Play it again - Wind Waker

Hello my love. I know, I know, it's all dark and miserable out there still. And that bastard gale, mercy me. But just turn off the Twilight Sad for a moment, stop daydreaming about mittens, and let's remember when it was nice outside. Let's think about the coming spring, the bright days after this dreary storm - let's think about Wind Waker. A little confession first. Not that I feel too bad about it or anything, but it's important to be honest with each other if we want this relationship to survive in the face of our respective awfulness. Wind Waker was the first Zelda I ever played. My gaming childhood was a series of unfortunate events - a NES and Game Boy owned before I had figured out any process to determine which game to buy besides staring bemused at the meagre selection in the local audio/visual shop until a parent came to drag me away and I had to grab anything then or go without. Here is perhaps a revelatory insight into my adult personality - I bought and played (played a lot ... I had no other options) Jelly Boy and Tarzan: Lord of the Jungle on the Game Boy. There's just no psychological recovery from experiences such as those.

Then - no SNESs in my social circle as the Sega systems took the lead. A PlayStation for me over an N64, though Nintendo had gained some traction there amongst my friends whilst no alternatives presented themselves. But, well, if you go around to yer wee pal's house and they've got an N64, you play Goldeneye and that is the end of that.

I have - of course - atoned for my sins since those dreamy Wind Waker days in 2003 and played Ocarina and Majora, Twilight Princess, A Link to the Past and the quite excellent yet often overlooked Minish Cap. Oh - oh, and the DS ones. I played both of those too. Nearly slipped my mind. So, a fair amount of Zelda since then I suppose. And yet, and yet. Wind Waker remains my favourite. Hold on a minute - let me try and explain why before we agree that I'm just an idiot child looking back with rose-tinted binoculars to the time my innocence was ripped away by an experience only truly memorable because it was the first. Actually ... this will probably take more than a minute. Retain a sure grip on your posteriors.
Beauty, design, emotion

It was actually a bit of a shock coming back to Wind Waker after all this time. In my mind there were sweeping ocean views sharply outlined by the cel-shading, seagulls coasting lazily above the waters and villagers maundering about on the shore like so many adorable potato-headed idiots. In reality, while the views are certainly there, the draw distance is strikingly short and everything is reduced to this weird smeary blur at just a few paces. I checked my cables, sensibly considered buying a component lead to replace the ancient SCART connection to see if that might help sharpen things up. But, no, it was the best I could manage - this odd, fuzzy ... experience.

As it happens - as it always happens - it only took a short period of readjustment before I didn't even notice the problem any more. Didn't even consider that there was a problem any more. And then ... well, yes, obviously Wind Waker is gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. I won't dally too long around general issues - I feel everything's probably been covered time and time again and the chances are you can see for yourself just how lovely everything is. There is something to be said for the characters in particular, though. The designs have a real confidence behind them, not plainly simplistic but sharply refined. Some shapes arranged, a little animation. Bright colours and a handful of voice clips and just like that ...


Ohh! Hello, new friend. A life is born. There aren't a massive amount of people in this world, but they all exude so much personality and individuality from the Outset. Little joke for you there. I'd take a world scattered with these guys over a bustling metropolis of forgettable NPCs anyway. Maybe that's an unfair comparison, but less can very easily, very often, be more.

Talking more specifically - I suppose the big moment that everyone remembers is the black and white section when you finally descend to Hyrule castle at the bottom of the sea. A scene frozen in monochrome - and a really elegant guided journey through various emotions. Intrigue when you first land, trepidation upon seeing all the enemies and wondering if they may suddenly spring to life and attack. And there's Link moving amongst them all, the brightest, cutest little splodge of colour weaving between the comparative giants. Clearly foreign, clearly alive. Bringing change.

A close interest then - exploring the scene at leisure, seeing the brilliant enemy design up close and taking in the humour in the way some of them have been arranged. I really love the Darknuts in Wind Waker especially - there's something special about knocking their armour off to reveal the dog-like creatures underneath. Like unwrapping a very peculiar present. The really evil ones even have little goatees, it's the best.

Then the change does come, and the bleached tension that the scene was holding is released in a sudden wash of colour and the adrenaline of a hard battle against so many strong enemies. Even if the action does sadly kind of collapse into just waiting for the counter-attack prompt to flash in the corner of the screen, those few minutes of moving from quiet to noise, peace to war, harsh shades to vibrant colours and intrigue to insecurity are very effective, and very neat. The glass slowly drawn away from a dangerous enclosure at the zoo, the relationships flipped. And a reminder that for things to get better, sometimes first they must get worse.

There are more personal moments that the game creates, too - unscripted ones, bobbing up out of the sea like various glittering whale turds and all the more memorable for it. Such as - sailing all night through storms and high seas, in silence as it goes, avoiding tornadoes and those arse bastard Seahats. It's an exhausting slog in the rain. Lightning flashes overhead, illuminating tiny Link, soaked through to the skin. And then, slowly, the dawn begins to break - the clouds part, the waters calm. Windfall Island comes into view on the horizon. And the Great Sea Theme starts up, swelling up from soft notes like birdsong into the warming, triumphant song proper. It's ... amazing. We made it through. Everything is going to be okay.


And also stuff like I wrote about here. The drawbacks of taking so long to write one article, I'm afraid - others can come along and cannibalise all its content. But there was one moment, again in the middle of a storm, where I accidentally drew the camera all the way back from Link as he stood on a tiny island and I was struck suddenly by this sense of isolation. Or, empathy in another's isolation I suppose. You expect certain themes in a Zelda game, in a lot of games - heroism, adventure, challenge, growth, triumph - and you share in these with whoever you are controlling. But I never expected to witness this sad moment of loneliness, the kid without a fairy or other kind of spirit guide buzzing around him here, and separated from me too as I moved away from my place behind his shoulder. Just a kid, away from home, on his own, trying to do the right thing. Home is where the heart piece is

I'd call that a sub-heading victory. We can have a tea break now if you like, I think we've earnt it. Do you want a bourbon?

I've probably mentioned before, but when it comes to games - and Wind Waker has always felt like the real beginning of this distinction - I'm very much a town-focussed kind of guy rather than a dungeon-loving fellow. I would say that my partner in bollocks on the site here, Mr. Gerard, is perhaps the opposite. I like a nice rest and a pootle round the shops, while he likes setting fire to twisted bird-man creatures in a sewer. I like making new friends and retrieving their lost kittens for an insignificant monetary reward, he would prefer to get chin-deep inside a gelatinous cube and then dissect it from the inside out with the edge of a baked bean can in the foetid ruins of a dungeon swamp ... for an insignificant monetary reward.

That is, incidentally, why I was a little hesitant to get Dark Souls. No towns there, no friends, no hope, just the endless plunge down down down into the deeper darkness and its denser, infected misery. It took a long while to adjust I will admit - to stop myself running back to bonfires to feel safe again, to learn how to push on into the unknown. And I love it - absolutely, unconditionally, for everything. I think about it constantly, talk about it as much as possible and right now, as I'm playing through something else, I miss it dearly, inside my bones. But my core instincts for safety, reassurance and light still come through - every shortcut opened back to the starting area I take gleefully, even if I have no reason to return. It just feels a bit like a town, close enough to a safe haven that I can pretend. I hang around new NPCs for far longer than is ever necessary, as though we're the best of friends ... a delusion of camaraderie despite the obvious truth that we're both miserable, mumbling shadows of humanity. Give me a room full of pots or barrels and that's a good few minutes, rolling around like it's all fun and games and there's not a horde of skinless poison hounds waiting just outside for me in the knee-deep flith-water of a thousand heroes' final evacuations.

I ... no, sorry. I'll stop talking about Dark Souls now before I get carried away. Sorry. This is probably the biggest exception there ever will be to the feelings I'm trying to get across, but I still always pine for the calm areas, the spaces in which to let the tension go however briefly. It's not really conflict that I ever seek - it's the resolution. The safety beyond the danger, the new treasures or the new story beats that may follow, not the next boss.

I explain myself here simply to let you know where this article - and my love of this game - is really coming from. Because my true heart's desire is always for the gentler pace of things, the quieter places - and Wind Waker in particular excels in this area above all others. As I sit comfortably at the intersection of what is wanted and what is delivered, everything else - fighting, dungeons, danger - kind of fades into the background, it's not what I end up holding dear.

Fuse Dark Souls and Zelda together somehow and I may explode with a new form of joy, but for now, here we are. Are Wind Waker's dungeons any good? I have no idea really ... I've forgotten most of them already. I bet Ger could tell you though. If I had to make a judgement I'd say most of them were ... good? Not bad in any case - I carried no negative thoughts away with me - with a few interesting puzzles or nice-looking rooms, but on the whole just sections of gameplay to push through in order to see what happens afterwards. Out in the world, back home amongst the living.



In Wind Waker, while Outset Island is Link's home, it was never really mine. It's Windfall Island where my heart belongs. There was, again, a slight disconnect between my decade-old recollections and the apparent reality of the game world upon my recent return. I held strong memories of Windfall - perhaps the first town that I really loved rather than just liked, appreciated, enjoyed. But upon my return - much like returning to an old school - everything seemed smaller, simpler. Everyone just existing, plainly, with a few lines of dialogue - strictly NPCs, not the people, the characters, I remembered. Not quite the lively island I remembered.

But it came back just the same ... everything, slowly, came back to me. Just like with the visuals, a short period of readjustment was needed. Windfall isn't really a typical video game town - you don't just turn up and everyone asks you to help them then you're done, rewards in pocket, on to the next one. It has a story of its own, progressing alongside Link's main line, not sitting alone in a little time-irrelevant bubble. There are quests, certainly - but here, again, I felt a real confidence behind the simple designs. There's no quest log, no list of objectives and no map pointers. You just talk to people and they talk to you, and somewhere along the line they'll mention off-hand something they like or something you could help with.

Lenzo, the photo shop owner, sets you a few tasks more directly upon handing over the Picto Box - tasks such as catching someone in the act of posting an unwanted love letter. Incidentally, even these small challenges expose you to the life around town - the people in it and their dispositions, how they move around, what they desire. It's much more than a mechanical tutorial on how to take a picture.

Once you're used to that flow of delivering photographs, you'll notice what everyone else on the island is saying. Not just spouting lines of dialogue for the sake of it. What if you showed the two town gossips a photo of something potentially scandalous? What would the self-obsessed woman by the steps most like to see?

There's just that guiding touch behind everything, deft and assured that the player will figure everything out. Like the mad dancer Tott standing before the island's solitary (remaining?) tombstone. Right, left, down he points in his disco dance ... right, left, down ... over and over again. And without an explicit word about it, you know - the pattern is a song to play on the Wind Waker. Learnt right there, used right there, to turn day into night and to show another side of the town.

The point is - by not reducing quests to golden exclamation marks and check-boxes, everything stays in the game not in the menus. Stays with the people, in communication, always connected to them and rooted to their personalities. Social not mechanical - even the act of showing someone a picture (instead of passing on a line of pre-written dialogue about something witnessed) feels closer to a genuine interaction. This helps display and develop Windfall's own personality, as a town filled with people with actual lives - however broadly outlined - instead of talking heads which could easily be replaced with a bulletin board.

The town also actually changes - not massively, granted, but in a small established community the little things can have a big impact. Although almost every change is triggered by Link, I like that sometimes the effects are almost incidental and seen only when you return. Such as Zunari's shop growing larger, and the sudden reversal in fortune and personality between the town's richest and poorest residents upon the rescue of their daughters. It all furthers the notion of the town as a living place - one capable of growth - highlighted every time you walk past the couple now united in love, the sails you spent spinning on the ferris-wheel windmill, the kids who crowd around their new favourite friend. Furthers the feeling of home - as somewhere you fit, somewhere you have changed and begin to feel a part of.

All these things combined together in my heart, like some a Megazord of love, stirring up a greater fondness. The characters themselves and their designs, my interactions with them and their personalities, the gradual changes the town undergoes. Even being able to decorate the whole island, inside and out, to your tastes - I loved this, thinking who would like which statues (or not), and putting a row of nice flags along the archway to wave me off or beckon me back. And I always returned to Windfall after a dungeon ... often for no reason at all besides that solid, constant draw towards home, safety and community.

Holes and missteps and small things

It's not all sunshine and seaflowers and granny's special soup, though. Wind Waker gets off on slightly shaky ground and is, slightly further on, very obviously missing a chunk of itself. Like a beautiful amputee in an earthquake. Let's start with what we start with at the start. And what we start with at the start is the Forsaken Fortress. And the Forsaken Fortress is the worst place ever created. Just, the worst ... I hate it. I hate it so much you guys, goddamn.

A circular sort-of-dungeon with multiple doors leading in and out on various levels and a map that really doesn't help at all. As the first place you go, and are supposed to traverse without any form of defence and without getting spotted by anything unless you want to get immediately sent to a jail cell. Mandatory stealth sections - everyone loves those, right? It's just a bit of an annoying mess, and thankfully unlike anything else in the game. Doesn't fit, doesn't work.

Not to mention it contains the first encounter with Miniblins, which terrify my soul to this very day. Sure, they might look a bit cute in a naughty, impish kind of a way. But don't fall for it, friend - fall for it and you're DEAD. Okay, probably not dead but ... something else. Scarred and scared for life maybe, like me. You don't want to end up like me.



Listen, they make this horrible da-dank! noise and swarm around the place in their countless hordes. Climbing up walls as though gravity don't mean a thing. Poking, prodding, calling, jumping. In the dark confusion of the fortress, little Link unarmed and vulnerable and just trying to climb this one ladder to escape. One more rung - da-dank! - poke - falling. Da-dank!, like a little mocking laugh. Try again, puny green boy, try and climb up again why don't you? Nightmares.

To add insult to scaredycattery, you have to go back to the damned place again later in the game. I suppose one could find value in comparing the two visits, how returning empowered and no longer so confused and avoidant shows how much Link has grown into his role as the hero. But I'm not going to do that. Tear it down.
As you may have heard, may have noticed yourself, a certain amount of content was actually cut from Wind Waker. One or two dungeons and - more importantly, to me at least - a whole extra island. Well, Greatfish Isle is still there in the game, but has been completely destroyed when Link arrives there. A few signs of habitation cling to the shattered chunks of rock but there's no human life left. Hylian life left.

I would have really loved to see another town in the game ... not just because towns are my favourite, and something to compliment Windfall would have been great. There are other communities in the game of course - but Outset is much smaller in every way, the Rito on Dragon Roost just kind of stand around tediously guarding themselves, and the Forest Haven is quickly emptied of Koroks and life as they scatter out across the sea. Everywhere else is a bit static, location rather than place. But another town would have also helped with what I consider to be Wind Waker's biggest problem - the world itself is somewhat lacking. Rather ... stretched out, without a solid foundation.

I believe this is a game of moments - and so many of these I hold dearly. Most everything on Windfall, and everything on Outset. Giant pig. Ghost ship. Every grand, beautiful Deku Leaf glide outside. Hyoi pear on the head. The camera, the Nintendo Gallery. All of the pirates, Tetra especially - at least until the game royally screws everything up and turns her into a proper Nintendo princess i.e. completely absent and ineffectual. Bomb shop guy tied up. Lighting the lighthouse. The best post-apocalyptic gang, the Killer Bees (Tunnel Snakes suck.) Inheriting the Cabana and with its butler door and terrifying basement. The Angular Isles, the mystical little area beneath the Cliff Plateau Isles. Dancing postbox, flying postman. Granny and Aryll. Stabbing Ganondorf right in the forehead. That stupid noise the fishmen make. Every Goron merchant, and blowing their hats off with the Deku leaf. Explosion effects, Valoo himself, mini-golf on Horseshoe Island.

An extensive mental catalogue of every rare smile one game put on my face, each one triggering others in my mind. These recollections might be strong, but they are all very isolated from each other, very specific and slightly lonely. Little bottles bobbing around on a great ocean formed from vaguer notions - pleasant but non-specific emotions. The similarities between this realisation and the structure of Wind Waker's world - small, scattered isles rising out of the endless sea - seems a little too close to ignore.

The sea does hold character of its own ... extensive and ever-changing, buckling up into waves or lapping gently at an island shore. The water can carry as many varied and vibrant shades as the rest of the game, the skies shifting just as much overhead. Through the day, through the night, into storms and out again. But it is always, simply, the sea - and the only points standing out across it are points that the game has deemed necessary, of dictated interest. The world is undermined by this very idea - there are plenty of islands that are genuine intriguing, but also six boring near-identical reefs and five fairy islands holding upgrades in similar situations. If the only land sticking out of the sea is important ... then why is so much of it boring, single-visit, unremarkable?

Maybe things would be better if Wind Waker was set across Hyrule field. I don't mean the Hyrule under the Great Sea, although I - and I expect many others - longed to explore those fields at first sight, only to be disappointed by the narrow path leading out from the castle. Even so, I think the ability to explore down there would have played out identically to finding Blackreach in Skyrim more recently - initially a great surprise, really impressive and interesting in its scope and scale. But ultimately still separate from what feels like the 'proper' world above, somehow not adding that much to the whole despite its breadth.

A lot of problems can be lessened on dry rock, where the landscape itself can provide enough intrigue of its own. Different terrain, different elevations and inclines, a multitude of incidental details to distract the eye and entice the player - even if they serve no real purpose. I do, for example, occasionally go back to Shadow of the Colossus just to have a little ride around in that world - it captivates me even though it is familiar now. But that game was fully committed to and succeeds in creating that sense of separation Wind Waker arguably strives for. The world fits with, compliments the spread-out action. Perhaps land could connect my stand-out moments together physically in Wind Waker, hide their separation in the process, but I think they would still remain apart - the disconnect hidden rather than solved.

No ... I think the sea and the island layout is emblematic of Wind Waker's problems, but not the cause of them. As for what could fill those holes between my favourite memories - tie them all together with something stronger than a general feeling of goodwill - for me, another big island or two would certainly have helped, as would building a stronger personality on those islands holding life besides Windfall. Another town to become invested in, to learn about and help along. Another place to settle on, cast out from and return to. It would lend the world a greater solidity, as another centre around which events, memories and adventures could occur.

What strikes me now, though, is that the rest of the game - combat, dungeons, boss fights, everything - that I glossed over a little while back, should be exactly what draws all those highligthts together. Stands beside them, reinforces them, weaves them into something larger. And I don't think it's just my natural inclination towards towns or the game's excellence in that specific area which had pushed them back in my mind.

If Dark Souls has highlighted anything for me, it is the value of challenge. As I said, I hardly recall anything about Wind Waker's dungeons. The great battle in Hyrule castle I do remember though, but nothing before or after reaches that level of tension and release, that moment of adrenaline. It's not even about straight difficulty, but rather perception and presentation, and everything else in the game falls a little short. Feels rote and quickly drifts away in the mind, forgotten. Leaving those high-points isolated by comparison.

I don't believe Wind Waker stands alone in the series with this problem. And, though I've spent rather a long time discussing it here, I don't believe it to be a crippling flaw. Obviously I love Wind Waker, but I love it in pieces, I love it in snatches and photographs and soundbites. I really want to love it as a whole.
We sailed away on a winter's day ...

You can skip the next two sections if you like ... just a couple more things I was thinking about. These thoughts of mine, they're no good for you.

Then there's the sailing itself. Which was - and continues to be - criticised for being boring or tedious or simply unwelcome in the game. I can't say I had a massive problem with it at the time of my first playthrough, though I could perhaps understand where people were coming from - but I definitely didn't have any issues with it during this recent replay. And other distractions are to thank for that. This may well be the first time that modern technical intrusions have improved a gaming experience for me, but there it is. Certain chunks of Wind Waker were perhaps more enjoyable as I played it with my laptop on my knee - sailing somewhere offers up the perfect opportunity to check on the multitude of tiny, irrelevant things occurring or slightly changing on the internet - only half paying attention to what was going on in the game.

Not really the best excuse, is it? That everything was fine because I could check Twitter easily every now and then without having to pause or put myself in any real danger? No, well. I had a decent point here somewhere I wanted to make ... hmm. Oh yes - yes - okay, but yes, even when I was sailing and paying full attention, it was actually fine. I quite enjoy it ... probably just because you can jump in the boat and I like jumping because I'm a simpleton. The music is beautiful and the sights are never dull to the eye.

I would propose that, actually, it's not really the sailing itself that people don't enjoy. You rarely have to go very far anyway from one place to the other - and the world isn't so huge that going halfway across it would be a massive ordeal anyway. It wasn't ever the prospect of sailing that irked me - it was every tiny, annoying intermediary step between where I was and where I could be heading properly towards my destination. Let's say I did want to get across the map, to do some late-game sidequest, fine. The tasks are - bring up the menu and make the Wind Waker itself an active item (because it's most likely not equipped) - whip it out - play the teleporting tune itself - watch the cutscene for teleporting (two of them - up and back down again) - get the Wind Waker back out again - change the wind direction to where you want to go - watch the cutscene for the wind changing direction - pull the sail out and, assuming that was an active item already, you are actually finally moving off on the journey.

It's true, none of these steps are particularly long in themselves, and all together nothing that anyone should be distressed about. But it seems as though the human resistance to doing these fiddly little things can be quite strong. Plenty of other times I found myself edging towards my destination with the wind running a compass notch or two away from the perfect alignment. So the going is pretty slow - almost tediously slow - but I keep at it. It's like if walking along with a stone in your shoe. The sensible thing to do would be to stop and sort all this pedi-pebble nonsense out, and you'd probably get where you're going faster after the minor inconvenience. But still, despite the obvious benefits to stopping, it just seems like too much effort. Best to just press on regardless.

Consider some of the recent gripes about Skyward Sword's collection and upgrade mechanic. From what I've heard, the main complaint is not the system itself, not even the slight grinding necessary to collect the required materials. It's the fact that when an item is collected, the game throws up a little, inescapable animation and text-box describing exactly what the thing is - and does so every time you revisit an area. People just hate being held back, interrupted and delayed, even in the most minor way.
So, I think that makes sense. It's all the fiddly bullshit you have to go through which can spoil the sailing - the actual act of sailing is perfectly okay. The fiddly bullshit and fucking Seahats because fuck Seahats. And fuck not being able to have the sail up and the cannon out at the same time, because that's just stupid.


Economy

Sorry for my language.

Well, here's something I never thought I would be writing about - the economy in a Zelda game. It's slightly odd how such a small thing can have such a big impact on a game, but this is a big reason why I didn't like Twilight Princess. There's approximately one thing to buy in that entire game beyond the usual bombs and arrows and other things you can always find otherwise by cutting grass and smashing pots. It is a special suit of amour - armour which, when equipped, slowly drains your rupees away and diverts damage from your hearts to your wallet. Considering that taking damage is such a rare occurrence anyway, the armour is rather useless and its nature just serves to highlight the lack of outlets for Link's accumulated wealth.

That's really only half of the problem though - I'm not so desperate in my rapid consumerism to be unduly annoyed by a lack of things to buy. But not being able to spend money means that your wallet will always be full, and when your wallet is full in Zelda you can't actually take anything from chests.

You found a Silver Rupee! That's worth 200 rupees!
Awesome!
But your wallet is full, so let's put it back for now.
But, sir, I -
PUT IT BACK
Bu-
PUT IT BACK NOW
What if I just swapped this green one for the silver o-
FUCK YOU

This is pretty bad - denying the sense of completion to accompany further exploration. All those nooks and crannies - alcoves - dotted around the kingdom that used to be out of reach, that were remembered through dungeon after dungeon until the right item was collected to enable Link to uncover their secrets. It almost doesn't matter exactly what the secret is, hidden away up there. But to deny its collection, to leave the treasure chest up there in plain view, closed as though you'd never even noticed it, is rather cruel. Poor design, undermining the already-fragile and flimsy psychology of the completionist. Full wallet - what's the point of even trying to find hidden riches?

Wind Waker had already sorted all this nonsense out, several years earlier. I don't believe my wallet was ever full. Partly because the two wallet upgrades are likely the two upgrades most players will naturally find first - one being on a island one square away from Windfall, and the other being on Outset island itself, directly on a path you must travel during the story. Partly because the maximum amount of rupees you can carry once fully upgraded is 5000 - five to ten times more than any other Zelda game until the DS pair and Skyward Sword came out most recently. But largely, simply, just because there's actually things to buy in Wind Waker. And so money comes in and out, and so it's never a wasted effort to search for secrets and go scouting for sunken treasure on the high seas. The treasure charts themselves are actually quite an enjoyable little adventure, I thought, matching up snippets of island outlines to their counterparts in the world proper - and the little adventure helps some way in keeping you connected to those strewn islands for longer than may be the case otherwise. Plus, you get to see Link's adorable surprised face. He is just the cutest lil button.



Add all this together, and what do you get? Yes, yes, you know it. It's true. You felt this moment coming - deep in the ravaged wastes of your half-formed soul you felt something dark and terrifying swelling into existence. Turn towards it now - embrace the inevitability of this bleak conclusion. Tingle - and, indeed, his ridiculous and ridiculously extortionate chart sale - is a force for good in the land of Wind Waker. Keeping everything in balance.
Okay I've finished now you can come back

Hello again. And that's how you write thousands of words about a highly-regarded, fondly-remembered game from 9 years ago ... as though anything needed further explanation. Bit disparate towards the finish line there, but I wanted to end things with your mind full of Tingle thoughts because I am a horrible person.

So - Wind Waker. I love it, obviously. I understand that my heart swells more strongly for any game that's really made me smile - made me forget myself and feel at home, charmed out emotion when I thought I had lost it all. And for that reason I'll always hold it dearly ... but as with everything I've ever held dear, the temptation to rip it open is too great. To peer inside its dribbling carcass and rummage amongst its guts, searching for reasons, for flaws, for an explanation. Why do I love you? Talk to me ... please ... why?