It might wake the wind but it sometimes lulls one to sleep...
The Legend of Zelda-franchises has allways presented players with awsome adventures and cool deep dungeons to hack 'n slash n' puzzlesolve through and a lot of treasures and secrets to searche out. Here we have the first flaw to work through; the puzzles are never hard, one might even say they are to easy. (push a block to that little square on the floor) Not only this but fighting is something you do with ease and the bosses are very basic, just use the item you earned in the same dungeon, stun and hack with sword then repeat 3-4 times. So even if it's a great feeling of true adventure it goes you by in a breeze and leaves you wanting more.
Windwaker gives a little more than it's prequels with alot (ALOT) of secrets to uncover and even a reason for more than one play through.
Another flaw which Nintendo somewhat has worked with is the story, the series has been followed by the curse of almost having no story. Ofcourse there are some of it but since it lacks almost any intrigues that builds it during play and because most characters lack personality it all collapses into a quite lifeless story. Just because a character is cute it does'nt mean it has personality... but Windwaker comes through quite good and for the first time I actually could feel with the characters and there even was some dramatic scenes. Even Link has some personal characteristics (his not the empty shell as he's allways been) and it's nice to see Nintendo giving this serie some true rpgdepth.
Graphically this game is the coolest on the Gamecube, Resident Evil 4 gave us realistic and detailed to the bone graphic but Nintendo gives us eyecandy that makes you both laugh and cry. Its cartoonish style makes for some hillarious moments but as the opening where Links little sister is kidnapped by Ganons big bird shows us some deep emotion can also be told through this design.
Koji Kondo once again is responsible for the tunes and music does'nt get much better than this. Only three other composers can compeat here; Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts), Akria Yamaoka (Silent Hill) and of course the god of all game music Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy, like you did'nt know it) Soundeffects are classic Zelda-ish but I'm getting quite tired of Link's annoying and bratty yelling.
Controls can be quite recognized from the two N64 games in the series with just a slight adjustment in the camerawork (there actually is cameracontrolls now)
The part of Windwaker that truly put me half to sleep though is the sailing, sure it's cool in the beginning but I truly miss Epona and the wide stretched greens of Hyrule. Only small (very very small) islands can't be compared to that.
CruZ