The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is probably the best next-generation game I've played yet. Everything about it is amazing; from the classic Zelda battle system, to the beautiful graphics, to its huge world. The game really has no faults at all!

    The game plays wonderfully. There are so many things to do in the game, it isn't even funny. You can go around doing quests for characters, you can try to find sunken treasure, you can complete dungeons, and a whole lot of other things. Brought over from the Nintendo 64 days of Zelda is the targeting system. You have to press the L button while close to an enemy to target them, and while they are targeted, you can do a lot of different moves, and you can also evade attacks much easier. If you want to get anywhere in the game, you'll need to learn how to use L-Targeting correctly. During your adventure, you'll find a lot of different items that will help you get to places you normally couldn't get to, like the Deku Leaf and Grappling Hook. You'll also get new weapons, like the boomerang and bow & arrows during your quest. A lot of other items will also be found that will help you on your quest. A new feature to the Zelda series is being able to pick up the weapons that your enemies drop. Its fun being able to use their own weapons against them, but you can't do combos with these weapons.

    The game world is simply amazing. There are 49 squares in the world, and each square will take at least 3 minutes to get past while going full speed on your boat. You'll find a lot of different things on the islands you encounter, from some rupees (money in the game), to mini games, to dungeons. There are several huge towns, too. When you are sailing around the world, the wind plays a big role in how well you can travel around the world, so you'll have to find a way to change the direction the wind blows.

     A lot of people don't like the style of the graphics, but no one can say that the graphics aren't great. There are lots of details in the cell shading, and the draw distance is amazing, a first for the Zelda series. The framerate runs at a decent speed, but the slowdown is hardly noticeable. There are a lot of special effects, like when you defeat an enemy, he will blow up in a cartoony fashion, but it just looks amazing. The water effects are also great looking. The character models all seem to have a lot of imagination put into them, and they give the game a lot of personality. The game looks like an actual cartoon, which was Shigeru Miyamoto's reasoning for making the game look as it does.

    Many of the classic Zelda songs are in the game, except for the original, which is a little bit disappointing. All the songs in the game more then make up for it however, since they are beautifully composed and fit with the theme of the game perfectly. The new overworld song will become a new classic Zelda song. The sound effects are great, like the clashing of swords, or the sound of a bomb hitting your ship. The one thing that brings down the sound score is the lack of voice acting. Nearly every game of this kind these days has voice acting for cut scenes, but the Wind Waker has the entire story told through text, which is really disappointing. It would have really helped us get absorbed into the game more if we could actually hear the voices of the characters that we interact with.

     Beating the game without doing any extras will probably take you about 20-25 hours. If you want to go through all the side quests, and collect all the hidden items however, it will probably take you about 40 hours to completely beat the game. The game is so fun, you'll probably want to play it over a few times, so you definitely get your money's worth with this one. Overall, this is the best game on the Gamecube to date, and anyone who considers themselves a gamer, or even just a casual game player, should pick this one up without hesitation.