On September 20th, The Wind Waker HD was released for digital download on the Wii U shop. A special edition Deluxe Bundle was also released that included the Wii U and a special Zelda-themed GamePad, along with a download code for the game and a digital copy of Hyrule Historia. Because I lacked a Wii U system, I decided to purchase this lovely bundle.
And I have been playing Wind Waker NONSTOP since then.
...Well, I suppose that's not COMPLETELY accurate... I WOULD have been playing The Wind Waker nonstop if my life wasn't so busy, especially these days. But on Saturday I played it from three in the afternoon to one in the morning without stopping, sooo...
Yeah. I love the game a lot more than I thought I would. In my original post on it, I obviously was't THAT impressed. But now that I'm playing it... wow. I never realized how much I missed The Wind Waker. There's so much more exploration to it than any other game. It's the kind of thing that seems timeless -- as in, it's almost impossible to remember everything in that game, because there's so MUCH. True, a lot of the puzzles may not lead to anything important, but I still think it's probably one of the harder games to 100%.
As of now, I've played about 18 hours of the game total, and I'm supposed to be searching for the Sages and getting the Iron Boot and Power Bracelets. That's just over halfway through the game, I suppose. And considering I've been playing for so long, it seems rather odd that I'm not farther, doesn't it?
Well, I've been EXPLORING. I've only got three more islands to complete my Sea Chart. And I've gotten the Swift Sail and several Heart Pieces and oh-so-many figurines.
Oh, yes. Figurines.
The Nintendo Gallery has been made SO much easier in this version. Almost RIDICULOUSLY easier. I started with the assumption that it'd be mostly the same (I was vastly unprepared for most of the changes in WW because I wasn't reading up on it that closely, so I was pleasantly surprised by a lot). In the original, you had to take a picture of a character or enemy that you wanted to be made into a figurine and then bring it to Carlov at the Nintendo Gallery near Forest Haven to get it made. However, there were some conditions. First of all, you had to get a GOOD image of the character. And sometimes it was difficult to tell if it was a good one or not. This was especially hard for things that you weren't quite sure were a character or enemy. Like... the Beamos in the Tower of the Gods. Apparently they're not actually enemies, even if they are in other games. If I'd ever bothered getting their picture in the original, and Carlov told me he couldn't sculpt it, I'd have no way of knowing (except the internet) whether it was becaue it couldn't be made into a figurine or because I'd gotten a bad camera angle. And on top of that, you could only give him one pictograph to sculpt per day. So if you wanted to sculpt all three, which was the maximum your Picto Box could hold, you'd have to use Song of Passing several times to get him to finish his current figurine and give him a new one. Oh! And don't forget about Legendary Pictographs, which depicted the characters that you usually did not have the opporunity to get yourself in the game and therefore had to pay several hundred Rupees for. And if that wasn't bad enough... some pictographs were permanently missable. Forgot to take a picture of Gohdan? Too bad! You're not ever seeing him again! (Except in Second Quest... but whatever.)
Top it all off with the fact that these had to be taken in color -- meaning that you couldn't even start collecting pictures prior to making it to Forest Haven and getting the Forest Firefly, sailing allll the way back to Windfall to get the Deluxe Picto Box, and then sailing allllll the way back to unlock the Nintendo Gallery in the first place... well, it was definitely a challenge.
I never completed the Nintendo Gallery in the original. I THINK I got pretty far, but, eh... my GC file's corrupted now, so who knows?
However... The Wind Waker HD fantastically improved on every single dilemma mentioned above.
From the very moment you get the Picto Box, you'll immediately notice what's probably the most useful improvement: you can now save 12 photos instead of 3. That alone is fantastic. Now in addition to the important figurine images, you can take really stupid images, like whatever the heck I did here.
Oh, but that's not ALL. Even though you can take those lovely 12 photos to get figurines made of them, what about the "one figurine per day" limit? Doesn't that sound frustrating, too? Well, I thought so as well, but fortunately you can actually give him up to twelve pictures to make figurines of in one day! I spent the first two dozen figurines or so actually just giving him one and then playing the Song of Passing to go to the next day, because I was so used to that method. Plus, another lovely addition is the fact that upon turning on the system, the Wind Waker song repeats only once, and then after that you just have to play the directions and the song's affects immediately occur... if that made sense. So it wasn't even AS bad. But being able to put in more than one figurine is absolutely incredible, haha.
How about not knowing whether an image would make a good figurine or not? Wind Waker HD comes to the rescue with a little symbol that appears in the corner of all Carlov-approved pictographs, so you'll know right after taking it if it's good or not. Believe me, it's saved me lots of incorrect pictures where I would have to travel alll the way back to take them in again in the original. And how about the Deluxe Picto Box thing? ...No, you DO still need it, and they DO still have to be in color. HOWEVER, the Forest Firefly is no longer required. Now, all you need to do is become Lenzo's assistant at his pictograph shop on Windfall Island by taking three pictures. I didn't know this, but I felt like becoming his assistant anyway. I still am not entirely sure what you got in the original -- I can't remember -- so I was only doing it in hopes of finding out what it was. But instead, much to my delight, I got the Deluxe Picto Box! Therefore, you can start snapping pictures as early as Windfall Island and Dragon Roost! And of course I did. I took pictures of as many people as I could, haha, in preparation for obtaining their figurines the moment I reached Forest Haven.
Lastly... what about Legendary Pictographs? And those permanently missable ones? How on earth could they fix that?
One word: Miiverse.
I'll probably have to write another post separtely on Miiverse at a later date, because I love it so much, but for now, I'll just talk about how it ties into the Nintendo Gallery. Using the Tingle Bottle (which I'm a bit less bitter about now, even though I was annoyed it replaced the Tingle Tuner initially), one can attach a pictograph to a bottled message and send it out. Then another player might receive it and can save that pictograph to their own Picto Box.
Do you understand what this means? Player A can snap a pictograph of, let's say, Cyclos, since he's easily missable. Then Player B, who, for the sake of ease, we'll call "TotallyNotSierra", can pick up a Tingle Bottle with this image in it. And, much to TotallyNotSierra's amazement, she can finally get the figurine that she unintentionally missed! Now, if only Player A would hurry the heck up and send that stupid bottle to TotallyNotSierra because she TotallyDoesn'tNeed it...
...Gosh. I was so mad I missed it. I've been picking up EVERY Tingle Bottle, and though I've SEEN images of Cylcos on Miiverse, I never GET any of them... -.-
But! You get the idea of how it can help, right? So far I've been terribly meticulous in not missing any figurines (EXCEPT CYLCOS. I REALIZED LITERALLY THE MOMENT I SHOT HIM WITH AN ARROW THAT I MADE A MISTAKE. -.-), but oh my goodness, I love it. Even before I'd unlocked the ability to get Legendary Pictographs, I had Ganondorf and Jabun, because someone was kind enough to send them to me. You can only get the images that you randomly find in a Tingle Bottle, though, so you just have to be lucky. You can't pick and choose off of Miiverse, sadly. I've made sure to send out most of the Legendary Pictographs I've both paid for myself (which are only two) and received in Tingle Bottles, just to keep the cycle going and let some other lucky person get those figurines. And I've also sent out images of Gohdan, the Helmaroc King, and Phantom Ganon, which I've seen many people ask for.
...and just in case you guys somehow missed this...
YOU CAN TAKE SELFIES. SELFIES, guys! Look, look, look! Tetra and I were traveling in Hyrule Castle together so I took this picture in front of the Hero of Time statue! :D
Yeah. Another improvement? I can pull my images off of Miiverse. So you guys can actually get SCREENSHOTS from now on. ;)
So, with these beautiful improvements, I've gotten pretty far in my Nintendo Gallery collection. The Windfall and Outset rooms and fully completed. So, can anyone guess what my first figurine was? It HAD to be special, of course. I made sure of that.
Really. I'm going to give you a moment to think. You could guess it if you really tried. Okay? One... two... threeee...
It was Medli. Of course.
Even if I forever regret my choice in blog title, Medli will still hold a special place in my heart...
Alright, everyone! Have a nice day! See you... probably in a month, haha.