When the "new-look Link" was unveiled at E3 many moons ago, I was among the first to question Miyamoto’s sanity. Had he turned Link on his pointy ear and made the franchise into a Happy Meal contender? Was the new Zelda going to be a kids’ game? After spending far too many hours with the game to still be called "healthy," I’m here to tell you that if Miyamoto had any sort of stroke, it wasn’t the ego type that makes developers tinker with a game just because they can. Nope. If Miyamoto had a stroke, it was one of pure genius. Though it’s not without its flaws, The Wind Waker is clearly the best game on the GameCube to date. And it’s one of the best single-player experiences on any of the next-gen consoles. Period.

If you want to explore the gameplay aspects of The Wind Waker, the best place to start is with the game’s exploration aspects themselves. Amid all the adventurous swordfights and innovative platforming elements, about half of the time you spend playing the game will involve sailing your ship across the seas from island to island, continually searching for your next port of call as you progress on your journey to rescue your sister and, ultimately, the entire world.

When the game begins you don’t have this sea-faring life open to you. Instead, you’ll unearth the general plot of the game while learning the controls and basic gameplay mechanics on Outset Island. As you progress through the game’s next three to four levels (about four or five hours, approximately), this "on rails" feeling persists, and it’s not until you reach about the seven-hour mark in the game that you have the opportunity to truly travel the sea. Some tasks still need to be "unlocked" by your progress, though, so as much as you can explore, you can’t necessarily complete missions in any order you choose.

The exploration theme carries over to the basic gameplay mechanics as well, because you’ll need to "explore" your environs and your own thoughts of what a platformer should play like if you’re going to make it very far in the game. Remember the first time you used a pop can in Splinter Cell to distract a guard and then take him down? It was rather innovative, to say the least, and you’d seldom incorporated the environment so directly to accomplish a given task.

The Wind Waker is much the same way, although in a slightly more linear sense, but you’ll still need to think outside the little purple box when it comes to using the environment to your advantage. For example, at several points in the game you’ll need to pass through caves blocked by impenetrable wooden barriers. The only solution is to pick up a fallen spear, light it on one of the torches scattered throughout the level and toss it toward the fence to ignite and burn down the barrier. Voila! You can now progress to the next stage. In another instance, you need to flap a leaf up and down to generate enough wind that you can propel a lily pad across the water and reach an otherwise inaccessible platform. In still another instance, you’ll use your boomerang to cut down the supports on a suspension bridge, thus dropping you down into the lower levels to continue your treasure-hunting adventure. None of these instances is rocket science, but each uses the environment in a different way and involves a unique perspective on the tactics necessary to progress. It’s this type of gameplay element that truly makes the game feel so deep.

With such depth, you can only imagine that The Wind Waker presents some serious challenges, both in the sense of having difficult puzzles and in providing some physical feats that just require some mastery of the controls. In the case of the latter, there’s not much you can do but practice your fingers off, but in the case of the former, The Wind Waker includes several gameplay elements to help you along your way. It’s a good thing, too, because until you "train" yourself to think beyond the traditional confines of a platformer, I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll be hitting the online strategy guides for help.

The most obvious gameplay assistance is the use of a "radar" in the bottom left corner that identifies the general location of your in-level objectives. Although it doesn’t tell you whether the solution is high, low or at eye-level, knowing the general location can certainly help. Once you rescue a little guy named Tingle, you can also unlock the Tingle Tuner, an option that allows you to connect a GameBoy Advance to the GameCube to pull up hints from the former "damsel in distress."

Easily the most innovative gameplay hints, though, come from Link’s eyes themselves, which look in the direction of your objective if you’re close enough to it. Swing the camera toward his face, and, if you’re even close to your objective, he’ll give you a hint by looking directly at it. It’s a subtle system, and it’s one that not everyone will notice, but it’s a small touch that truly gives the game that little edge.

As far as weapons go, nine times out of 10 you’re going to be using your Hero’s Sword to take down the myriad enemies thrown your way. Later in the game you’ll receive a boomerang that can target up to five enemies at once, a grappling hook that can be used to swing you to more advantageous heights and an upgraded sword that can deal out more damage. Against some enemies, even the leaf can act as a weapon as it blows enemies off the ledge.

The sword fighting you’ll undertake for most of the game is your basic button-mashing hack and slash, but there’s a little bit of technique involved as well. By targeting your enemies with the Left Trigger, you can stay locked-on to an enemy and never lose sight of it, regardless of your proximity and the ferocity of the battle. Depending on how you move the analog stick, as well, the sword will swing in a different motion, which can be helpful against enemies who have a propensity to block. Fortunately, the Right Trigger acts as a block button for you, as well, so whenever you’re in battle, don’t forget to make good use of it to maximize your time on the island.

If there’s a bit of a downer in the gameplay department (aside from the lack of a jump button - Link does it automatically), it’s The Wind Waker’s linearity. As I mentioned earlier, the game promotes exploration of the world, but no matter how much you explore the seas or within a given level, there’s a definite order to how things go down. I wouldn’t go so far as to call this a gameplay flaw, because it makes complete sense in the context of Nintendo wanting to tell a story. After all, you generally read the pages of a book in order, so why would you want your game’s story to be splintered? In fact, you’ll probably only find yourself frustrated with the linearity of The Wind Waker if you found yourself frustrated with the linearity of Splinter Cell. In both games there’s a definite plot and story, so you can only accomplish tasks in a given order. But it’s how you handle the distractions along the way that make both games so great.

Which brings me to mini-games. The Wind Waker has more than its fair share, and it truly is unfair because they’re all so dang addicting that you’ll wish the game could share the fun with other games that just don’t get mini-games right. Like any good mini game, the games are extremely basic and only earn you minimal prizes (either rupees or treasure charts), but they’re also incredibly addictive. One has you sorting as many letters as possible into their respective mailboxes in a 30-second span, one has you playing a virtual game of Battleship with a pirate theme, and yet another has you firing cannon balls toward pirate ships a la aiming for warheads in Missile Command. There are definitely enough mini games to keep you entertained for a long time, even if it costs you a few rupees from time to time to play them.

I was one of the first to joke about "Cel-da" when the new look was first unveiled, but I’m man enough to admit that I ate my words the minute I saw The Wind Waker’s title screen. Cel shading has never looked so good. Quite literally, I felt on dozens of occasions like I was playing a Saturday morning cartoon, and not the poorly animated ones on air today. I’m talking Looney Toons, Smurfs and Thundercats smooth here. Crisp, colorful, creative and stylized. If you liked it as a child, you’ll truly dig this game as an adult. And if you didn’t like those as a child, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at just how sharp this game truly is. Awesome.

Overall graphical appearance aside, the character animation is also top-notch, as are the character designs and well-executed environments. From the wandering eyes on Link to the carefully constructed multi-level forests, the graphics hit the target on just about every aspect.

Unfortunately, the game suffers from some pretty massive clipping, and not on isolated occasions. The collision detection in battle and in levels is good, but when sailing from one island to the next, you’ll consistently find yourself immersed by a wave yet amazingly dry. And since you’ll spend about half of your time on the open sea, it’s a problem you’re going to run into somewhat regularly.

Everything you hear in your daydreams about the classic days of Nintendo is back in full force, particularly where music is concerned. In fact, I even recognized a song from Super Mario World on the SNES. Just about every fantasy music genre is represented in The Wind Waker, from Celtic chords and melancholy music to cheerfully childish songs. Anything and everything you can imagine (except techno or metal) is here, and it’s here to the hilt.

I must admit some surprise, though, in the game’s absence of any voice acting. Instead, all game dialogue is delivered via text, although most characters do grunt or let out an occasional one-syllable exclamation to remind you that they’re "saying" something.

The game implements the GameCube’s Pro Logic 2 functionality, and it’s put to good surround-sound use with the number of effects and environmental sounds whirling about you on many occasions. Strike your sword against a cave wall, for example, and the metallic clang will sound just as you’d expect, gradually dissipating as any good echo would. Trees wavering their leaves in the breeze, waves crashing on the shore, even waterfalls cascading down a hillside all translate well through a Pro Logic 2 setup, and even on a standard stereo TV, you’ll be able to tell that the audio in The Wind Waker was most definitely not an afterthought.

This is the trick, isn’t it? See, you probably won’t play Zelda too much after beating the game. I’m sorry, but it’s true. As far as single-player campaigns go, The Wind Waker easily ranks up there with Halo and Splinter Cell in terms of the next-gen games that just captivated you. The story, gameplay and overall production in this game are honestly just that strong.

The thing about The Wind Waker is that where Halo, especially, benefited massively from its multiplayer aspects, this game falls short because it has no multiplayer aspects. Again, it’s important to realize that this is how the game and story were designed. The Zelda series is a single-player series, so you can hardly fault it for staying true to its roots.

GameCube owners will also find solace in the fact that, if they play all the mini games and go on all the side quests, the game will take most gamers somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 to 40 hours to complete. In my book, even if the replayability isn’t that high by its strict definition, a game with that much entertainment value doesn’t necessarily need much replayability for the $50 price tag.

OK, so I’m obviously not entirely speechless, but the words I do have to say about The Wind Waker are seldom anything but praise. This game has an extremely high production value, an adventurous storyline, a great mix of platforming and action elements and several nice throwbacks to everything magical about the Nintendo of old. This is not only the best game I’ve played on the GameCube, it’s one of the top five games I’ve played on any of the next-gen systems. It’s also probably among the top three games on any platform, including PC, that I’ve played so far in 2003. Look out, because Zelda is certainly a candidate for Game of the Year in 2003.