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[Wamb0wneD]

So everyone who ever played this game knows/dreads the Triforce quest. This game has so much going for it but then there is this point where the game comes to a halt really apruptly.

Taking aside that the game was rushed and could have used a few more dungeons, this is the thing people complain about the most, by far.

Now what if I told you that I never really had a problem with it?

Here's where the design flaw comes in: Wind Waker was Nintendo's first attempt to create an open world game, the problem is that they did this while sticking to the classic dungeon/story progression. After you come to Dragonroost Island and aquire the baton the game opens up, but not without telling you where the next story related Island is. This goes on until you beat the last two dungeons.

After that the Triforce quest "starts". If you progressed through the story normally you are now hit with a brick wall of giant proportions. All that rupee-farming and sailing.

If you instead went for filling out the map and explore the Islands/do sidequests you end up with lots of the Triforce related maps and more rupees to decipher them naturally. By the time the quest "started" I had 3 pieces to get left, and it didn't take me longer than half an hour.
Obviously it was designed to pad the lenght of the game, but it also was so you explore more of the map before finishing the game. The problem is that they didn't design a way to guide the player when to do that and that you, if you play it like you played every previous Zelda game, would end up with a badly paced game.

That's also why I think BOTW handles it's general progression in an open world way better, even though the dungeons suffered from it. They are alright, but it's OK to miss them because they are not an integral part of the experience like in previous games, and I'm not sure how Nintendo coul've circumvented the issue of a normal Zelda gameplay loop and an open world like in Wind Waker.

 

[OnPoint]

Wind Waker's biggest flaw was an open world without enough meaningful tasks to do. I agree.

 

[Chronospherics]

Wind Waker's biggest flaw was an open world without enough meaningful tasks to do. I agree.

I didn't feel that at all. I always felt there were things to explore, and benefits to have of that exploration. If I went the wrong way I found something would point me in the right direction.

I feel that Breath of the Wild is a big open world without meaningful things to do, because in general I don't feel that I get a huge benefit from looting and exploring in that game, outside of the temples. Everything else is just weapons and armour, which I didn't feel I needed, particularly as the former of which expire with use.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

Wind Waker's biggest flaw was an open world without enough meaningful tasks to do. I agree.

If they had more Islands like Windwall Island and tied more of the Triforce parts to them then people would have had more incentive to go there and get some of these pieces before the game is about to end, true.

I think stuff like the ghost ship and the pirate base are nice ideas that just weren't fleshed out enough.

 

[EVA UNIT 01]

I didn't feel that at all. I always felt there were things to explore, and benefits to have of that exploration. If I went the wrong way I found something would point me in the right direction.

I feel that Breath of the Wild is a big open world without meaningful things to do, because in general I don't feel that I get a huge benefit from looting and exploring in that game, outside of the temples. Everything else is just weapons and armour, which I didn't feel I needed, particularly as the former of which expire with use.

Words out of my mouth

 

[Currygan]

Wind Waker's biggest flaw was an open world without enough meaningful tasks to do. I agree.

Agreed. Glad BOTW is the opposite

 

[FiveSide]

I agree. My first experience with Wind Waker, waaay back as a wee lad, was the same. I explored pretty much everywhere, and so when the time came to cough up Rupees for map deciphering, I didn't have any issues. I was basically swimming in Rupees.

The design dilemma is that, even if you tell the player to go exploring, you can't force them to do it. The only way Nintendo can make people spread out the required exploration at the end, is by requiring them to explore in smaller chunks throughout the game. For instance, if there was a pearl jeweler who needed to clean and shine up each pearl before it was usable, and his fee was 200 rupees or something like that.

The problem with this is that it's debatable if it's even an improvement. Players might just prefer to have all of that at the end, and not bother with rupee farming all throughout the adventure.

I think the HD version handled it well. Just cut down immensely both on the number of shards, and the cost of deciphering them.

Wind Waker's biggest flaw was an open world without enough meaningful tasks to do. I agree.

I completely understand this opinion, but both WW's open-world, and also BotW's, didn't bother me at all, despite how sparse they could be at times. Exploring was its own reward for me. For instance, in BotW, I didn't care so much that I climbed this mountain and all that was waiting for me was a shrine and a few Korok seeds. The experience of climbing the mountain was what made it worthwhile.

WW's open-world isn't great by any means, but I still enjoyed the experience of sailing around and solving puzzles on the various islands.

 

[OnPoint]

If they had more Islands like Windwall Island and tied more of the Triforce parts to them then people would have had more incentive to go there and get some of these pieces before the game is about to end, true.

I think stuff like the ghost ship and the pirate base are nice ideas that just weren't fleshed out enough.

Agreed. The thing that makes me crazy is I really liked what WAS there, there just wasn't enough.

That said, it was still one of my favorite experiences of that generation.

 

[Piers]

It had a few design flaws. Having to play a song to change the wind direction stopped the flow of gameplay, especially for sailing. Sailing itself looses its appeal after the first few islands, and the bulk of islands aren't very interesting or worthwhile.

The grappling hook also ended up feeling like a tedious version of the hook shot.

 

[hotcyder]

I think the triforce quest is indicative of a bigger issue that could be a contentious point for many - but here goes nothing anyways.

The great sea isn't a very fun gameplay gimmick.

Hyrule/Termina field in Ocarina/Majora were both small enough to be easily traversed time and time again - making up for their meager smattering of distractions

The post-calamity hyrule of BOTW is very much the games major component - where even in your immediate area, there is stuff to climb, plants to pick, enemies to engage with and things to do - all of which are far more interesting then they have ever been in the franchise.

The great sea doesn't really have either. There's plenty of distractions but they're more like the overworld minuate that Link to the Past had, while general ship control is kind of not fun to engage with.

Considering the distance between islands and activities, not to mention how sort of dry it is - It just ends up feeling like a menu that you choose islands from, one that takes forever to load through - rather than have any strong identity.

IMHO

 

[Living the Dream]

Agreed. Glad BOTW is the opposite

BOTW is boring and soulless compared to Wind Waker.

 

[SatoAilDarko]

Playing through Wind Waker HD right now before Miiverse closes.

Why would I explore other islands when most of them just give me Rupees and Heart Pieces.

The quests with actually story are almost all on Windfall island.

Also severe things seem to have needless additional steps to them.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

I agree. My first experience with Wind Waker, waaay back as a wee lad, was the same. I explored pretty much everywhere, and so when the time came to cough up Rupees for map deciphering, I didn't have any issues. I was basically swimming in Rupees.

The design dilemma is that, even if you tell the player to go exploring, you can't force them to do it. The only way Nintendo can make people spread out the required exploration at the end, is by requiring them to explore in smaller chunks throughout the game. For instance, if there was a pearl jeweler who needed to clean and shine up each pearl before it was usable, and his fee was 200 rupees or something like that.

The problem with this is that it's debatable if it's even an improvement. Players might just prefer to have all of that at the end, and not bother with rupee farming all throughout the adventure.

I think the HD version handled it well. Just cut down immensely both on the number of shards, and the cost of deciphering them.

Another solution would've been to introduce the importance of these shards and the need to explore the map earlier in the game and not introduce all of that the moment it's needed in the story.

 

[VariantX]

I wanted more windwaker, but much less triforce quest. Simply put, the most tedious and boring part of the game for me. Everything else is nearly perfect for me. I would have preferred to go into some dungeons and gotten those pieces than simply digging them up on a tiny boat. If there were a few more islands and a couple more optional dungeons It would have been my Zelda game of forever.

 

[BanjoLayleeYookaKazooie]

It didn't help that sailing was slow, tedious and finicky as heck in the GameCube version either, needing to have the sail equipped and adjust the wind.
At least that was fixed in the HD version.

I think you either have to leave the exploration until after the Tower of the Gods and focus on story until then, or if you know what you're doing get a few shards out of the way in between the first few dungeons to reduce the padding at the end.

I got all the shards in between the last couple of dungeons in the Hd version that I played last year and didn't feel the pacing was negatively affected, particularly as they cut down on the nonsense with needing a chart for them all and then Tingle to decipher it.

Not nearly as good an exploration game as BoTW in my opinion.

 

[OnPoint]

BOTW is boring and soulless compared to Wind Waker.

I suppose you are free to believe that the open, action-less sailing of Wind Waker holds more soul than the feature-filled BOTW overworld. I just don't agree. I could pop in BOTW and get back to exploring right now and still find more stuff. To contrast, I felt like I found everything in Wind Waker in one playthrough.

Wind Waker certainly had better dungeons, even if there weren't very many, and I definitely liked its story more.

In short, both are good games, but both could stand to learn something from the other.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

It had a few design flaws. Having to play a song to change the wind direction stopped the flow of gameplay, especially for sailing. Sailing itself looses its appeal after the first few islands, and the bulk of islands aren't very interesting or worthwhile.

The grappling hook also ended up feeling like a tedious version of the hook shot.

Obviously, but I was talking about the one that leads to the thing most people complain about or even stopped playing because of it, and that it can actually be circumvented by playing it differently than previous games, even though the story progression is the same, and how NIntendo failed to convey that different playstyle.

I think the triforce quest is indicative of a bigger issue that could be a contentious point for many - but here goes nothing anyways.

The great sea isn't a very fun gameplay gimmick.

Hyrule/Termina field in Ocarina/Majora were both small enough to be easily traversed time and time again - making up for their meager smattering of distractions

The post-calamity hyrule of BOTW is very much the games major component - where even in your immediate area, there is stuff to climb, plants to pick, enemies to engage with and things to do - all of which are far more interesting then they have ever been in the franchise.

The great sea doesn't really have either. There's plenty of distractions but they're more like the overworld minuate that Link to the Past had, while general ship control is kind of not fun to engage with.

Considering the distance between islands and activities, not to mention how sort of dry it is - It just ends up feeling like a menu that you choose islands from, one that takes forever to load through - rather than have any strong identity.

IMHO

I think the atmosphere/music/artstyle of the game helped for me to never get that "loading screen feel" you're describing. But yeah, I can see where you're coming from. The game needed more Islands like Windfall.
What I find interesting is how they made it even worse with the sky in Skyward Sword.

 

[RoadHazard]

Yeah, I mean, if you were to take all of WW's actual landmasses and combine them into one it would probably be smaller than the great plateau in BotW.

I like WW, but it consists of a whole lot of nothing.

 

[Renmyra]

Windwaker is as much of an open world game as the other Zeldas, i.e. not at all.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

I wanted more windwaker, but much less triforce quest. Simply put, the most tedious and boring part of the game for me. Everything else is nearly perfect for me. I would have preferred to go into some dungeons and gotten those pieces than simply digging them up on a tiny boat. If there were a few more islands and a couple more optional dungeons It would have been my Zelda game of forever.

I mean they attempted that with the ghost ship or pirate base. If you would've gotten them in dungeons they would have been just another plot device you'd get on the go, you also wouldn't be able to make them optional if they are crucial for progressing in the game.

Again, a main point of this thread is that it's not tedious and boring if you collected most of them before you get to the point where the game requires you to search for them and how Nintendo couldn't manage to find a way to fuse the story path with the open world.

If you didn't follow the storyline and dungeons like you did in Ocarina for example, then the Triforce quest wasn't tedious at all, but there was barely any incentive for you to not play it like Ocarina.

Windwaker is as much of an open world game as the other Zeldas, i.e. not at all.

Mind to elaborate?

 

[DeathoftheEndless]

Having to find the fish and feed him to fill out the map was so tedious and stupid.

 

[Piers]

Obviously, but I was talking about the one that leads to the thing most people complain about or even stopped playing because of it, and that it can actually be circumvented by playing it differently than previous games, even though the story progression is the same, and how NIntendo failed to convey that different playstyle.

I see what you mean, although the Trifroce Quest is largely seen as a result of speeding towards a tough deadline. If they had intended to guide the player like you mentioned, the Triforce Quest would of been the original intention from the outset and not a way to pad the length. The quest effectively stood in for dungeons, which paints a picture for just how severely Zelda's team were pressed for making sure the game lasted long enough — let alone polishing it by guiding the player more easily towards the Triforce pieces.
To put it another way, I think this is less of a design flaw and more of a consequence towards inadequate development time.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

Having to find the fish and feed him to fill out the map was so tedious and stupid.

It wasn't hard to find him at all though? This isn't the thread where people just throw in what they didn't like about Wind Waker btw.

I see what you mean, although the Trifroce Quest is largely seen as a result of speeding towards a tough deadline. If they had intended to guide the player like you mentioned, the Triforce Quest would of been the original intention from the outset and not a way to pad the length. The quest effectively stood in for dungeons, which paints a picture for just how severe they were pressed for making sure the game lasted long enough — let along polishing it with guiding the player more easily towards the Triforce pieces.
To put it another way, I think this is less of a design flaw and more of a consequence towards inadequate development time.

We don't know what the original intention was though. The ghost ship could've easily be planned as an entire dungeon, so saying that the quest itself is a stand in for actual dungeons is a bit strange. If you didn't follow the story but branched out on your own the quest failed the purpose of padding, because half an hour to search for the 3 remaining pieces is hardly padding. It only comes across that way when you play it like you would play Ocarina.
Definetly agreed with the bolded.

 

[Tarextherex]

So botw is better merely because everything is optional? That's a weak argument tbh

Sure they didn't do a good job of directly integrating it in the main quest like say, the artifact hunt in Metroid Prime but if you liked to explore and do sidequests you were bound to know about the Triforce. The fish hints you in every related island, hell Tingle sends you the chart right after you complete the first three dungeons. You have the time to do them between the Earth and Wind temples

 

[hotcyder]

What I find interesting is how they made it even worse with the sky in Skyward Sword.

All of them suffer from Nintendo balancing ambition with hardware limitations - like you can't have that big of a world without some compromise. Which I suppose is why BOTW feels like such a revelation because it's manages both.

 

[DeathoftheEndless]

It wasn't hard to find him at all though?

I didn't say it was difficult. I said it was tedious and stupid.

 

[MYeager]

What you're describing as a flaw I saw as a feature. I enjoyed the pace and just sailing really.

 

[Man God]

Wind Waker has two huge problems that keep it at great instead of one of the best of all time.

1. Link takes too little damage from just about everything.
2. The game is legitimately missing about 4 dungeons.

 

[KarmaCow]

I think the triforce quest is indicative of a bigger issue that could be a contentious point for many - but here goes nothing anyways.

The great sea isn't a very fun gameplay gimmick.

Hyrule/Termina field in Ocarina/Majora were both small enough to be easily traversed time and time again - making up for their meager smattering of distractions

The post-calamity hyrule of BOTW is very much the games major component - where even in your immediate area, there is stuff to climb, plants to pick, enemies to engage with and things to do - all of which are far more interesting then they have ever been in the franchise.

The great sea doesn't really have either. There's plenty of distractions but they're more like the overworld minuate that Link to the Past had, while general ship control is kind of not fun to engage with.

Considering the distance between islands and activities, not to mention how sort of dry it is - It just ends up feeling like a menu that you choose islands from, one that takes forever to load through - rather than have any strong identity.

IMHO

In terms of solving technical limitations with a design decision, I can appreciate the genius of making the sea a glorified loading screen but yea in practice I'd rather have discrete smaller areas with an actual loading screen in between. Also not a fan of how the ocean is neatly sectioned into squares, each with a point of interest and almost nothing else. It dampens the thrill of exploration and makes it much more rote.

 

[semiconscious]

Here's where the design flaw comes in: Wind Waker was Nintendo's first attempt to create an open world game, the problem is that they did this while sticking to the classic dungeon/story progression. After you come to Dragonroost Island and aquire the baton the game opens up, but not without telling you where the next story related Island is. This goes on until you beat the last two dungeons...

what open-world game aren't you describing here? they pretty much all offer you the choice of either running around on your own or continuing the main story, don't they? ...

 

[Poppy]

wind wakers biggest flaw was lack of dev time

 

[Wamb0wneD]

So botw is better merely because everything is optional? That's a weak argument tbh

Sure they didn't do a good job of directly integrating it in the main quest like say, the artifact hunt in Metroid Prime but if you liked to explore and do sidequests you were bound to know about the Triforce. The fish hints you in every related island, hell Tingle sends you the chart right after you complete the first three dungeons. You have the time to do them between the Earth and Wind temples

That's how I played it, but the majority of people didn't, and that's a design issue Nintendo is responsible for. If you follow the dungeons like every other Zelda game then it becomes a problem. I'm not sure how they could've integrated it tbh. I didn't say BotW is better, it just handles dungeon/story progression in a way that's better suited for an open world game. You can do all of them in any order or not at all and the story stops guiding you after you get the marker to the castle.
Wind Wakers strictly linear storytelling and gameplay progression doesn't mesh well with the open world design parts.

I didn't say it was difficult. I said it was tedious and stupid.

Ok. This still isn't a venting thread though.

All of them suffer from Nintendo balancing ambition with hardware limitations - like you can't have that big of a world without some compromise. Which I suppose is why BOTW feels like such a revelation because it's manages both.

Maybe it also just was a time constraint like with Wind Waker. Doing more than what they did with the sky instead of having to put all these resources into the motion controls would've been possible I think.

what open-world game aren't you describing here? they pretty much all offer you the choice of either running around on your own or continuing the main story, don't they? ...

But Wind Waker's story is also hugely gameplay related. The decision is to either go through dungeons/getting items/fight bosses (the things you do in any other Zelda, and the reason why these games stay so popular and unique in game design) or... do a lot of sailing. That's another reason why BotW works better in that regard (and better than most other open world games), the "running around" part is actually fun. In Skyrim for example you don't do much different gameplay wise between doing the main story and running around.

 

[Piers]

We don't know what the original intention was though. The ghost ship could've easily be planned as an entire dungeon, so saying that the quest itself is a stand in for actual dungeons is a bit strange. If you didn't follow the story but branched out on your own the quest failed the purpose of padding, because half an hour to search for the 3 remaining pieces is hardly padding. It only comes across that way when you play it like you would play Ocarina.
Definetly agreed with the bolded.

From what I can recall, Twilight Princess used dungeons that had to be cut from Wind Waker — on top of that, one of the fishes more or less just gives you a story-related item that the player would only of gotten after clearing a dungeon.
You are right about players branching out on their own though, and it was a sudden shift in how most exploration just leads to little prizes. I just remember clearing the dungeons and story events out of hope that the game would give something that made sailing and wind changing quicker/easier

 

[Vital Tundra]

Personally I find there is just enough to do in WW's open sea. Would some more bigger town islands and stuff be cool? Sure. But I think the game is long enough as is 100% it.

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

Wind Waker was Nintendo's first attempt to create an open world game

SMH everybody always forgets about the first Legend of Zelda.

 

[Man God]

From what I can recall, Twilight Princess used dungeons that had to be cut from Wind Waker — on top of that, one of the fishes more or less just gives you a story-related item that the player would only of gotten after clearing a dungeon.
You are right about players branching out on their own though, and it was a sudden shift in how most exploration just leads to little prizes. I just remember clearing the dungeons and story events out of hope that the game would give something that made sailing and wind changing quicker/easier

Yep, it's missing one dungeon clearly from the pre master sword part of the game and the back half should have had 2-3 more sage dungeons.

 

[kromeo]

For me personally I would rather have seen a third of the number of islands but all 3x the size.. They're too far apart and too many of them, like the dice islands, just feel pointless

 

[Wamb0wneD]

From what I can recall, Twilight Princess used dungeons that had to be cut from Wind Waker — on top of that, one of the fishes more or less just gives you a story-related item that the player would only of gotten after clearing a dungeon.
You are right about players branching out on their own though, and it was a sudden shift in how most exploration just leads to little prizes. I just remember clearing the dungeons and story events out of hope that the game would give something that made sailing and wind changing quicker/easier

Obviously dungeons were cut, But I don't think anybody can be sure that the Triforce hunt was added after the fact to make up for these missing dungeons.
And yeah, after you did all of that you suddenly are prompted with that awful, tedious fetch quest. I on the other hand had almost the whole map uncovered when the quest started and didn't have to farm for rupees once to get greedy Tingle going.

It's a shame Nintendo couldn't design it in a way that less people hit that brick wall at the end.

SMH everybody always forgets about the first Legend of Zelda.

"In 3D space." Sorry about that. The first Zelda also didn't have the problem to tie in a story into all of it that's guiding enough so you don't lose track of it but at the same time not too guiding so you find Triforce pieces before being prompted to find the rest of them. (Which Nintendo didn't really manage to do.)

 

[Regginator]

Honestly I wouldn't even think the Triforce fetch stuff was a huge problem if the world itself wasn't such a chore. So yeah, that's definitely the biggest flaw. The Triforce stuff being terrible was just a result of that.

 

[LegendofLex]

I feel that Breath of the Wild is a big open world without meaningful things to do, because in general I don't feel that I get a huge benefit from looting and exploring in that game, outside of the temples. Everything else is just weapons and armour, which I didn't feel I needed, particularly as the former of which expire with use.

The benefit in Breath of the Wild is the feeling of discovery in an unseen place, not the "rewards" tied to those places.

Since most of Wind Waker's islands are small enough to survey at a glance (and its ocean is relatively featureless), it's rarely as rewarding to just explore as it was in Breath of the Wild.

 

[Jakoo]

I wouldn't call what you mention a "crucial design flaw" but it would have been interesting if they introduced the concept of the Triforce quest earlier so you could have gotten a handful of those pieces during the normal course of game-play instead of a painful hunt at the end.

The Wii U version alleviated this quite a bit, if I recall correctly.

 

[CharminUltra]

The benefit in Breath of the Wild is the feeling of discovery in an unseen place, not the "rewards" tied to those places.

Since most of Wind Waker's islands are small enough to survey at a glance (and its ocean is relatively featureless), it's rarely as rewarding to just explore as it was in Breath of the Wild.

Breath of the Wild really nailed it.

 

[BanjoLayleeYookaKazooie]

Wind Waker has two huge problems that keep it at great instead of one of the best of all time.

1. Link takes too little damage from just about everything.
2. The game is legitimately missing about 4 dungeons.

I wouldn't go that far, I think the difficulty needs a *slight* bump either in puzzle complexity or enemy damage, the game as is is definitely easy but I feel it is somewhat justified considering the aesthetics and how the game presents itself, not every game needs to be challenging and I believe Nintendo's approach was for The Wind Waker to be a light hearted and pleasant experience, that would be contradicted if there are noticeable difficulty spikes or even a consistent amount of significant challenge.

I also don't think 4 extra dungeons would've made things any better, unless the world is redesigned and new islands/people are added to give those dungeons significance, I feel the game would become a slog sailing to and from 9 complex dungeons.

I do agree that the game is not far off from being a masterpiece though. It just needed a lot more time in the oven and rethinking of certain things in the game.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

I wouldn't call what you mention a "crucial design flaw" but it would have been interesting if they introduced the concept of the Triforce quest earlier so you could have gotten a handful of those pieces during the normal course of game-play instead of a painful hunt at the end.

The Wii U version alleviated this quite a bit, if I recall correctly.

I mean that flaw stopped some people from finishing the game and miss that awsome last boss, so if that's not crucial then what is?

Yeah, introducing it earlier would've gone a long way. Or making one or two larger islands to make exploration more enticing.
I feel like balancing story progression and exploration in a game that has such a good main gameplay-loop that worked before in non-open world games just doesn't work well.

If you want people to not lose track of the story and have the reason why people even play these games be part of the linear story progression in a game where you have to explore to not hit a brick wall later on, then you kinda screwed up, because most people will hit that wall.

 

[TheChaos]

I also don't think 4 extra dungeons would've made things any better, unless the world is redesigned and new islands/people are added to give those dungeons significance, I feel the game would become a slog sailing to and from 9 complex dungeons.

They don't need any new islands to add dungeons. There's still plenty they can do. For example, the Fire and Ice Ring Isles were blatantly supposed to be dungeons before they had to cut them.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

They don't need any new islands to add dungeons. There's still plenty they can do. For example, the Fire and Ice Ring Isles were blatantly supposed to be dungeons before they had to cut them.

Most obvious one is the ghost ship imo. All that jazz just to have a single room that looks like any other ship from the inside? Nah.

 

[HyGogg]

The world didn't suit the design. All the endless, boring expanses of blue made travel incredibly tedious. Sailing wasn't fun. It was as engaging as a loading screen, but they'd throw in just enough mundane interaction to keep you from putting a rubber band on you your analog stick and getting a sandwich.

There were parts of the game that were great. Some excellent dungeon and boss design, and a lot of great atmosphere. But the tedium of just trying to get to those parts kept me from ever finishing it.

 

[Castef]

Wind Waker's biggest flaw was an open world without enough meaningful tasks to do. I agree.

This. An open world with a town and two villages.

And a hundred of useless rocks in the sea.

 

[Toxi]

It's not just the existence of the Triforce quest. The artifact quest in Metroid Prime and even the infamous Sky Temple Key quest in Metroid Prime 2 never earned the same ire.

It's the existence of the Triforce quest to pad out a game that is blatantly missing content. Windwaker is not finished. It is finished in the sense that it is polished and play tested, but the game's rush to release resulted in a product that feels incomplete. The world is barren despite sailing being such a focus. The dungeons are shallow despite there being so few of them. And then they have the gall to throw the Triforce Quest at you.

 

[ghibli99]

I remember having this argument with a friend of mine back in the GC days. It's been a while obviously, but he approached it in a connect-the-dots manner, wanting to do them all one after the other without breaks. He hated it. Like the OP, I did a great deal of exploring and grabbing things I missed, treasure hunting in the ocean, etc. between shards, so they felt spread out and less like a drawn-out fetch quest. I don't even remember feeling much of a difference when I replayed WWHD on Wii U, and that new interface made it even more fun and streamlined to play. It's still such a wonderful game, up there with the N64 titles and BOTW as my favorite 3D entries.