Every so often, I get struck by the urge to go replay an old Legend of Zelda. Right now, I really want to go replay The Legend of Zelda: Wink Waker. It’s been a long time since I played through that game and it has been on my mind recently because I lent my younger sister my Wii U, which has a copy of the digital Wind Waker HD game installed on it. I could set up my Wii and play the GameCube version of the game if I really wanted to, rather than wait for my sister to be finished or bother her about getting my console back, but I currently don’t want to play it enough to actually act on the urge. I mean, I’d probably play the game in a couple months if no new games come up (which I already won’t happen) and I finish all the other gaming I’ve recently been putting off to play Palia (which is unlikely to happen, given just how much stuff I’ve still got on my to-play list), but I remember the game well enough that I’m not really feeling compelled to play it again. It’s only been a few years since I last played it, after all. It was part of the franchise replay I was doing with my ex-roommate back when we were living together, so I even have memories of playing the HD remake version with all of its quality-of-life changes (The Swift Sail is a game-changer for a focused player). In looking back on my memories of the game, though, I think I prefer the original version of the game.

I know that Wind Waker was much maligned by a lot of people. It was too cartoony, it took forever to sail anywhere, it was boring, Link had a mysterious sister, and so on. I never really understood all that, though. I mean, visually, I’d say that Wind Waker has held up better than Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess since it went for stylization over polygonal depth or gritty cartoon realism. I’ll admit there’s some style preference showing up in my previous statement, but I’ve also never really understood why people went for realism in video games. Even now, as game makers chase every scrap of graphical power they can lay their hands on for increasingly vanishing returns that are already so small they’ve started making stuff up to trick people into thinking things are better, all it takes is a couple years and suddenly what looked so incredibly real now looks hokey and fake. Better to find a style and stick to it than chase a degree of “realism” that won’t be truly achievable for decades. I always had fun in Wind Waker, watching the smoke curl after bombs go off, seeing my enemies disappear in clouds of smoke, seeing Link’s expressive face shift as I made my way through the world… There was so much that was interesting or fun to look at that I never felt like I was missing anything from playing a less “realistic” game.

I also never understood people complaining about the sailing. Maybe it’s because I had to play the game in thirty-minute chunks (since I had to share the console I played on and was only allowed to play a total of seven hours of video games over the course of an entire week at the time it came out, I quickly learned to accept the passage of time being an ever-present part of every game I played), but I never really minded sailing from island to island. There were always enemies, treasure spots, barrels, and the ever-present chance of a new landmass to keep me busy. I never felt bored while sailing around the world and, when I hadn’t beaten the game or completed my map, would often just sail around for the sheer joy of looking for things. I even tried sailing off the map multiple times, too, at different stages of the game, just to see if there was anything out there that was waiting for a player like myself to find it. Plus, there was a ton of great music to listen to while I played the game. In the HD remake of the game, the Swift Sail speeds up travel quite a bit and I find myself missing the long, relaxed stretches of the game that involved traveling from place to place. Sure, you can eventually warp in both versions of the game, making it much easier to travel between known places, but I almost always sailed instead (unless I was trying to get something done quickly before my game time ended for that session or week). It was nice and the modern convenience of skipping the relaxing sailing portion of the game just never sat right with me.

I think this is where my preference for relaxing and open games came from. I always thought that my first game on a proper gaming PC (Skyrim, of course) could claim that honor, but as I get older and play more games, I find that maybe I don’t actually like open world games as a category. Maybe I like games that are open-world, but that also let you explore and find things on your own without holding your hand too much. Games that set you free to do whatever you want without demanding that you direct yourself in a specific way or at least do that by establishing narrative stakes that make you want to head in that direction anyway (even if you do spend some time pushing at the boundaries just to see if you can since it’s sometimes fun to see how the game meshes narrative impetus and in-game limitations to prevent you from going astray). I like a game that opens up a world for you to explore, that rewards your exploration, that answers your questions with more questions, and that leaves room for you to be an active participant in the world. Which is also a pretty good explanation of why I still love Breath of the Wild and am fairly neutral-ish about Tears of the Kingdom. I just want to be invited in and allowed to explore rather than constantly pulled in a specific direction. I’ll eat my vegetables, I just don’t want to be told I have to eat my vegetables before I can get a second helping just as I’m sitting down at the table.

Anyway, I feel like sailing and since I have too many other games to play before I can take time for that, I think I’ll spend a little time listening to the Wind Waker soundtrack.