I can't wait until my daughter is old enough to play the Wind Waker. It's so amazing that only one generation after OoT they released a Zelda that not only is arguably as good or even better than OoT, but it holds up over 20 years later. You can play Wind Waker today and not realize it's not a new game, the graphics and the gameplay are just perfect.
I’ve played most Zalda games but life was busy when Windwaker came out and I just completely skipped it on accident. Should really grab a copy after hearing your praise.
I was really disappointed at the time due to the "childish" graphics. But now I think it is interesting that they made such a daring design choice. Like Super Mario 2 hardly being anything like SM1.
It would be fun to play Windwaker someday with my kids. I never played it.
Nintendo released that teaser trailer of a realistic Zelda in an epic fight with Ganon and the world was anticipating that for years. But Nintendo realised competing with PlayStation was going to be a race to the bottom so they built the GameCube as budget hardware that could have never rendered that Ganon fight scene. And thus disappointing all the children who had become teenagers since the release of OoT.
Without that context however, the game is indisputably great. And the fact that they used vector graphics is a lucky win as it means the game renders crisply on modern TV's and monitors.