The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD is a Wii U remake of the Nintendo GameCube game,. It was officially announced via a Nintendo Direct webcast on January 23, 2013. Further information on the game was revealed at E3 2013 and in subsequent Nintendo Directs.

The Wind Waker HD first became available on September 20, 2013 as a digital download from the North American Nintendo eShop. The packaged version will be released on September 26 in Japan, on October 4 in North America and Europe, and on October 5 in Australia. After the game's early eShop release, a special edition Deluxe Wii U bundle will also become available in the United States at a suggested retail price of $299.99.

The remake boasts more sophisticated graphics than the original. Some changes to gameplay were also made, the most significant of which include new items—namely the Swift Sail, the Tingle Bottle, and an improved Picto Box—as well as the addition of a Hero Mode.

Graphics
Being a game for the Wii U, The Wind Waker HD runs at 1080p, compared to the original's 480p. The remake uses an enhanced version of the original game's cel-shading. It utilizes a full-fledged lighting and shadowing system that allows for more realistic and fuller lighting than the original. The remake also features bloom lighting to give a sense of "surreal realism". In low-light areas, the cel-shading gives way to a softer, more realistic shading system. Other shaders are used to increase the expressivity of characters. The textures used are the original high-resolution ones created during development of the original game, which used scaled-down versions of the textures to match the GameCube's hardware capabilities. 2D elements such as icons and the HUD are completely redrawn to match the style of the game's promotional artwork.

The shallow water in the boss room for Puppet Ganon, which in the original game did not reflect Link and some other objects, now reflects everything within the room.

Though all other graphical elements were updated for high-definition display, the 3D models and character animations of the original game were left untouched in the remake.

Audio
Music in The Wind Waker HD uses higher-quality instrument samples than the original game. The updated instruments are most noticeable in fanfares and some boss themes. Some music includes new instrumental tracks, creating a fuller sound. However, most sound effects are unchanged from the originals.

While the original game used Dolby (Surround) Pro Logic II, which encodes surround sound using analog stereo audio, the remake uses true digital surround sound encoded for and sent through HDMI.

Gameplay Elements
The gameplay in The Wind Waker HD has been tuned up from the original to enhance the player experience. The infamous Triforce Shard Quest was shortened, with only a few shards requiring Triforce Charts to find. Certain item usage cutscenes, such as the cutscene that plays upon usage of the Grappling Hook, have been shortened. Also the Pictobox Quest has been shortened to not require the Forest Firefly, but you can still give it ot him for a Joy Pendant.

Some items, such as the Pictograph Box, have new and improved functions. The Pictograph Box can now store 12 pictographs as opposed to 3. Link is now able to take self-portraits while making any of nine facial expressions. All pictographs can also be uploaded to Miiverse and upon activating the Nintendo Gallery Side quest, a mark appears in the upper left corner of the picture to tell you if it's submitable to become a figurine or not. Sailing has also been improved with an upgrade to the sail, called the Swift Sail. The Swift Sail enables the King of Red Lions to sail faster and in any direction if the A button is pressed, regardless of the direction of the wind. This replaces the function of the A button in the original game, which was used to stop the boat from sailing. The changed functions came about as a result of technical limitations in the original; the GameCube version loaded only a single "chunk" of ocean as Link traveled, requiring the slower sailing speed to mask loading times, while the Wii U is capable of loading the entire Great Sea at once.



The Tingle Bottle, which allows players to randomly send messages to other players, replaces the Tingle Tuner in the original game. The Tingle Bottle is used to send messages in bottles, which will subsequently appear on the shores of other players' islands.

The game includes a Hero Mode similar to that of SS undefined, but is available upon the creation of a new save file. Recovery Hearts do not appear in Hero Mode, forcing Link to use potions to regain health. In addition, enemies deal double the amount of damage as in normal gameplay.

The game supports GamePad-only play, allowing for play without a television, as well as control with the Wii U Pro Controller, for those who prefer a traditional control scheme. During use of the Pro Controller, the GamePad can still be used as a map.

Interface Changes
Because The Wind Waker HD was developed for control with the Wii U GamePad, many control methods have been changed. The Inventory is now accessed through the GamePad, with no need to pause the game. Items can be equipped onto the three item slots by sliding the item icon on the GamePad to the slot icon at the top of the screen. This allows players to switch items quickly.

Some items, such as the Wind Waker, are permanently mapped to certain buttons as opposed to being equipped to the three item slots. This allows players to quickly and conveniently access these items, as they are key to playing the game.

First-person aiming of items is achieved through either the left analog stick or the GamePad's gyroscope. Link can also move in first-person mode, though item usage is limited to ranged weapons such as the Hero's Bow.

Other Changes
Some cutscenes where Link makes a facial expression silently have voices added to match the expressions. The ending cutscene and staff credits, which were prerendered in the original game, are now fully real-time cutscenes in the remake. However, the smooth transition effects from the original cutscenes (the first part of the ending cutscene transitions with a fade effect to the credits, which then fade to the second part of the cutscene) have been replaced by fade-to-white effects, presumably due to the difficulty of implementing the original cutscenes' transitions in real-time rendering.

The intro cutscene, which plays upon the start of a new file, is skippable, but no other cutscenes are.

Development
The game was officially announced on January 23, 2013, in which only a couple of screenshots featuring Windfall Island, Link, Tetra, and Sue-Belle were shown. The decisions to remake the game came after the team decided to attempt to upscale the game's graphics to the Wii U's HD capabilities, after doing the same to the graphics of Twilight Princess in E3 2011. The game was also designed to decrease the gap in time between the release for Skyward Sword and Zelda Wii U.

Nintendo showed the first trailer for the game during its E3 Direct livestream on June 11, 2013, revealing the game in motion as well as some of the new features of the game.

Bundles
On August 23rd, Nintendo revealed a Wii U Deluxe Bundle with a Zelda-themed GamePad and The Wind Waker HD slated for a North American release. On August 28th, Nintendo revealed more information regarding the bundle. The bundle comes with a black Deluxe Wii U console with a Zelda-themed GamePad, a download code for a digital copy of The Wind Waker HD for use on the Nintendo eShop, and a download code for a digital copy of Hyrule Historia. The bundle was released on September 20th, on the same date as the game's eShop digital launch—two weeks before that of the regular packaged version—at a suggested retail price of $299.99.

The American video game retailer will offer an exclusive Ganondorf figurine bundled with the regular packaged version of the game released on October 4th. The exclusive GameStop bundle will be sold at the suggested retail price of $54.99.