>>725315708
I replayed Wind Waker this year and it was depressing. Greatfish Isle having bits of destroyed structures strewn around the place hurts so much more with the knowledge that it was going to be the third pearl dungeon. The entire first half is so heavily railroaded that I developed an appreciation for the Triforce quest just because I could finally sail wherever I wanted on the giant open sea. Medli's dialogue being so much more mature when you recruit her as the Earth Sage just makes me think of the fact that the game was supposed to take place over the span of years, over which everyone would've visibly grown up. And then there's the matter of Sunken Hyrule, the second map that never was.
With no malice behind this statement, Wind Waker is not a finished game, and it's half-baked to the point that it actively detracts from the game as a whole. And since it was my first Zelda, this makes me sad, because all I feel when playing it now is a sense of "it didn't need to be like this."
But to end this post on a positive note, the Triforce quest is actually much better if you break it up between the second half's dungeons. After the second Forsaken Fortress visit, I started randomly sailing around and filling in the map just to do it and ended up picking up a couple Triforce charts. I did the same thing after the Earth Temple, and by the time I cleared the Wind Temple, there was only one or two charts I had left to collect. I recommend this approach over waiting to do the entire thing after the Wind Temple, much more digestible this way.