TIME Top 10 Video Games 2003: Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

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Ask just about any video-game aficionado what the best adventure game of all time is, and chances are the answer will be Legend of Zelda. The series began 16 years ago when the green-clad hero Link first rescued Princess Zelda. But it flew off in a new direction this year with Wind Waker (Nintendo GameCube, $50).

The game is set 100 years after the previous title, Ocarina of Time. You play from the perspective of an island-dwelling boy (who bears a strange resemblance to the legendary Link) as he takes to the rough seas to rescue his kidnapped sister. Here's where the wind comes in: if you don't learn how to sail with it, you're doomed.

This is Zelda's first outing on Nintendo's GameCube, and most fans are buzzing not about the plot but about the game's updated graphics. The new platform gave programmers the option of using a 3-D style called cel shading, which lends the world of Zelda a kind of cartoonish simplicity. Faithful followers are evenly split on whether this is a good thing. To its credit, cel shading makes the game's well-crafted special effects—like heat haze from flames and the ubiquitous wind—stand out even better. And it doesn't do anything to distract from the puzzles, which are as clever as ever.


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BY CHRIS TAYLOR

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