A reader suggests that Nintendo rework GameCube game Zelda: The Wind Waker and add in a new dungeon to address some of the original’s flaws.
Most things about Nintendo are a mystery but the big puzzle at the moment is when they’re going to announce the Switch 2 and what they’re going to do between now and when it’s out. They’ve got virtually nothing announced at the moment but a Nintendo Direct promised for sometime this month. I assume it’ll just be a collection of small games and remasters but it’s Nintendo, so who knows… things like Metroid Prime 4 are still definitely in play.
One thing that has come up a number of times is the idea that it will be many years before we get a new mainline Zelda and so Nintendo will want to fill the gap with spin-offs, remasters, and remakes. There’s been a lot of interesting debate about what remake would make most sense, with a lot of fans suggesting other Game Boy Color and top-down games, given Link’s Awakening was the last remake.
Any Zelda remake is fine by me, but my suggestion is The Wind Waker. It already has a remaster, that Nintendo has so far resisted the temptation to re-release on Switch, but a remake would serve a purpose that isn’t applicable to any of the other Zelda games: it could improve it.
The Wind Waker is a great game but as many fans will know a lot of content was cut from the final release and it’s very obvious in the last third that it all seems very padded out. There appears to be a missing dungeon and instead all you get is endless Triforce quests that underline that the sailing is actually kind of boring.
It’s a shame, because if it wasn’t for those problems I think it would be the best Zelda of them all, at least in terms of the original formula. The dungeon design is the absolute best of the best, the graphics are amazing (and wouldn’t need to change much for a remake), and it has tons of great characters… and Tingle.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Nintendo talk in detail about what they took out, because it doesn’t seem to me like the sort of thing they’d like to admit, but there was definitely something going on in the GameCube period, as Super Mario Sunshine had similar problems. The difference is I don’t think there’s any way you could ever make that the best Mario game.
Because it’s not clear exactly what went on, I’m not sure if the dungeon was ever designed or not. I assume it wasn’t created but surely there must be design sketches, maybe even plans and layouts.
But if not, just make a new one from scratch. It would probably do Nintendo good to keep in practice with dungeon design, seeing as how they’ve been scaled back in the modern games – especially as I think that was still the weakest part of Tears Of The Kingdom.
In terms of the sailing, I’d make it something more than just pointing yourself in a direction and travelling in a straight line. The sailing looked great, but it needed to be harder and involve some skill, not just working out which direction to make the wind blow.
With the new content I’d scale back the Triforce pieces, because I don’t think there’s anyway to make that interesting and it was clearly just filler. If there’s a new dungeon, I think that would work out but maybe there’s also lost content that could be added in or even stuff they wanted to do but never even started.
This isn’t how remakes usually work, and I’m trying to stop myself from thinking about the Star Wars special editions as I suggest this, but I really think this would be a great idea and help elevate a great game into a full-blown classic. Are Nintendo likely to do it? Probably not, but that’s my idea anyway.
By reader Galoshes
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