Everybody’s heard about this game, if you haven’t, you must have been living under a rock for the past couple of years. This is the next installment in the near-legendary Zelda series.

I’ll start my review with the main issue that has surrounded this game – the graphics. Many people have criticised this game for the fact it has a new look, with new cel-shaded style graphics. Ok, ok, cel-shading’s been done, but it still doesn’t make the game any less pretty does it? They have complained that they take away the realism of the game…(but then it’s a game, it’s not supposed to be real). The graphics run fluidly and make you feel like you’re playing in an interactive cartoon. Screenshots do this game no justice, when you see it running, the movement is fluid, the colours vivid, and the entire thing will have you grinning like a maniac, and you will soon be immersed in the cartoon style world. There are occasional graphical glitches, such as being able to shove your sword through the wall, or the camera getting stuck at odd angles, but apart from this the graphics are beautiful and don’t deserve the criticism done to them.

Onto the most important thing – game play. Right from the start, you feel right at home, even if you’ve never played a Zelda game before. Even if it seems a little bit daunting or confusing to begin with, you’ll soon be doing actions with ease and the game has quite a user-friendly style. The battle system has remained virtually unchanged, and is still the fluent running, easy to use style we’re all used to, and newcomers will pick the combat up quite easily. As you could guess from the title, the wind plays a major part in this game, and you can use the Wind Waker to manipulate the wind and change it’s direction, which can prove valuable on the open seas. There is the addition of the countermoves, if you press the A button at the correct time, Link will execute a counterattack on the enemy. There are a few additions to game play, such as being able to pickup an enemies weapon, be it to smash down a door, or merely to attack something, and another pleasing idea is that of the Tingle Tuner, which is where you can connect a GameBoy Advance to your GameCube, and have Tingle the fairy help you out with hints, bonus items and whatnot. This is valuable help, because if you are stuck on a certain part in a dungeon, Tingle can give you advice or you can purchase an item off of him to help you, such as a balloon that lets you float on air for 5 seconds can help you clear that near-impossible gap (trust me, I’ve used it a fair few times…) or if you’ve run out of fairies in the dungeon, you can buy some Ting off Tingle for a few rupees. This is brilliantly original idea; nothing like this has been done before. This is one of the best innovations I’ve seen. You can always get a friend to play the part of Tingle, but I found that they tend to think it funny to bomb you…

Another truly classic Zelda trait is the soundtrack. As usual, the game is accompanied by a variety or tunes, each one setting the mood perfectly, be it mellow and slow, or action-packed and fast. And again, music plays a major part in this game, as you are given the Wind Waker to conduct melodies to transport you, change the direction of the wind or to open locked doors among other things.

The thing that makes Zelda games stand out – the story. As in all Zelda games, the story is excellent. I won’t give anything away, but it’s a gem of a story.

In difficulty, I would say that this game is easier than Ocarina of Time, the puzzles and the dungeons are easier to solve, which in some ways is a blessing, but in others an annoyance. The enemies are in no way easier to defeat than in OOT, but the bosses in WW are easier as well. But this is still a fairly challenging game nonetheless, but still not as challenging as many would have liked it.

The controls for this game are easy to use, and basically the same as they were on the Nintendo 64, but modified to suit the GameCube controller. For beginners, they should find the controller easy to navigate and a pleasure to use. Top marks for the controls!

This is quite a long game, and should take a little while to complete, but it still isn’t long enough for some people (the amount of times I’ve heard that…) But aside from this, this game is great value for money, giving plenty of gaming time and even has replay value… You just try getting all the figurines in the Nintendo gallery.

All in all, I would give this game a big fat 9 out of 10, this game loses out on the difficulty and the lifespan, it’s too easy and just that little bit too short. Some people might also try to take a few marks off on the graphics, but, and I think you’ll agree with me, the graphics are beautiful, who cares about realism?!