn’t have time for more dungeons.

I still love it though.

I think VoidofLight makes a good point above. While Zelda remains a popular series, there are always some that don't like many of the things in each game. I didn't like Twilight Princess. I enjoyed it at first, but it felt like it became a chore to me long before the end. I found the game tedious. I thought the control was worse than Wind Waker. I got the impression they heavily padded the game to be able to advertise 40+ hours which I recall was quite a bit longer than Wind Waker. My experience with Twilight Princess along with reviews of Skyward Sword are why I didn't bother with that one.

I enjoyed Wind Waker. Maybe it was the time I played it back when it was new. I even enjoyed the sailing. I enjoyed it way more than traveling through Twilight Princess. Perhaps it was finding sunken treasure and exploring islands along the way, but it was more interesting to me than traveling on horseback. With that said, Wind Waker has always had its detractors. Some don't like the dungeons or the number of dungeons, and some of the collecting quests. And there were always those who hated the sailing, so you're not alone there. As I said, this is the situation with all Zelda games now. There are those like me who think very highly of the game. It resonated with me. And Twilight Princess is, for me, the tedious game you find Wind Waker to be. Zelda games are filled with padding and busy work, and it all comes down to how enjoyable and compelling Nintendo can make those things feel, and that's just going to vary from one person to another.

@sdelfin But ALTTP, LA, OoT, and MM didn't have any of that unnecessary padding, unless you consider the quests in MM to be padding (I don't).

@jump Wow that's nuts. GC was going through quite a dry spell back then so I guess I can see it. Odd for Nintendo to rush a game though.

@VoidofLight As, one of the few times a remake actually improves a game. However I don't think I'll ever touch the remake tbh. The GC version has put a bad taste in my mouth.

Yeah you need to play the Wii U version. That speeds everything up.

The fact that it was so slow to get around felt acceptable back then because open world games were so rare, especially on console. GTA3 was only about a year before Wind Waker.

So people were just in awe at the sheer scale of it. Obviously that's less true if you play it now.

@Trajan I didn't mean that every Zelda game has lots of padding, but definitely a bunch of them do. I certainly could have been clearer. But padding has become a common feature of the series from a certain point.

Very unpopular opinion incoming, but I am glad I am not the only one who found Wind Waker to be boring to be honest. I have the HD remake which I have started over at least five different times over the course of the years, but I have always dropped it before making any significant progress at all — it's something that has not happened with any other game I have ever played. I think the furthest I have progressed was finishing the Deku Tree dungeon. There's just something sluggish and unexciting about the pace of the whole game, not just the sailing sections, though those certainly do not help. The first visit to Forsaken Fortress feels so slow compared to what I expect out of a Zelda game, that it kills half the will I had to start playing the game alone, and now I dread restarting yet another time because it'll mean I have to go through that dungeon again...

I drew the conclusion from this that classic 3D Zelda simply isn't my style of game unfortunately, even though the majority of Nintendo fans online love at least one of the games. In contrast, I thoroughly enjoyed both A Link Between Worlds (2D) and Breath of the Wild (3D with a new formula, which personally I enjoy a lot more — the exploration aspect I reckon, makes the game significantly more enjoyable to me as I have a lot more to look forwards too than a path that was drawn ahead for me to follow).

You could try continuing your last save file instead of starting over.

@Eel Yeah, if I try to finish the game another time I'll likely do that. In the past I always refrained from continuing old save files after a break, out of fear that I'd end up forgetting about the early parts of a game and only remember the late game after I'm done playing. I've grown wiser since, but it's been so long that I genuinely do not remember much about the start of Wind Waker, if not Forsaken Fortress and the volcano dungeon I believe it was; so I would be tempted to start fresh, but then again there's the dumb stealth dungeon. I'll figure out something if I get a burst of motivation.

You probably know enough from the last few times you played it, and as you mention, you did not particularly enjoy these earlier parts so it's not like you'll "miss" much.

The story is fairly simple in this one, and the king of the red lions will probably tell you where to go next if you ask him, so it could be ok.

@Eel That's true about not missing much by skipping the early parts this time around. As for knowing how to progress, I can just check a quick guide and infer my progress through the story by the items I have, considering how linear Zeldas tend to be in the first half it should be doable. The more I think about it the more I am leaning towards progressing from where I left off and hoping it picks up from there somehow. Thanks for the (quick) talk, if I get around to trying the game again I hope I'll enjoy it more!