Culturess’ Ranking of The Legend of Zelda Games

6. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, like its GameCube sibling Twilight Princess, had a re-release and graphical overhaul for the Wii U version. Wind Waker HD is also basically the definitive version, since it helps mitigate one of the worst features of the original game: how slow the sailing was.

Speaking of sailing, this game features a Link who lives on Outset Island, one of many such islands in the Great Sea. One day, a mysterious bird kidnaps his sister, Aryll. To find her, he joins Tetra, a pirate captain, and sets off into the wide, wide world to try and find her. What he ends up discovering is the secrets of a lost realm, a talking boat named the King of Red Lions, and that he’s more than just an ordinary boy.

The world of The Wind Waker is quite large. This is both a benefit and a drawback. In the GameCube version, getting anywhere, even with the ability to warp to a few specific islands, took a long time. The Wii U version managed to fix this by adding in the Swift Sail.

In general, this game actually has a relatively mature story being told despite the bright colors and graphics. Its problems are that it’s too long in transporting you from place to place and too short in terms of dungeon count.