Nintendo shocked everyone last week by announcing an HD remake of Zelda: The Wind Waker for the Wii U. While Nintendo didn’t dive into details and specifics about the game, some screenshots were released. Zelda developer Eiji Aonuma said that while they’re working on a brand new Zelda game for the Wii U, we’ll be getting Wind Waker to play in the meantime.
The original The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker was released on the GameCube 10 years ago, and it was a Zelda game like no one had ever seen before. Many had quickly written it off as “childish”, due to its cell-shaded graphics. But in reality, Wind Waker turned out to be one of the best Zelda games ever made, and definitely the most original one.
While Wind Waker was praised by reviewers and gamers, the game did have a few flaws. We’ve compiled a list of 5 things we want from the new Wind Waker HD version. However, we do know that Zelda Wind Waker Wii U will feature beautiful new HD graphics. It also goes without saying that Nintendo will no doubt integrate the GamePad and make sure controls are tailored for the new controller.
5: A 2013 release date
During the reveal, Nintendo said that we’ll have to wait a long time until we get a “true” Zelda on the Wii U, and that Wind Waker HD will have to do in the meantime. Which is why we really hope it’s released this year, preferably towards the end of the year as a counter measure to the new consoles released by Microsoft and Sony. It’s unlikely that we’ll see the game earlier, as Pikmin 3 will be released this Summer.
4: Simplification of sailing
Wind Waker introduced a whole new environment to Zelda: a vast ocean. And while it was pretty awesome to sail your read dragon boat and fish for treasures, the sailing quickly got tedious, especially when it wasn’t 100% clear where you were going or needed to go. Hopefully with the GamePad and a few gameplay tweaks, we won’t have to spend too much time commuting between the many islands in the game.
3: Improvement on tedious fetch quests and side missions
Another major criticism of the original game were the numerous fetch quests, which, coupled with the long sailing, made the game quite tedious at times. 
Of all the Zelda games, Wind Waker had some of the most boring side quests.
Hopefully Nintendo can make these quests more challenging this time around. Another option would be to integrate Miiverse into the game as in New Super Mario Bros U, where players can give each other hints, etc.
2: More challenging boss battles
In terms of beating the game’s main bosses, Wind Waker was quite easy. At least compared to other Zelda titles, such as Ocarina of Time (don’t even get us started on the Water Temple, let alone its boss battle). Upping the difficulty won’t require too much work from Nintendo’s — at the very least, we hope for a tougher difficulty setting.
1: New content
This one is tricky, because to create new content for a game that was released 10 years ago is really tough. Mainly because of the fact that the game was built with a much older set of tools and game engine, which aren’t in use today. By comparison, it’s much easier to do an HD update to the visuals and update the control scheme than it is to create and alter the content (levels, missions, etc.) itself. But we still hope that Nintendo introduces something new with the Zelda Wind Waker Wii U edition. The best HD remakes to date offered something in addition to updated graphics.
That’s our top 5 wishes for the new Wind Waker HD on the Wii U. What would you like to see? Let us know in the comment section!
