Resulting from this was a large amount of highly detailed and expressive characters throughout the game, as well as a very emotionally-driven story. The Zelda team explained that they believed this approach allowed for much more emotion to be communicated by the game’s characters, as a realistic art style makes it much harder to convince a player of emotion. Perhaps the game’s most discussed element is its cel-shaded art style. While many of them are merely alternate versions of things that made it into the final game, there are still many oddities worth examining. Many pieces of unused game elements have been recovered from the Wind Waker game data. This method of storytelling was originally going to be something visually apparent in the game, where Link would visibly grow older as the game progressed. While Wind Waker’s final story was quite different, many thematic elements of the game’s story relate to the concept of coming-of-age. Wind Waker’s original story was much more related to the original story of Ocarina of Time (seen above), which initially followed Link undergoing his coming-of-age ceremony. If anything, the largest changes pertained to the game’s storyline. What the game essentially started as was a technical showcase of everything the development team wanted in their last two titles. Much of Wind Waker remained unchanged from initial concept to final release, largely due to the game being so concretely planned beforehand and not facing any major developmental issues, unlike its predecessors. Things such as weather and a lack of loading screens in the overworld were all planned from the beginning. In a sense, Wind Waker widely acted in part as a tech demo for everything the Zelda team could not accomplish on the Nintendo 64. The development process of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker was heavily influenced by the last two console Zelda projects: Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask. The bulk of development would have occurred after this point. There was most likely little to no story in place at this time. Shown for the first time was a trailer that showcased a cel-shaded Link and much more cartoon-inspired art direction.Īt this point, it’s likely the game had little content beyond essential gameplay mechanics and graphics. However, at E3 2001, Nintendo’s formal debut of the next Zelda surprised many players.
Zelda wind waker randomizer with story full#
Many other clips shown later became announced as full games (such as Metroid Prime), so it was fair to assume that this was the direction Nintendo was taking for their next Zelda project. This clip led many fans to believe there would be a darker, more realistic Zelda on the horizon. One of the videos Nintendo presented was a short clip of a swordfight between Link and Ganondorf. At Nintendo’s Space World event in 2000, various videos were shown promoting Nintendo’s upcoming console, the Gamecube.