Some quick thoughts on Wind Waker HD

E3 just passed and, wow, it gave us a lot to digest and mull over. Next gen consoles, Kingdom Hearts III (!), Microsoft’s business strategies. But I have to say, even after several years of Nintendo taking a back seat to Microsoft and Sony, I'm still not entirely used to it. It just seems weird, it isn't right. It's uncomfortable even. I appreciate everything that Playstation and Xbox are doing for the industry, but they both lack that laid-back, light-hearted, Saturday-morning-cartoon-and-sugary-cereal sort of philosophy that Nintendo represents and that I still find myself craving from time to time.

Games are evolving more and more into an adult medium, but we don’t have to abandon our simplified (cynics might called it “childish”) roots. Gamers are a nostalgic bunch. Most nerds are. So now if you’ll humor me, I’d like to get a little nostalgic for a moment. Come along with me as I reflect on one of Nintendo’s below-the-radar highlights: Wind Waker HD.

The original Wind Waker came out at a time when E3 every year was sort of like a second Christmas for me. The Gamecube was my console of choice, and as much as I loved the Playstation 2's bountiful library of JRPGs, I'd still argue that Nintendo’s purple lunch pail was the best console of its generation. Nintendo was waning, sure, mostly due to their inability to secure the third party lineups that Sony and Microsoft had, but nobody could argue with the company's ability to churn out brilliant first party titles. It made E3 such a fun event every year. You just couldn't wait to see what the new Zelda would look like, or the new Mario. Needless to say, when people got their first glimpse of Wind Waker's cartoony, cell-shaded graphics back in the early 2000s, it caused a stir.

Wind Waker’s art design was a risk and the fans let them know about it, but give the game credit and consider it for what it was: a design choice. People never really think of Wind Waker as an open world game, but it was. And it was huge. With all of the islands and dungeons, and towns and whatnot, it’s easy to see how a more realistic visual style might’ve limited the developers (in the same way that I’d argue it limited Twilight Princess a few years later). The cell-shaded graphics made for a far more memorable experience, in part because the designers could really work their imaginations to create some unique environments. If a game is all about building anticipation for the player, then Wind Waker with its vast, open seas full of myriad little islands, is a textbook example of what makes for a great game.

I only wanted to bring it up because, frankly, Nintendo doesn’t get the credit it still deserves in the industry. They say kids get more cynical with each passing generation, but let’s not forget that sometimes the games (or movies, or books, etc.) that get written off as childish sometimes pack more of a punch than people realize. It’s a very good thing that Nintendo is re-releasing its updated masterpiece so that new generations can experience it.

Okay, you can go back to your war games and your DLC and your Cloud gaming now.