Back in the day, I owned a GameCube. I still do, in fact, though it’s currently not connected to my television. My Wii has long since replaced it and my little black box resides in a place of honour in my gaming cupboard. One of the games I played a lot for my GameCube was The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. This was because, a few years ago, I had played and loved Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask on my N64, which is also in my cupboard. Despite never owning a SNES, I’d also played and loved A Link to the Past on my cousin’s console, which was where my love of Zelda originated.

A Link to the Past was the reason I wanted to get Ocarina of Time, thus also the reason I wanted an N64 in the first place. The same went for The Wind Waker and my GameCube. But despite playing a not-insignificant number of hours, I could never get into it. Years later, I have finally come back to this game to give it a second chance.

It was during my first year of university that I gave Wind Waker my initial attempts. There’s a running joke between a friend and I, where we still refer to any fish as “skeh”, due to the sound the Fishmen make when they offer to update your sea chart. I think I spent more time trying to get every square of that chart filled in than I should have, in retrospect. It was one of the things that ended up putting me off of the game. It hadn’t gotten off to a great start to begin with.

Coming from the N64 titles, which had portrayed Link in a semi-realistic manner, I wasn’t exactly enthralled with Wind Waker’s cel-shaded, cartoony style. The focus on what was evidently an even younger Link, who was established as being completely different from the one we’d played in the last two games, didn’t help either. The theme of disconnection was strong; everything about the game spoke of loss and emptiness. I felt less like a hero and more like… well, a lost child.

Despite enjoying the various dungeons well enough, there were little things that bothered me. Even when the plot progressed far enough for me to discover that the old kingdom of Hyrule was under all that ocean, I wasn’t impressed. Instead of an engaging and multi-faceted world, Wind Waker felt bereft. It was sparsely populated and largely devoid of meaningful interactions. As soon as World of Warcraft hit the scene, I abandoned my efforts to put up with Wind Waker. I had a much richer and complex world awaiting me in Azeroth.

For around a decade, I was done with Wind Waker. Despite getting Twilight Princess at the same time as I bought my Wii, hoping that it was a one-off, I never could get back in to a Zelda game. I never considered that I might want to try them again. But here I am, having finally completed Wind Waker after all these years… and I loved nearly every minute of it. While I can’t say for sure why I decided to give it another shot, I think I’ve figured out why I enjoyed it so much more than I did the first time.

Modern games are overly focused on two things: achievements and lists. The two do not necessarily have to be one and the same, but they often overlap. By achievements, I don’t just mean Trophies or GamerScore – on a broader scale, they can be seen as levels, talents, attunements and such. The same goes for lists: while the most common interpretation would be quests, this could also mean dialogue trees, menus or equipment statistics. You’ll notice that I’ve picked RPG-specific traits here, but this is simply because I’m a fan of RPGs and can identify these elements much easier than with any other genre.

Don’t get me wrong: I love RPGs. Hell, most Final Fantasy games are menu-based and you don’t get much more achievement-oriented than an MMO like WoW, which I played for well over half a decade. I just can’t remember the last time I played a modern RPG like Dragon Age or Skyrim without feeling the need to do absolutely everything. A desire to get 100% completion, or as close to it as possible, is something that I actively dislike in myself when it comes to playing games. It’s ruined my enjoyment of several games, where I will find myself basically compelled to start a game from the beginning if I’ve missed something crucial.

But with Wind Waker, I didn’t feel that. It’s a different sort of game. It’s still an RPG – with advancement, plot, inventory and such – but it approaches the genre in a totally different way. It was something I couldn’t appreciate a decade ago, because it was still familiar to me. There wasn’t a lack of this sort of gameplay in the PS2 and GameCube era, whereas there seems to be one now. Or if there isn’t, I’ve been blinded to their virtues.

No longer. Wind Waker’s gameplay is to the modern RPG experience as analogue is to digital. It represents a more organic and free form of game. There’s extra content aplenty to be found if you want, but the game doesn’t care if you get it or not. Finish the game with 13 hearts instead of the full 20? Fine. How many bottles do you have? Two out of four? No problem. If I miss a piece of content in something like Mass Effect, I feel like I’ve missed a crucial part of the experience. When every decision you make matters, you naturally want to make every decision you can.

The Wind Waker was a breath of fresh air for me. Too often, I can see games as being a set of objectives wrapped in an interactive envelope, padded with cutscenes and statistics. This Zelda game that I once dismissed was able to remind me that not everything needs to be perfect. Games can be enjoyed without that laser focus, with content acquired or ignored for its own sake. It reminded me of the fun I had getting all of the conversations in Majora’s Mask – not because I wanted to complete the game 100%, but because it was entertaining.

I own at least five other Zelda games that I’ve never given a fair chance, based on my poor experience with Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. I’m going to start with the latter and work my way through them all, but not because I want to play every game in the series. I’ve learned that that’s not a good enough reason any more. Passion for completion might be enough for some people, but not for me. I’m not saying I can’t or won’t enjoy BioWare RPGs or other modern titles, but perhaps I won’t care so much if I don’t get a perfect run. Perhaps I can turn back the clock and re-learn what fun there can be if you don’t fret over the details, then strike a balance to take with me into the future.

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