The original Wind Waker guide that Steve Stratton and his brother Bryan created, was loaded with content. One of my favorite sections of that guide was the Islands of the Great Sea section. It was basically an encyclopedia for getting the most out of Wind Waker. Every island you stepped foot on was packed with content and the IotGS section covered it all.
Steve and I worked together to bring back that section, but also to implement it into the walkthrough itself. As any Zelda fan will tell you, games in this series are full to the brim with secrets, side-quests and treasure that will allow you to challenge the game at your own pace.
When sitting down with the walkthrough, my goal was to take Steve’s excellently written IotGS section and let players know when and where items were available. I tried to spread that information out enough to give players a good balance of story quests and side-quests. The idea was to push players to make treasure stops during their adventure anytime they went through a zone that housed an item or two, instead of telling them to go across the map for a single chest and then have them double back to continue the story.
Now if you’re the type of player who has to have it all as soon as it’s available, don’t worry. As mentioned before, the IotGS section in the back of the guide can be used to find everything every zone has to offer. So instead of following my lead, you can just flip to the zone you’re in in the guide and look up what treasure is available to you.
We want to give you guys the choice on how you want to approach the game, so you can ignore the side-quests, which are distinctly listed in the walkthrough, and just go straight for the story, or tackle the side-quests at your own pace. Your journey through Wind Waker is your own and we wanted to make sure we didn’t take away from that.
Wind Waker HD is right around the corner, so make sure you get you pre-order your copy of the guide, so you can have it on day one with your copy of the game.
The Wind Waker HD guide is also available as part of the Zelda Boz Set. Quantities are limited! The Legend of Zelda Box Set is available at these retailers:
Read Part 1 and Part 2 of Writing The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD.
