Why, exactly, did everyone give this game a great score?
The story is fine, up until you realize that this is just Hyrule under a mile or two of water. Bear in mind that if you’ve seen “Waterworld,” you know half the story of this game already. The other half is evidently that you’re not going to CHANGE this; no, no! You’re just going to adventure for 20+ hours and have everything stay exactly the same! Yahoo! The water doesn’t recede once you beat the game so everyone can live happily, if soggily, ever after. You float off to find a new land. Um… Where?! The whole frickin world is under water! Where are you going to go? The OTHER mindnumbinly large and repetitive ocean on the other side of the planet? Hey! I just figured out the plot for the sequel, "The Legend of Zelda: Boring as Hell." I bet you can control thing that are equally as boring and stupid, like you can stare at the sun and make yourself go blind! Exciting!
The most frustratingly boring aspects for me in playing this crapterpiece was traveling over the ocean. And you have to change the wind over, and over, and over again. Any time you play a game and nothing happens for five to ten minutes (unless you’re playing Half-life) is not fun. It’s boring. It goes beyond boring to tedious. I’d put the controller down once Link was going in the right direction, sit back and watch well-rendered nothing happen. How much fun is that? It’s like waiting in line to have your fingernails pulled out.
But I plowed on playing this game, knowing that so many people couldn’t be wrong. “Best in series” was the thought that came to mind when I had to track down maps for the Triforce pieces, go to Tingle to have them translated for absolutely ungodly amounts of money (what a pal!), then go out to find them all. I kept asking myself, “How is this better than ‘Link to the Past,’ or ‘Ocarina of Time,’” when I go to one place, find out that I need to go somewhere else to get one piece of equipment. Once I got this piece of startlingly useless-anywhere-else-but-one-dungeon equipment, I’d track all the way back to where I started, and finally get the treasure… and it’s a frickin treasure map to a chest I’ve already collected! What?!
I actually went to a gaming website (http://www.netjak.com/review.php/308), where they’ve never given a game a perfect score; and they gave this game a 9.2 out of 10! Please, see for yourself. The reviewer states that this game isn’t meant to be fun; it’s supposed to be appreciated as a masterpiece and not enjoyed as a game. What kind of tripe is that? Would you give a boring, yet nicely done movie a good review? Of course not, because a nicely done movie that’s boring is not fun to watch! And a boring game is not fun to play, so it should get a bad review.
Finally, I’d like to discuss the final fight between Link and Ganon. I have a few issues with it. First, why is it that you fight the large Ganon form first, then the little one last? Isn’t that backwards? In OOT you fight Ganondorf at the top of the tower, and then a huge form of Ganon at the bottom of the tower. That makes sense, because you whittled away the “fake” shell of Ganondorf to get to the juicy “real” Ganon nougat center. And second, what the @#$% is Zelda doing in the final fight with you?! I mean, why the heck is Link even there? He should have just given the Master Sword to Zelda, tipped his green hat to her, and go on back home, secure in his knowledge that she had the situation well in control and didn’t need his sorry forest-green ass there to mess up her groove. That, ladies and gentlemen, was the crap frosting on a guano cake. Honestly, who exactly was the damsel in distress? Zelda sure didn’t need Links help, but he needed hers, evidently!
I could bore you with my spin on the game play, graphics, blah, blah, blah. But I won’t. Because I hate this game.
...Ok, here's my thoughts. Game play? Go play Ocarina of Time. Graphics? Go play Jet Set Grind Radio. Originality? Go watch Waterworld, but stop the movie once Costner rescues the little girl, so nothing in the movie changes. Any of those things will be more entertaining than sitting through 20+ hours it takes to slog through Wind Waker.