Cube-Europe was invited to a special, invite-only part-ay down in London on Tuesday the 2nd of December 2002 by Nintendo, and what a party it was! Free drink, food, but that wasn't what made it such a great bash… I think you all know what could make a party such a success, one word… 'Zelda'!

Yep, the new Zelda: Winds of Takato (or The Wind Waker for us English folk) was showcased at the party on quite a few Cube terminals for those in the gaming industry to get their grubby mitts on and give it a thorough play test. I myself made sure I bagged me one and set paces to give this hotly anticipated title a good going over and here's what I thought of Mr. Miyamoto's latest master piece…

Firstly I think its right to ensure all of you having doubts on the cell-shaded style of Zelda that it doesn't draw anything away from the gameplay, in fact it's what makes the game so un-believable fresh despite its likeness to the previous Zelda's on the N64. The combat, the dungeons, the towns, the exploration element; it's all glowing with the quality we have grown to love and expect from a Zelda title yet screenshots of the cell-shading simply cannot do justice to the animation they provide for real. The movement of enemies, the shadows they create, the smoke effects from fire, and all special effects in this game are brilliantly performed and offer some mouth watering eye candy. One quite amazing subtle element I saw was the mist effect that was used at night as you tiptoed round a huge tower in the shining glow of the moon, it looked superb and very realistic. As usual if you perch Link on a high spot somewhere you can view the surrounding terrain in all its glory and defined detail, no fogging effects, nothing…you can see as far off to the horizon as it goes, quite incredible and with the use of the telescope you can even zoom in and take a closer look! If anything disappointed me about the graphics it would be the water, I really love ultra-realistic water effects and cell-shading just cannot deliver…though it would look strange if it had Star Fox Adventures style water with the rest being cell-shaded eh?!

Enough about the graphics, I know you all want to know about the combat, the dungeons and a lot more so lets get to it. What I managed to play in the few hours I had started off with Link trying to infiltrate into what could be described as a castle with towers round the side and terraces, this was the section that was based at night and was where you had to sneak past guards whilst hiding under a barrel for disguise and to prevent being caught by the spot lights. The guards are very persistent in their movements and you'll be surprised how easy it is to get caught, especially with rats running around trying to flip the barrel off your head! If you do get caught you are sent to jail and in classic gerudo ocarina of time style, try to escape somehow. This area was great fun and eventually once completed gives a slight glimpse of what could be the supposed main boss of the game. Without giving anything away, it shows the figure of a person in a long black coat and slowly moves up to show you the bottom of the persons chin. Who is it?! Is it the main boss?! Who knows, but whoever it was orders Link to be taken away…so frustrating! It's a tough life for a hero eh…

Another section I managed to get to play was one of a town which had loads of games for you to waste your precious rupees on such as a battleships game and many others where you can win prizes, you can run round, invade peoples houses, smash pots…anything you want! Just having pure fun and something we know Zelda creates in a way no other game can. The restriction with the joy of this for me was that the game was unfortunately the Japanese version so the fun of talking to people and getting the vibe of the town wasn't possible and something I know we all love to do. I still did through force of habit only to frantically press 'A' to skip through multiple pages of Jap text! Shame, but all the more reason to wait for the English version. It was in this area that you had to find a sail for your boat (which quite freakishly talks to you) so you can sail off wherever the wind takes you.

I ended up at an island which very much had resemblance to the fire sections of Zelda: ocarina of time and was also I believe the section Shigsy showcased himself at a press event not long ago. It offered the first dungeon experience of finding a map, a compass and fighting your way out of rooms locking you in via trap door. Oh how I missed these classic battles, as usual the unbeatable combat system is implemented with the untouchable targeting system. Hold 'L' and Link will keep his enemy in full vision in order to launch an attack, as those of you that have played the previous N64 Zelda's know, this combat style is spot on and sees you side jumping, jump attacking, combo-striking and all sorts to defeat enemies. You can also use items you have found too such as the hook shot which can be defined to the either of the 3 action buttons: 'X', 'Y' and 'Z', replacing the c-buttons used in the past to smack enemies from afar, Mwahaha!. Battling your way through this dungeon and searching every nook and cranny solving block puzzles, platform jumping, precision hook shooting, lighting torches and suffering multiple deaths from scorching poor Link in the lava, you'll find yourself with the ultimate boss door key. I won't spoil anything but the boss is great fun and is also very funny and enjoyable to play. This is true with all the enemies, their actions, facial expressions etc its hilarious slicing them with your sword! And Link's facial expressions themselves show a long list of emotions; determination, fear, laughter…it's amazing how a change in his eyes can amount such expressions. What's also great about the enemies is that you can knock their weapon out of their hand and steal it for you own use! Pure brilliance.

The other section I managed to play was one that can be said to be similar to that of the lost woods in ocarina of time. It was a huge forest where Link used a giant leaf to float across to platforms and ingeniously used to blow wind against a small turbine to make a swing operational. How great is that! ; Examples of attention to detail like this prop up all the time and always bring a smile to your face and a perhaps the comment 'ha-ha how clever!' and that's what gaming is all about.

The sections I played may not have been in the order they appear in the game note as I played on different terminals but they were all what you would expect from a Zelda game equaling if not surpassing the previous Zelda's in quality and originality. A few added notes I made and quite interesting little details you might to know are that I didn't see Epona anywhere, whether the mighty horse will appear is doubtful but you never know. The Ocarina is replaced with some kind of magic, crystal wand, I can't say what it was for sure as the text was Japanese but it saw you playing tunes by timing the press of the c-stick in a direction with a marker scrolling across a line. Another thing my eager eyes spotted was whilst I was sailing across the sea in Links boat I saw many islands, whether or not these are all reachable to explore I don't know but I sure hope so because it would mean the game is of an epic length.

One last note: buy this game!! Its everything you expect and more, your Cube isn't complete without it. Sit, wait and pray for as close a release date as possible because this game is off the chart, yet another example of Miyamoto's masterful creativity.

by Javid Sangra