Retro Throwback · Published August 26, 2026

Forget the Re-Release! Remembering The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

I spent years wishing Wind Waker looked like another Zelda. Then I realized it was the Zelda game I kept replaying.

Link sailing the King of Red Lions across the Great Sea in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD — Nintendo · official Wind Waker HD trailer footage

The short version

I did not fully accept Wind Waker’s art style until the HD edition, but I kept choosing to replay the original anyway.
The dungeons were not the game’s strongest part, but the sailing, islands, characters, bosses, and underwater Hyrule have stayed with me for more than two decades.
Wind Waker HD remains the best version, while the GameCube original is now officially playable on Switch 2 through Nintendo GameCube – Nintendo Classics.

The Zelda game I kept replaying

I first played The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker on the day it came out in North America. I was 13 years old and had been waiting for it. I had the Ocarina of Time and Master Quest bonus disc for GameCube, along with the four-game Collector’s Edition. I wanted another huge 3D Zelda adventure.

There was one problem: I was not sold on the graphics. Even after finishing the game, I remember replaying it and wishing it looked more like the realistic Zelda Nintendo had shown before Wind Waker—or, later, like Twilight Princess.

But that was the important part: I was replaying Wind Waker. Not Twilight Princess. Not Ocarina of Time. Not Majora’s Mask. Wind Waker. The art style did not fully click for me until I was older and played Wind Waker HD, but the game had already given me plenty of reasons to return.

This remembrance discusses moments from across the full game, including the ending.

The places I went back to

Outset Island was a comfortable place to begin again, but Windfall Island is the town I remember best. I remember sneaking into houses, smashing every pot in the rich family’s home, and repeatedly playing the Battleship-style minigame just to hear its operator shout “Sploosh!” and “Kaboom!”

I remember using the Tingle Tuner with friends and wishing I had unlimited rupees so we could keep dropping bombs. I remember Beedle’s shop ship, the child with the runny nose, the lone Goron merchants, the Koroks, the people of Dragon Roost Island, and Tingle being Tingle. Wind Waker is filled with strange characters who remain easy to picture more than 20 years later.

Link is one of them. His face tells the story constantly. The look of horror when Tetra’s pirates load him into a catapult and launch him toward the Forsaken Fortress still makes me laugh. Tetra is just as memorable: sharp, confident, and more interested in getting the job done than acting like a traditional princess.

Sometimes sailing was the point

Sailing across the Great Sea always looked, felt, and sounded good. It was relaxing. When I needed a break from the stress of life, I could point the King of Red Lions toward the horizon and go somewhere—or nowhere in particular. Windfall Island and the open sea were places I could visit simply because I liked being there.

That calm could disappear quickly when an enemy attacked or a giant obstacle rose from the water, but even that helped. The quiet stretches made the surprises feel larger. Pulling treasure from the ocean, finding a new island, hearing different music, or seeing something strange in the distance gave the empty space a purpose.

The HD edition’s Swift Sail makes traveling faster and removes the need to keep changing the wind’s direction. That is a real improvement. But speed alone is not why the Great Sea worked. Sailing gave Wind Waker a rhythm that no other Zelda has duplicated.

The dungeons were fine. The bosses were better.

I do not think Wind Waker has Zelda’s best collection of dungeons. Several involve too much block pushing, and most of their layouts do not stay in my memory unless somebody mentions them first. I hate block pushing, and Wind Waker never convinced me otherwise.

The bosses are different. I remember using Valoo’s tail to bring the ceiling down on Gohma, cutting through Kalle Demos’s vines with the Boomerang, and firing arrows into Gohdan’s enormous mechanical hands and face. I remember returning to the Forsaken Fortress with the Skull Hammer and finally smashing the Helmaroc King after spending the opening hours running and hiding from it.

The Earth Temple was better because Medli joined the trip. Positioning Link and Medli so their reflected light destroyed an obstacle was a simple idea that made the dungeon feel cooperative. The Wind Temple tried something similar with Makar. It was not as satisfying to me, but flying Makar across gaps and navigating the enormous central fan gave the temple an identity.

Then there were the Darknuts. Circling one, cutting away its armor, and opening up with a final flurry of sword attacks until it disappeared with a satisfying pop never got old.

The world beneath the ocean

Hyrule Castle was the moment that changed the entire game for me. It was the first time I had seen the inside of Hyrule Castle in 3D, but this was not the castle I had imagined. It was frozen beneath the sea, filled with Darknuts and broken statues.

That reveal emotionally broke me as a kid. The world I loved from the older games was gone. It had been destroyed. The ocean I had been sailing across for the entire adventure was hiding it below the surface.

I wanted to leave the castle and explore all of underwater Hyrule, but the game would not let me pass the boundaries. Walking through the castle and looking toward that lost landscape made me want my old Hyrule back inside Wind Waker’s world.

That created the strangest reversal. I still did not love the art style, yet the first thing I wanted after seeing underwater Hyrule was more of that world in Wind Waker’s art style. The game had won the argument before I admitted it.

The best Ganondorf battle in Zelda

Ganon’s Tower pays off with one battle after another. Wind Waker’s Phantom Ganon fight feels definitive: batting energy back and forth, then watching every piece of the larger red attack fly back at him after a spin attack. Puppet Ganon follows with visible strings controlling a series of ridiculous forms, as if Ganondorf is taunting Link with monsters on a stage.

Then the complete Triforce finally appears. Seeing Ganondorf come so close to claiming it is a genuine moment of horror. When that plan fails, he pulls out two swords and fights Link directly while water crashes down around them. Zelda joins with the Light Arrows. Ganondorf towers over Link, punishes mistakes, and forces you to move around him instead of trading careless attacks.

The final counter sends Link over Ganondorf’s head, and the Master Sword goes directly into Ganondorf’s forehead. He turns to stone with the sword still buried there. More than two decades later, I still consider it the greatest Ganondorf battle in Zelda history.

Wind Waker HD finally made the art click

Wind Waker HD made the ending less tedious, made the sailing faster, and presented the world in crisp 1080p. More importantly for me, it finally made the visual style feel complete. Bright scenes are genuinely bright and happy. Dark scenes feel threatening. The colors, lighting, and atmosphere all work together instead of fighting the hardware.

It made Wind Waker look timeless. The HD edition is the version I recommend without hesitation. The problem is access: Nintendo ended new Wii U eShop purchases in 2023, so people who do not already own the digital version need physical hardware and a used copy.

There is now an easier official option for the original. Nintendo added the GameCube version of Wind Waker to Nintendo GameCube – Nintendo Classics for Switch 2 in June 2025. It requires Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack and does not include the HD edition’s visual upgrades, faster Swift Sail, or streamlined late-game quest, but it is still Wind Waker—and Wind Waker is still great.

Stop waiting and play it

It is a shame that Nintendo has not released Wind Waker HD on Switch or Switch 2. I would like to see the best version available on current hardware. But that does not mean the game is absent. The GameCube original is on Switch 2, physical copies of both versions still exist, and old hardware still works.

Stop waiting for Wind Waker to return. Play it wherever you can. Sail without a destination. Visit Windfall Island. Fight a Darknut. See Hyrule beneath the ocean. Remember why people kept replaying this game even when they were still arguing about how it looked.

What is your favorite part of Wind Waker?