The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

"This is but one of the legends of which the people speak..." - Prologue

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (ゼルダの伝説 風のタクト, Zeruda no Densetsu Kaze no Takuto, lit. The Legend of Zelda: Baton of Wind) is the tenth installment of the series. It is the first Zelda game for the Nintendo GameCube, and was released in Japan on December 13, 2002, in Canada and the United States on March 24, 2003, in Europe on May 3, 2003 and in Australia on May 7, 2003.

The Wind Waker is notable for being the first game in the series to employ cel-shading, a lighting and texturing technique that results in the game having a cartoon-like appearance. It also differentiates itself from other Zelda games with its massive overworld, the Great Sea, which must be explored using a boat, the King of Red Lions. It is an indirect sequel to Ocarina of Time, taking place several hundred years after the events of the previous games.

Although the sea-faring gameplay and cartoon-like graphics were a point of critique for some, The Wind Waker was at the time of its release the best-selling Zelda game to date. However, it should be noted that pre-orders of the game were significantly boosted by the inclusion of a pre-order bonus disk, which features Ocarina of Time and Master Quest. Master Quest is an enhanced remake of the original Ocarina game, but features partially re-designed dungeons.

A direct sequel to The Wind Waker has been released on the Nintendo DS entitled Phantom Hourglass.

Story
Set hundreds of years after the events of Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker finds the hero Link in a sea scattered with several islands, which necessitates frequent sailing and naval combat. Link lives with his grandmother and younger sister Aryll on Outset Island, one of the few inhabited islands in the Great Sea. The people of the Great Sea pass down a legend of a prosperous kingdom with a hidden golden power. An evil man found and stole this power, using it to spread darkness until a young boy dressed in green sealed the evil with the Blade of Evil's Bane. The boy became known as the Hero of Time and passed into legend. One day the sealed evil began to return, but the Hero of Time did not reappear. The inhabitants of the Great Sea are unsure of the kingdom's fate, but it is clear that this legend is the story of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time where the Hero of Time, Link, fought Ganondorf.

When boys of Outset Island come of age they are customarily dressed in green, like the Hero of Time. The elders hope to instill the courage of the Hero of Time in the children. It is Link's birthday as The Wind Waker opens, and he receives the familiar green clothes and cap. Aryll's present to Link is permission to use her telescope. As he looks through the telescope, he sees a large bird, the Helmaroc King, carrying a girl to a nearby forest. After retrieving a sword, Link sets out to investigate. Link rescues the girl, only to have Aryll kidnapped by the Helmaroc King as he returns.

The Great Flood
Ganondorf, the great evil that all still thought to be sealed away beneath the sunken kingdom of Hyrule, crept forth from the depths of the sea, eager to resume his dark designs. Since the Master Sword had been the key to his defeat during his last attempt to conquer Hyrule, he proceeded in secret to hunt down and murder the sages who prayed in the temples of Hyrule that the gods might continue to bless the sacred sword with the power to repel evil.

Now that the sacred blade was out-of-commission, Ganondorf proceeded to transform Hyrule into a world of shadows. The people hoped that the hero would once again appear to save them, but after defeating Ganon he had left on another journey, and did not appear. Ganon’s next step was to make another aggressive move for the Triforce. The king, Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule, attempted to stop the fiend, but was not strong enough.

As doom drew nigh, the king and his people prayed to the gods, leaving their kingdom in the hands of fate. Even if, in response to their pleas, a hero did actually appear, he could not have challenged Ganon as things stood—when he claimed the blade of evil’s bane, it would be all but useless to him. In any case, the gods seemed to find a use for it in stemming the calamity. The Master Sword would serve as a key once more, this time not on the Sacred Realm, but on Hyrule itself, and Ganondorf and his power with it.

And so, the fair kingdom was soon buried beneath rains that poured from the heavens and left forgotten at the bottom of the sea. The gods knew that to seal the people away with the kingdom would be to grant Ganon's wish for the destruction of the land. So, before the sealing of the kingdom, the gods chose those who would build a new country and commanded them to take refuge on the mountaintops.

Over the centuries, the memory of the kingdom vanished, but its legend survived on the wind’s breath. On a certain island at the south of the Great Sea, it was customary to garb young boys in green when they came of age. The youths aspired to find heroic blades and cast down evil, but the elders wished only for the youths to know courage like the hero of legend.

Link's Quest
On that island, a young boy named Link finally came of age to wear the green of the hero. Unfortunately, his birthday plans were about to be dashed. A giant bird flew over his island, carrying a young girl in its talons. Hot on its tail was a pirate ship, sending a catapult barrage after it in an attempt to force it to touch down. One of the projectiles caused the bird to drop the girl, who landed in a tree in the forest atop the island. Link grabbed a sword and rushed off to find the girl. Her name was Tetra, and Link learned that she was captain of that band of pirates.

As Link led her back to her ship, the bird swooped down and kidnapped Link’s younger sister, Aryll, mistaking her for Tetra. A Rito postman informed the stunned Link and the unsympathetic Tetra of stories of a large bird who kidnapped young girls with long ears and took them back to the cursed Forsaken Fortress. He charged Tetra with helping young Link rescue his sister from that wicked place. Tetra reluctantly accepted, and with her help, Link was able to infiltrate the fortress and reach the cell where his sister was being kept. But the great bird discovered him, and, at the command of a sinister shadowy figure, it hurled him into the sea.

He was recovered by a talking boat, who introduced itself as the King of Red Lions. The King told him of the story behind that shadowy figure, and the threat that that wrongdoer posed. The shadow was Ganon. Somehow, someway, the seal of the gods had failed. Ganon had returned, and the world was once again in danger. The key to defeating Ganon was locked away in a great power that could only be wielded after much toil and hardship. Only one who was able to overcome the trials that awaited in the Tower of the Gods would be permitted to wield the power to destroy the great evil. That power was none other than that of the Master Sword, the blade of evil’s bane, and it could banish Ganon from the world above. Or, at least, so the King of Red Lions believed.

Before entering the Tower of the Gods, Link had to gather the three pearls, which he accomplished with the help of an ancient conductor’s baton called the Wind Waker. Though he did, indeed, succeed in the trials of the gods and claim the Master Sword from Hyrule below, when he returned to the Forsaken Fortress, destroyed that monstrous bird, and proceeded to challenge Ganondorf, he learned of the unfortunate fate that had befallen the Master Sword, that it no longer sparkled with the power to repel evil. He also gathered that by withdrawing the blade from its place in Hyrule Castle, he had broken the final seal placed by the gods on Hyrule and on Ganondorf’s magic, stirring all the monsters frozen in time in the kingdom below from their centuries-long slumber.

Tetra rushed to his rescue, and yet another revelation transpired. When Tetra approached Ganondorf, his Triforce of Power resonated. This could only mean one thing—Tetra possessed the Triforce of Wisdom, none other than the sacred power of the gods that the royal family had kept from Ganon’s clutches for so many long years. Her mother had instructed her to keep it close, and to safeguard it always. The Triforce of Wisdom was proof of her birthright—Tetra was the true heir to the royal family of Hyrule, the last link in the bloodline. Tetra was Princess Zelda. Of course, Ganondorf caught wind of this immediately, and so he tried to seize the Triforce of Wisdom then and there. Luckily, a pair of Rito managed to swoop down and rescued the children from Ganondorf’s grip.

Zelda was brought to Hyrule Castle below the waves, and the King of Red Lions imparted news of her identity and her role in these events before giving her the missing shard of the Triforce of Wisdom. He then instructed her to remain in Hyrule and sent Link back to the sea above to reawaken the Master Sword’s power and reunite the Triforce of Courage—split when the Hero of Time left the land after completing his mission—until then, the portal to the world below the waves would be sealed, and he would be unable to return again to Hyrule.

To complete his task, those who carried on the blood of the sages had to be found to take the stead of the old in the temples and ask the gods for their assistance. With their power and prayers, he was able to restore the blade of evil’s bane. He then hunted down the scattered shards of the Triforce of Courage and brought the completed piece back to the Tower of the Gods to present it to the gods. The Triforce piece then dwelled within him, proving that he was the true hero, the Hero of Time, reborn. Because Link had used the power of the Wind Waker to travel the Great Sea, the King of Red Lions declared him the Hero of Winds.

When Link descended beneath the waves, he discovered that Ganon had kidnapped Zelda and taken her to his headquarters, Ganon’s Tower, a daunting fortress that even the legendary Knights of Hyrule had been unable to assail in ages past. Link made haste for the tower, and, when he scaled it, Ganon was waiting for him. Ganon caught Link off guard and, since he had once again gathered the three crests, he managed to summon the full Triforce. His wish was that the rays of the sun might expose Hyrule anew so that the kingdom, nay, the world, might be his.

But the King of Red Lions touched the Triforce first. The King’s wish was that Hyrule might be buried beneath the waves and that he, Ganondorf, and the ancient land might drown under the torrents. But he was not about to make all of Link’s efforts to help restore the world end in vain—he also wished for hope for his descendants, that they might be able to create a better world. The Triforce then vanished, floating away to the sacred lands to await a new owner.

In a fit of madness, Ganondorf attacked Link. With the blade of evil’s bane at its full power, Link dealt the final death blow to Ganon. He and Zelda were spirited away to the surface of the sea, and the floodwaters came crashing down, burying Hyrule beneath the sea. Link and Zelda sail away in search of a new land — with the wind as their guide. This scene marks the beginning of the DS Zelda game, Phantom Hourglass.

Timeline Placement
It is noteworthy that the Wind Waker, more than any other game in the series, attempts to establish a sense of temporal continuity. The Wind Waker directly references places and events from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and gives some indication of what happened between the two games.

Aonuma had discussed this idea before, to varying interpretation. Many considered the following two infamous quotes to suppost the double timeline ideal, and they have only become more zealous with recent developments.

The first came in a summer 2002 Game Pro interview:

Q: Where does The Wind Waker fit into the overall Zelda series timeline? Aonuma: You can think of this game as taking place over a hundred years after Ocarina of Time. You can tell this from the opening story, and there are references to things from Ocarina located throughout the game as well.

Miyamoto: Well, wait, which point does the hundred years start from?

Aonuma: From the end.

Miyamoto: No, I mean, as a child or as a...

Aonuma: Oh, right, let me elaborate on that. Ocarina of Time basically has two endings of sorts; one has Link as a child and the other has him as an adult. This game, The Wind Waker, takes place a hundred years after the adult Link defeats Ganon at the end of Ocarina.

Miyamoto: This is pretty confusing for us, too. (laughs) So be careful.

Trivia

 * According to the ‘Guinness World Records Gamers Edition 2008’, The Wind Waker had around 500,000 pre orders and was at the time (2002) the most pre ordered game ever.
 * The game's main theme song includes both the Earth God's Lyric and the Wind God's Aria.
 * Link yells "Come on!" when he calls Medli, Makar, or a statue. This marks The Wind Waker as the only Zelda game to date where Link has spoken in actual words.

Related Articles
The Wind Waker: Original Soundtrack