Monday, January 28, 2013

Top 5 Wish List For The Wind Waker HD

To say that Zelda fans are excited for the Wind Waker HD on Wii U this fall would be an understatement. Many are pondering what kinds of changes or alterations we will see made to this once polarizing entry in the legendary franchise. With that in mind, it feels like a good time to build a wishlist of the top 5 things we here at Treon's Realm would like to see in the enhanced version of this classic.

  1. Skyward Sword control options: This one is a long shot but it would be nice to have the choice of traditional controls on the Wii U Gamepad and enhanced motion controls a la Skyward Sword. The motion control could even be used as an option for the musical Wind Waker wand. This would add a lot of replay value for those who want to experience the game both ways.
  2. Tingle Tuner: This is an obscure feature of the original game even for the most hardcore of Wind Waker fans. When you first find Tingle, he gives you the Tingle Tuner which is used with the Gameboy Advance so a second player could help out. It was an interesting addition that even hid within its depths a series of hidden gold statues that were otherwise unobtainable. It would be nice to see this feature make a more prominent comeback considering the Wii U Gamepad would work perfectly with the feature.
  3. Camera quest: The camera quest was fun but very flawed due to the limited amount of picture storage. I wanted to collect all of the figurines but hated being limited to only 3 pictures at a time. This meant over 40 trips to unload your camera to get all figurines! It was hard enough remembering to take the over 130 pictures which usually required multiple sessions through the main quest. Lets see the Wii U Gamepad used as the camera via gyroscopic aiming and allow it to hold the entire selection of photo's or at least something more reasonable like 50 pics at a time.
  4. Orchestrated Soundtrack: With Nintendo officially backing a fan made Twilight Princess album, it would be the ultimate fan service to allow the fans to recreate the soundtrack for the new game. Hell, with the 25 GB discs on Wii U, give the classic and remixed soundtrack as a switchable option for the player. If Nintendo wants to do the orchestrated soundtrack themselves, even better!
  5. Triforce of Courage Quest/Lost Dungeon(s): Personally, I didn't mind the Triforce quest overall but what I did mind was the excessive Triforce Chart collection and money hungry Tingle charging ridiculous prices for Chart "translation". The greedy little bastard charged 398 rupees per map for a whopping total of 3,184 rupees to translate all of the required Triforce Charts. The need to find so much additional "stuff" is what caused the game to grind to a halt for so many fans. It would be nice to see this streamlined and focus on exploration for the relic itself and not all the charts and money leading up to the Triforce. Altering this portion of the game leads us to the "Lost Dungeon(s)". Many don't know that Wind Waker originally had a dungeon or two which were cut for development time. These dungeon(s) are known to fans as part of the "Scrapped Dungeon Theory" which was formed based on the importance of these locations, developer comments and hints littered within the code of the Gamecube original. The Triforce of Courage quest was rushed to fill in for these lost dungeon(s) which is largely why it felt tacked on. Series head Eiji Aonuma has apologized for this and I think it would be awesome to add these dungeons back in while streamlining the Triforce Quest. While the exact dungeon(s) have never been revealed, fans have put together the most likely locations based on item importance and game flow. Those locations in the existing game are: Fire Mountain (Item collected: Power Bracelet), Ice Ring Isle (Item collected: Iron Boots) and Greatfish Isle (Thought to be the original dungeon for Nayru's Pearl and Water Boots which are buried within the games code but never made an appearance)

Those are some of the most desirable changes for Wind Waker but considering Nintendo's more conservative approach to remakes, I would recommend tempering your expectations. What things would you like to see Nintendo add, remove or change in this classic? Please comment below.

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