While Breath of the Wild has made its place in gaming history as one of the most well-received games of all time, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker for the GameCube is a classic that has been adored by fans since it's release in 2002.
Wind Waker has a playful, colorful vibe that can be enjoyed by gamers of all ages. But more so, Link became more than just a hero. In this game, he is a well-rounded character with flaws, goals, and a well-developed personality.
In 2013 Nintendo attempted to introduce Wind Waker to a new audience with an HD remake on the Wii U. With it, came several changes to the game. Most were improvements, but others are questionable at best!
10 Aiming With Bombs
Link obtains bombs after his second run-in with the pirates on Windfall Island, needing them to visit the water spirit Jabun, who has sealed himself behind a giant stone tablet for protection. (Link gives no regard for how he will seal the tomb back up after leaving!)
Originally, it was impossible to aim with bombs while on King of Red Lions, making most shots purely luck! However, in the remake, you can aim from your boat with a path showing you where the bomb will be thrown.
9 Getting the Deluxe Box Picto Box
Obtaining the Picto Box is fairly easy in Wind Waker as it can be found early on in the game, in Tingle's Cell. But most quests involving the Picto Box require the Deluxe Picto Box, which allows you to take color photos.
The Deluxe Box was previously obtained by bringing Lenzo a Forest Firefly from The Forest Haven. While this quest wasn't difficult, it did take up time and an empty bottle. On Wii U, Lenzo has more trust in his apprentice and will upgrade your Picto Box after you complete his assignments.
8 New Hero’s Charm Location
The Hero's Charm is a facemask that allows Link to see his enemies' health bars. This is a useful item, but not needed to complete the game.
On the GameCube could be obtained from school teacher Mrs. Marie on Windfall Island, after bringing her forty joy pendants. For Wii U, this item was moved to a chest at the bottom of the Savage Labyrinth on Outset Island. This is a dungeon Link needs to complete in order to gain a triforce shard. Mrs. Marie will still purchase joy pendants from you.
7 Walk Forward to Climb
Sometimes porting a game to a new console can really mess with the controls!
Many puzzles in Wind Waker involve Link rearranging and climbing on several boxes. Originally, most items could be climbed by having Link walk up to them, with some large boxes requiring the player to press A to climb. With the remake, the "press A to climb" feature was removed. Instead, Link could climb these boxes by walking aimlessly into them for a few seconds, such as he would in earlier games.
6 Find a Good Spot to Land
After you arrive at The Forest Haven, the Great Deku Tree can barely get through the basic polite formalities before asking Link to go and rescue one of his Koroks! He does however give you the Deku Leaf, which allows Link to glide and hit enemies with blasts of air.
The handling of the Deku Leaf in the remake is pretty much the same, but a target indicator was added. A glowing marker now appears below Link, giving an indication of where he will land. This is a very useful feature for gliding between islands.
5 No More Tingle Tuner!
When rescuing Tingle from his cell of Windfall Island, Tingle will show his gratitude to Link by gifting him the Tingle Tuner. With this, players controlled Tingle by connecting a GameBoy Advance to the GameCube. This allowed players to get more information on islands, could make dungeons easier, and gave the task of finding Tingle Statues, uncovering them with Tingle bombs.
This used to be how Tingle showed his gratitude! In the HD remake, the Tingle Tuner was removed. Instead, Tingle gifts you the Tingle Bottle and Tingle Statues can be found using regular bombs.
4 Stays Fresher for Longer
The Island Koroks quest is one of the most frustrating quests of Wind Waker. After leaving the Forest Haven with the Deku seeds, the Korok's trees aren't growing properly. To help, Link must get water from the forest and water each tree. Not only did this quest have a frustrating timer of twenty minutes, but you also had to reach all trees in one go, or be forced to start again.
While this quest is still a part of Wind Waker, an extra ten minutes were added to this timer for the HD remake.
3 Bigger Picto Storage
After you obtain the Deluxe Picto Box and complete the related quests, you can head to the Forrest Haven and enter the Nintendo Gallary. If you bring colored pictures of the characters and monsters throughout the world, then Carlov will carve a figure of them for the gallery. This gives you more info and background to many of the characters.
Filling the gallery is made much easier on the Wii U as your Picto Box can store twelve images, rather than three. This is a great improvement as you can collect many images without having to revisit any areas.
2 Fewer Triforce Charts
One of the biggest criticisms for Wind Waker is the constant sailing back and forth throughout the world. Especially towards the end of the game during the Triforce Quest. On the GameCube, you needed to search for seven triforce charts to find the pieces of the triforce. After this, you have the seven charts you need to sail back and forth again looking for the triforce shards.
The HD remake cuts this down significantly, but not completely. You instead need to find four charts and some of the shards are now in the remaining previous chart locations.
1 The Swift Sail
The best update with the HD remake of Wind Waker is the addition of the Swift Sail.
Cutting down the Triforce Quest did improve a tedious aspect of the game. But the sailing in Wind Waker can be fun- exploring the open world and discovering new characters. What ruins it is having to stop every two squares of the map to change the direction of the wind with The Wind's Requiem. Thankfully, if you visit the auction house you can buy the Swift Sail which automatically changes the direction of the wind! Allowing you to sail off with total freedom!