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 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 becomes 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. Upon 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 minor 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.

Gameplay
The game is compatible with GamePad-only play, allowing the game to be played without a television. It also features Miiverse integration via the Tingle Bottle, which replaces the Tingle Tuner of the original game. Players can use this item to send messages in bottles, which will subsequently appear on the shores of other players' islands. The remake also features a Swift Sail upgrade that enables the King of Red Lions to sail faster and in any direction if the A button is pressed. This replaces the function of the A button in the original game, which was 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 Triforce Quest has been shortened, with only three pieces requiring Triforce Charts, and the rest being available without charts.

Boat-specific functions, as well as the Wind Waker item, are mapped to the D-pad on the Wii U GamePad.

A Hero Mode similar to that of SS undefined is available from the start of the game. 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 Pictograph Box has also been improved from the original. It can now store 12 pictographs as opposed to 3. Link is now able to take self-portraits while making any of five facial expressions. All pictographs can also be uploaded to Miiverse.

A first-person mode has been added, which allows the player to play in first-person while using the bow. This feature first appeared in Skyward Sword, though in that game, Link moved more slowly than in third-person mode. In The Wind Waker HD, Link can move at his normal speed whilst in first-person mode, enabling large parts of the game to be played comfortably in this mode.

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.

Graphics
The original game's graphics style was updated for this HD remake. While the cel-shading remains, in low-light conditions a softer shading system is used. This has drawn criticism from some fans, as the soft shading seems to negate the flat effect of the cel-shading.

In addition to the aforementioned shading system, the game uses other shaders to increase the expressivity of characters. The game also employs large amounts of real-time self-shadowing, something only seen in small amounts in the original game. In addition, a bloom effect similar to that of has been implemented in order to give the sense of sunlight. According to Eiji Aonuma, the producer for this game, the new effects give a sense of "surreal realism".

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 will be 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.