Would Wind Waker have been even better with realistic graphics?

Link’s first cel-shaded adventure allowed the franchise to sail towards new lands, but was it the right choice?

Let’s play the Song of Time and travel back to the year 2000. The Nintendo 64’s lifespan was coming to the end as the Gamecube became the big focus. Anticipation for a new Zelda game was massive, especially considering it would be coming after Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask. The development team wanted to show off what they could now do with the Gamecube’s power, and created a short demo video of Link fighting Ganondorf at that year’s Space World. But then the winds changed...

Aonuma hated that demo. For him it just didn’t feel Zelda. So the team went back to the drawing board, and came up with the cartoon style that came to be used in Wind Waker. Initial reactions were mixed; with some even naming it ‘Celda’. But despite this, since the game’s release, the Zelda community and gaming world have come to love Wind Waker for its brilliance and freedom: so much so that IGN awarded the game a 9.6.

But was this the right direction to go? Or had the development team set sail in the complete wrong direction?

Many loved the Space World demo because of the heightened realism it provided. Wind Waker juxtaposed this, both through its visuals and gameplay. The overarching story was similar to what we’d expect from a Zelda game, but a lot of the game’s best moments ventured off the typical route. Wind Waker brilliantly adapted the well-known Zelda charm by adding moments of humor: something that arguably the franchise had not done that well in the past. Who can forget being fired out of the cannon towards the Forsaken Fortress?

Would moments like that have worked with realistic graphics? Probably not. Take Twilight Princess for example: a great game undoubtably, but sometimes criticized for being too dark for a Zelda game. The development team used the cel-shaded style in their creation for the game, not just graphically, but in gameplay design too. The cartoony element allowed for a different kind of Link, a different kind of world, and a different type of experience. Though controversial, Wind Waker moved the franchise forward in a way no Zelda fan could have predicted back in the year 2000…