The Wind Waker HD Logbook, Day 2

Last night I kept playing until Jabun. In the Forbidden Woods I really like the rooms, where the sunshine falls in. The other rooms didn't look that great, especially with the all the fake lighting. I wished they would have opened up all of the dungeon's ceiling and let sun cast light in all rooms.

Hero Mode gave me a good time in this dungeon, for some reason I struggled quite a lot with the first double Moblin fight. I stil haven't died yet and at the point, where I am now in the game, I doubt, I'll ever will, but it's a lot tougher than the original game. Health can become a problem and you need to be prepared (or really good).

The Forbidden Tingle Statue inside Forbidden Woods can actually be gotten without bombs. There's a Bomb Flower in the room right above, where the chest would spawn. You can just throw it down (you might have to rebound it from the wall) and make the chest appear that way. Which is nice, because you don't have to backtrack there to get the Tingle Statue. You only have to do that with Dragon Roost Cavern. Usually I do like it, when there's backtracking in Zelda, but the entrance of Forbidden Woods is just really inconvenient to get to, so I'm happy about the fact that you don't have to backtrack for the statue.

Usually, in Zelda games I try to do sidequests as early as possible. For me it's a kind of memory training. I try to remember where I can what at every point in the game. And I pick things like Pieces of Heart up as soon as I can. However, The Wind Waker is one of the few exceptions here. Right after the Forbidden Woods, the entire world opens up. You can go everywhere (with the exception of Forsaken Fortress, I think). And there's something to do on every island. You can even get your first Triforce Shard right away. On the one hand this is pretty exciting for me and this is one of the things that really make The Wind Waker great. However, it's so much more convenient to wait until you get bombs and some other gear, because you can do more things at once at the individual islands and maybe even be done with one area in one run.

So, I continued the main quest until Jabun. Did the 999 hits on Orca though. Get the aweful stuff done early. This was also the last thing I did last night in zombie mode, before I fell asleep...

Today I continued the main quest right away and beat Tower of Gods. After this I started sidequesting. Usually just travelling, completing the maps, collecting Light Rings, conquering some platforms and visiting some islands (mostly the Fairy Islands). It seems like I have been right and all Light Rings now give you 50 Rupee. I guess, this makes them more worthwhile. However, there are still platforms, where you have to destroy four cannons, climb the thing, beat four monsters and in the end you get a 20 Rupees or a Boko Baba Seed... if anything they should have added more to the platforms instead of the Light Rings. They did add two new Treasure Charts (43 and 44, I even found 44 today) on platforms, but that's it. But those Light Rings give you so many Rupees... I have only gotten two or three big treasures yet, still I was able to effort everything in the golden Beedle shop... 50 Rupees per Light Ring is insane.

Also, the boat controls are somewhat messed up. Sometimes it's like they don't react in time. I'm cruising the boat to change my locations to the right spot, but the crane won't come out...! Then the boat keeps cruising, so that I miss the spot again. On the GameCube, the boat would stop instantly whenever you brought the crane up. And I really miss that, salvaging is kind of a hassle sometimes now. Also, the cannon does the same strange thing, where I want to put it away, but it doesn't react at all. I keep hitting the button, but nothing happens. I think this happens, whenever you cruise (steering the boat without a sail).

I also don't like that you aim with the right analog stick now. If you have the Bow or the Boomerang assigned to X or Y, you can't shoot and aim at the same time. It's very inconvenient. Of course there's the gyro aiming, which is good, but in Ocarina of Time 3D I preferred to use a mix of both. I would use the slide pad, whenever I needed to make big movements, and then use the gyro aiming for precision. Works just fine. But not in The Wind Waker HD thanks to the messed up control scheme. And if you use the Pro Controller, there's no gyro aiming and aiming gets very problematic. And why? Just because Nintendo thought you needed some FPS mode? They did change a lot of the controls from the GameCube version and I have a hard time adopting to them... In first person mode it might even happen that I accidentally walk off a ledge, because I still think that the left analog stick does the aiming. It would have been better if they let you toggle what the left analog stick does by pressing L. Simply press L when you want to walk around. Or include options for a classic Wind Waker control scheme.

Here are my Miiverse posts from today:

• Forbidden Tingle Statue 1
• Forbidden Tingle Statue 2
• Kalle Demos Figurine
• Big Octo Figurine (Missable!)
• Just had to...
• Tetra's Cabin
• Cyclos Figurine (Missable!)
• Goddess Tingle Statue 1
• Goddess Tingle Statue 2
• Darknut Figurine
• Gohdan Figurine
• Link Statue!
• Master Sword 1
• Master Sword 2
• Treasure Chart #44