Windwaker

We saw the first footage of the gorgeous Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD during the E3 Nintendo Direct earlier, and now Nintendo has followed up its initial showing with a developer video from Zelda head honcho Eiji Aonuma.

The manager and producer of the Zelda team shared some thoughts about the HD remake and some of the decisions that came into play during development. Thanks to its overhauled 1080p visuals, Aonuma feels that the game now feels "more real", and he's particularly impressed by the far-stretching horizon; the new graphical oomph of Wii U makes the sky "infinite" above a "boundless sea".

YouTube Video
Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube788k
Watch on YouTube

Despite his excitement for the high definition television experience, Aonuma felt it important to add Off-TV play to give people the freedom to play how they want. Along similar lines, the Wii U GamePad gyroscopes can be used to look around — much like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D — but you're also able to use the analogue sticks instead. Link's wind-controlling baton was originally controlled using the left analogue stick, but during development this was altered; players now guide the wand with the touch screen.

Aonuma also explained the reasoning behind a brand new function: the faster boat. Your vessel's speed was purposely restricted in the GameCube original so that the system never ran out of memory and dropped players from the edge of the world. On Wii U the entire ocean can be loaded into the memory at once, so there's no such problem. During the adventure you'll acquire the ability to speed up your ship and dash across the water at high pace — though expect to start out slowly so that you can appreciate the speed increase later.

To finish up, the boss of Software Development Group 3 noted that the original Wind Waker was the first game he felt that he could freely try several different approaches during development, and believes that the HD remake fulfills his first vision. He also spoke deliberately about the infamous Triforce Hunt — for The Wind Waker HD, the team has made unspecified "minute" alterations to improve the flow of the game and encourage people to play right to the end.

You can watch the developer video for yourself below. What do you think of these adjustments to The Wind Waker HD?