Dead Hand is ****ing horrifying in hindsight.
He's not one of the "Hey Link I Heard You Got Some Good *****" Re-Dead, and he's not one of the "Please Insert Jaws Theme Here" Wallmasters, and he's not one of the "Surprise It's A Vore Sleeve" Like-Likes.
He just wants for you to give him a high-five and then suddenly oh **** that's my face let me go what the **** is that what in the cornucopia of **** is up with your neck wait never mind what the **** is up with your mouth and you feel like you're ten seconds from a non-standard game over as another set of bones, picked clean and strewn across his floor.
Least that's my angle. Your mileage may vary.
....Well, take the whole high-five analogy away, and you actually just
nailed my first experience with Dead Hand.
Even as a kid, I always thought Redeads had way too few details in their design to be scary, and rather than being frighted by them, I was only ever startled by Wallmasters when one first appeared and grabbed me,, but Dead Hand.... I was friggin'
terrified of Dead Hand. Seeing that that lanky, bloody zombie abomination suddenly pop out of the ground, then gurgling and shaking unnaturally as it slowly made it's way towards a trapped Link freaked me out instantly. I struggled to get Link free from the hands before it got too close, already scared of finding out what the hell it was gonna do if I couldn't. I only got a brief glimpse of it's biting animation just before I broke free in time to stop the attack and hack away at it's face. After seeing how ridiculously wide it's jaw opened, I was seriously convinced that had I taken any longer to break free, that that thing was gonna
devour Link whole and the game would've ended then and there, right after I would get to witness it. Just imagining it scared me more, and I was in a total nervous panic for the rest of the fight, knowing I'd have to trap Link a few more times to finish it off, without having any idea of how close it could be to any of it's hands that stuck out of the ground.
Yeah, lol, that's pretty much my story with young me dealing with that monster. I used to be scared to death of that thing, while fighting it ,and for quite some time in real life, even after slaying
both of them. Yeah, I wasn't exactly pleased at the time when I encountered
another one; worse yet, I went to the Shadow Temple before the Well, only turning back when I couldn't get further in the Temple. So I had to go through both Dead Hand fights without any help from the Lens of Truth. Lucky me!
That fear passed long ago, and now I think it's one of the coolest enemies in Zelda thanks to it's design and serious creep factor. I'd actually be up to see it in another game with an updated look thanks to modern graphics. They could make it even more gruesome and terrifying. It'd return better than ever for a whole new generation, and might even manage to freak out older, longtime fans all over again.
Wind Waker is probably my least favorite and this is just one of the reasons.
Which is a shame because the game has a lot of charm, I love the visuals. Link is adorable and expressive as hell and for the most part the rest of the characters are rather enjoyable and memorable.
But the dungeons are way too one-note and even sometimes boring. Sailing is a drag until you get a Swift Sail and even then it's still not all that fun and the novelty wore off pretty fast for me especially with how empty the Great Sea is. And I know a lot of people liked how Ganondorf was portrayed in a more sympathetic light but I just didn't give a damn for him and most of the story.
Cool motive, still murder.
Also any reason why Tetra got far, faaaar, less interesting when she goes to being Zelda? It also bothers me that her skin lightened with that but that's a talk for another day.
Also I don't think I gotta go into detail cause everyone rags on it enough but... The Triforce quest near the end. It's not that bad but... It ain't great either.
While I do think most of it's dungeons aren't very challenging in terms of their puzzles, I adamantly disagree with everything else.
I loved sailing the ocean because it had so many different places to explore. Beautiful visuals were simply the icing on the cake. Even without one big solid ground overworld, it still had
much more of an open-world than OoT did, with so many items and secrets to find among the many islands, boats and hideouts that could be found throughout the sea. I loved exploring WW's world and it's many islands and never thought it was a drag (well, aside from whenever a Big Octo or Cyclos managed to send you to a random island, but that was the whole point; being enemies, they're
supposed to inconvenience you if you can't defeat them). Upon first getting into the game, it really appealed to me. I was always eager to set out and see what else I could find out there. It's a fantastic aspect of the game in my eyes, but it's not everyone's cup of tea. I understand that, that's fine.
It's no question that Ganondorf still became a monster by the time he obtained the Triforce of Power, but even if you don't personally sympathize with him or his life in the past, it still makes the character more developed and gives him more dimensions as a villain. Again, I can get why you wouldn't care much about this from a personal standpoint, but I would definitely call it an improvement and welcome addition to the character in any case.
I never thought Tetra got any less interesting, though. I always saw a lot of character development in her as she became kinder and more remorseful throughout the story; you just don't see quite as much of her usual sass later on; she initially really softens up after learning of her heritage, but really shows her strength and attitude again in the final act. She's the first Princess Zelda that directly participates in the final battle against Ganondorf, and she herself makes the choice to fight against him with Link, without fear, at that. I absolutely think she remained a great character at that point.
I will however admit that even I thought the Triforce Shard quest was a bit tedious in the original game. One of the author's saving throws in the remake was removing most of the charts that were insanely expensive to decipher and instead just letting you obtain most of the shards straight from the
mini-dungeons or caves their respective charts were formerly located at in the original game. The quest didn't frustrate me too much, but was far less interesting than the rest of the game. Considering that the game was actually Christmas-rushed, this may have been one of the consequences of that. It's definitely padding, and that's the only part of the game that I'll even think of as being any kind of padding.
I do think WW is a still a slightly flawed game but I've always strongly disagreed with the grand majority of the serious complaints it's gotten in it's time. But hey, everyone's got their favorites and least favorites, for reasons that vary between each and all of us. WW just happens to be my favorite. It's got a special place in my heart, and I don't think that's ever gonna change.
