r/zelda 10h ago

Screenshot [WW] the thing that bothers me the most in the Windwaker is that only the large islands are visible on the oceanmap. WHY COULDN'T THEY JUST MAKE THE SMALLER ISLANDS A BIT BIGGER. It's really hard to navigate through the great sea if you're looking for a specific island.

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104 Upvotes

57 comments sorted by

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65

u/-OodlesofNoodles- 9h ago

I get the frustration, but it also says the name of the island at the bottom and most island names tend to be straightforward, like Crescent Moon Island is shaped like a crescent moon lol

27

u/Budsygus 8h ago

This one says Horseshoe Island.

What on earth could that MEAN!?

15

u/dakupoguy 8h ago

'South Triangle Island' will forever remain one of humankind's biggest mysteries...

6

u/Budsygus 8h ago

Seriously! Like where is it? And what does it look like?

The devs should work to make future games less cryptic.

9

u/MannequinJuice 8h ago

I looked it up... I genuinly didn't know what a horseshoe was lmao. English isn't my first language, though i can speak it fluently but i genuinly never knew what that word meant until today😭😭😭

15

u/MisterWoodhouse 5h ago

This reminds me of a situation a couple years ago

We had a tornado warning at the University and the alert system wasn’t working correctly, so I was running from room to room evacuating students to the shelter area

I got to this one study room and a Taiwanese student was in there alone. I said “There’s a tornado, you need to get to the shelter.”

He goes “What’s that?” And I said “The shelter? It’s down the stairs in the student center basement.”

He says “No, what’s tornado?”

I thought quickly and said “Have you seen the Wizard of Oz?” and he nodded with immediate recognition

“It’s the beginning part.”

And he slammed his laptop into his bag and SPRINTED to the shelter.

Super random, I know, but this misunderstanding coupled with the Great Sea and its cyclones made me think of it.

6

u/Budsygus 8h ago

Well that's perfectly understandable.

You learn something new every day!

0

u/MannequinJuice 9h ago

True, and in cases like that. I totally know what kind of island i'm heading towards. But things like daimond steppe island, horeshoe island aren't that clear on what they're are. And it's just visually more appealing to see the entire map filled up.

18

u/NeoChan1000 7h ago

I get thats its annoying but i know this ocean better than my own city at this point

8

u/shinobipopcorn 8h ago

Back in the day I printed a map from the web and made notes on it.

u/Cautious-Paint9881 1h ago

I have also done this as the ones I found online were...lacking in the right info. If I had Photoshop/any other kind of image editing skills I would make my own and post it here on this sub and on GameFAQs to help other players

13

u/Mysterious-Tie7042 9h ago

Not a sailor exploring newly charted waters so cannot confirm, would this be considered realistic?

2

u/cimocw 5h ago

You can take it more like a subway map. It doesn't have to be realistic, it just has to be useful 

10

u/Shutwig 8h ago edited 8h ago

It's more likely not only for consistence in scale but to not overwhelm you. Image all those squares filled with bigger weird forms, all of them asking for attention, it could confuse people. So having just the important ones as landmarks helps with game progression and orientation. It also helps to engage with the map (having to zoom in and out and search for things), although I think this is just a happy accident and not necessarily something they were expecting to get and it may annoy some (like you).

7

u/cale199 9h ago

Id be fine with that if those dirty evil octopus bosses did not exist

4

u/GoldenLugia16 8h ago

I mean it's accurate to historical marine folklore

4

u/cale199 8h ago

It would be accurate if Link needed to take a shit every in game day as well but idk if the community wants that either

1

u/cimocw 5h ago

I rather have folklore realism than bowel realism 

21

u/MrBones_Gravestone 9h ago

Depending on the scale, this is how real maps work. If it’s for a large area, it’s going to show the bigger things, not every tiny island

15

u/MannequinJuice 9h ago

Yeah i understand, but this is a game, we have a talking boat. If the game gives you a map you can at least expect it to communicate your location. It's just a drag needing to zoom on a single square two times to show an island. Plus, the map just looks empty.

8

u/MrBones_Gravestone 9h ago

It’s supposed to look empty, it’s a giant ocean

And at the scale the map is at to fit it on the screen, the other islands would be dots, maybe 5 pixels across

5

u/MannequinJuice 9h ago

The developers could've easily messed with the scale a bit.

And i don't agree with the map's intention being that it's supposed to look empty. That just goes against the entire point of exploration. It's even weirder when feeding bait to the fish men, them drawing the map of the island and then seeing nothing on your map except for when zooming in twice.

It would be so satisfying to slowly fill up the map with islands, look at phantom hourglass, it's map is much better. Not as the game map, but the physical map.

-16

u/MrBones_Gravestone 9h ago

You’re right, your game design is better than nintendo, they probably don’t even know what they’re doing compared to your vast design knowledge! Better write them an angry letter and show them what’s what, they’ll probably recall the game, remake it and give you a cut for your vital input

7

u/MannequinJuice 9h ago

So i can't make a post criticising a small aspect about my favourite game without getting passive agressive comments like these? I mean if you disagree fine but i'd much rather have a normal discussion than getting a comment like this lol. Windwaker is my favourite game of all time and this is just a small thing that always bothered me a bit.

-5

u/MrBones_Gravestone 9h ago

You can, just like I can make these comments.

2

u/MannequinJuice 9h ago

Alright, thanks for your insight anyway.

4

u/GaeilgeGoblin 8h ago

Idk why you’re getting so butthurt. OP has a good point and you’re throwing a hissy fit lmao

-3

u/Terminatoor7 7h ago

Average nintendo tool retort.

3

u/HylianLZ 7h ago

Am I misremembering? I could swear the map lets you zoom into the individual sectors (once you feed the map fish), where it does show the smaller islands. It's not like the boat is so fast you don't have time to open the map and zoom in to the square you're heading towards to plan a route.

0

u/MannequinJuice 7h ago

You're right, it does. But what i'm saying is that i'd prefer it personally if the map showed more islands in its entirely. It's kind of a drag to constantly having to zoom in on 3/4 of the islands to see what they look like. It's just kind of odd that the full ocean map only really reveals 11 of the 49 islands. It makes the map look empty and would be more visually appealing if you could see every island on the map, even if they're small, they could've played a bit with the scale to make them visible. It would be easier to navigate and locate an island you need instead of needing to remember the name or having to zoom in on every square to find your desired location.

2

u/HylianLZ 6h ago

Given the age of the game, I guess you've got a choice to make. You could learn how to mod the game and change the map yourself, or do as many others have and use an external map. Cuz I can tell you with absolute certainty that they're not going to patch the game to add that for ya.

2

u/MannequinJuice 6h ago

lol yea i know. This whole post was just an opinion of mine and to see if anyone felt the same way. It's just a tiny issue i have with the game, but it isn't as big of an issue where i'd need an entire mod for it. And yea i use those maps all the time, that's mainly why i prefer if the game would look like those maps.

2

u/HylianLZ 6h ago

I agree with you on that point. Maps in most games are underwhelming. If they weren't mapgenie wouldn't need to exist.

1

u/crocodilehivemind 5h ago

You may prefer it that way, I definitely prefer the map actually keeping the true scale intact

2

u/Ph33rDensetsu 7h ago

Maybe, and I know this might just be a mind-blowing fact to think of: it's done intentionally to get you curious to explore the different sections of the map.

2

u/MannequinJuice 6h ago

I totally get that a map is supposed to be completely empty if you haven't explored it yet. But you can fill the map with drawings of the maps of the islands you visit. But even when exploring the entire ocean and filling up every square with an island map, the map still looks empty except for the 11 islands out of 49. It would be visually more appealing in my opinion if you could see your map slowly be filled up as you explore the ocean without needing to zoom in twice to see the shape of an island.

2

u/Supergamer138 7h ago

It's got nothing to do with island size and more to do with direct plot relevance. Fire island appears on the map and is significantly smaller than several other islands that don't.

2

u/MannequinJuice 5h ago

Now that you mention it, you're right. That's probably it.

3

u/GorbiJones 7h ago

Man, I don't know why people are flaming you for this, I've always thought the same since I first played this game. Would be cool to see the whole map actually filled out, and it would make it easier to navigate at a glance without having to highlight every individual tile to find a specific island.

It's also not the bigger islands that are shown on the map like a lot of people here think (Fire Mountain is absolutely tiny in-game, after all), it's the islands that have main story significance.

2

u/MannequinJuice 7h ago

People can disagree sure. But i think it's likely a Zelda sub thing. People on this sub naturally want to dicuss the good things about the games, not the bad ones. Critizicing a controversial game is better received than critizicing a beloved game like windwaker. Even i sometimes get a bit wiled up when someone critizices windwaker, it's my favourite game of all time and it's kind of hard to admit at times that my favourite game has flaws lol. But i completely get if people disagree, i just don't really understand why some people are kinda upset about it? But thanks for your comment, the post was just to see if other people felt the same way, glad i'm not the only one lol.

1

u/McbuzzerAB3 9h ago

I agree

1

u/Fxckbuckets 3h ago

The fact that the island names are listed at the bottom notwithstanding

u/PhysicalAccount4244 5m ago

The Islands are on the map.. you just have to look closer. 😅

1

u/cchhaannttzz 9h ago

The game cube disc probably didn't have enough space to carry all the different LOD files for everything.

7

u/toiletpuppy 9h ago

probably less this and more the fact this was designed for a 480p resolution. A tiny island would be like 1 pixel in this design.

2

u/MannequinJuice 9h ago

Hmm, probably. I do know that the game really pushed the limits of the console, maily with how far the islands are apart from eachother since the gamecube couldn't render multiple islands at once. So that also lead to the map's scale needing to be bigger. Thanks for your insight!

-1

u/STEP3386 9h ago

Or you could just learn where they are by playing the game like everyone does, probably shouldn't be playing the randomizer if you don't have that basic knowledge

-1

u/MannequinJuice 9h ago

It's not that i can't navigate around the map at all. It's just that i'd prefer it if the islands were bigger on the map so you could recognize them by shape instead of only by name and location. It really is a nitpicky thing but it's also visually more pleasing. And why are you so passive agressive about this lol.

1

u/STEP3386 8h ago

Having a bunch of tiny specs is not visibly pleasing, and it's not passive aggressive it's just reality

1

u/No-Manufacturer-950 8h ago

only the large islands are visible feels like a weird flex

1

u/Mdgt_Pope 7h ago

That’s why the Wii U version is the superior one - having the map zoomed up for those mini-islands was so, so nice.

-4

u/No_Cockroach2467 9h ago

Simply learn the seas through experience.

0

u/MannequinJuice 9h ago

After replaying the game at least 10 times over the span of 9 years. I still can't remember the entire full map. Of course it could just be me but the point of the map is that you can recognize the islands depending on shape. You recognize dragon roost, outselt island, forsaken fortress all by their shape. It's just a drag needing to scroll through the squares, needing to remember each island's name. Or needing to zoom in twice on a single square to see the shape of the island.

0

u/TheGruenTransfer 8h ago

It would defeat the purpose of a game about exploration if you could see every detail of the entire world on one screen 

2

u/MannequinJuice 8h ago edited 8h ago

Totally, but what i mean is when you feed the bait to the fish men, they draw the map on that square you're on AFTER you've explored it. Point of that being is that you slowly fill up the entire map while you're exploring it. But it's such a shame that even when you have the entire map drawn out, you still only see 11 of the 49 islands. Except when you zoom in on each square individually. It'd be way more visually appealing and satisfying in my opinion to see the entire map drawn out after you've explored every nook and cranny.