#2: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Another masterpiece and up until a few years back my favorite game. Back in the day I would spend endless hours 100%ing it over and over again. Wind Waker was the second Zelda game I played after Phantom Hourglass. Contrary to Twilight Princess I do remember my first playthrough of Wind Waker, or at least my first impressions of it. It was the first non handheld game I played and I was immediately absorbed by it's beautiful world. I love cel-shaded graphics.
While as a whole the dungeons aren't on par with other entries like TP and OoT the Earth Temple and Wind Temple are fantastic and among the series best, the former more for it's atmosphere and the later more for it's excellent level design and great use of the wind for transport. The Earth Temple is my favorite from this game with the Redeads and especially the Floormasters being absolute nightmares, they always made my heart pound. I also love the mirror puzzles. The first two dungeons, the Dragon Roost Cavern and the Forbidden Woods are generally well done, the Dragon Roost Cavern having some more interesting like where you're on the outside and I like the bossfight against Gohma. The Forbidden Woods are generally rather unremarkable though, but the section where you get there is great. The Tower of the Gods is a great dungeon with the first half in particular being very unique. Gohdan is my favorite boss in Wind Waker. He has a much more interesting name in the German version, Quartoxuma.
The Forsaken Fortress is a non traditional dungeon, you visit it twice. The first time you're unarmed and need to hide, the second time you're strong and obliterate all the enemies that you were hiding from previously. Brilliant. Phantom Ganon and the Helmaroc King are both great bosses with Phantom Ganon's second fight in Ganon's Tower being even better. The first time around you were weak and the Helmaroc King just picked you up and tossed you away like some trash. The second time around you beat him in an epic fight. Again brilliant. These things signify how far Link has come since he was just an ordinary boy in the beginning. But he was still to weak to pose any threat to Ganondorf.
While Ganondorf looks cool in TP in Wind Waker with how bulky he is and the way he is shown in cutscenes he is really intimidating. Ganon's Tower is very straight forward and leads into the awesome fight against Puppet Ganon. The scene where Ganondorf grows into this monstrosity is engrained into my mind. The final fight against Ganondorf tops even the one in OoT for me, it fantastic. The cutscene before that gives the way Ganondorf acts alot of weight, having lost everything he was working all this time. It made me feel genuinely sorry for him for a moment, until he snapped and decided to take bloody revenge.
The combat is great, not really deep or anything but fun and it's always satisfying to pull of some stuff. The hole on Outset Island below that huge stone head where there are dozens of floors with enemies is my favorite part of the game. Just fighting them all is so much fun. Forgot somehow to mention it, but in TP there's a similar place and it's also a ton of fun and very challenging. I like how in Wind Waker you can pick up certain weapons enemies drop snd fight them with those. Seeing tiny Link pick up a huge broad sword three times his size never stops being funny.
The sidequests are in part very interesting. The whole thing with the photos is great and getting all the figurines made in that gallery is fun. Their descriptions are sometimes hilarious. That's the biggest and best sidequest in the entire franchise. Many of the others are great too. The minigames are fun. That dude his minigame on Windfall Island is funny, I could never get enough of the way he says "sploosh". Never gets old.
There is a large amount of island, all very unique with their own secrets and treasures. I always loved exploring them all and finding everything there is to find. I also always had to have them all on my map. Those fish always say "twah" when they pop up out of the water. I will never forget that sound, I've heard it hundreds of times.
The story is surprifingly great. On one side you have a broken man who got tortured for centuries and only wants one thing: get his destroyed home back and see it flourish. He is ready to do anything to get to that goal. On the other hand you have a boy who's sister gets kidnapped and he is determined to save her. He will also do anything to reach his goal, including genocide of certain piglike creatures. On his journey he gains more skills and power and gets then chosen by the godesses to succeed the chosen hero who is no more. It's a story of two opposites that are more similar then they think. Simple and great.
The soundtrack is top shelf quality. One of the best in the series. The Dragon Roost Island theme is my favorite.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker generates massive nostalgia for me. I love it like almost nothing else. For most of my life it my favorite game ever and was surpassed by something that was destined to do so. Wind Waker is my favorite Gamecube game.
