25 Best Video Games Of The 2000s

7. The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Controversial? Perhaps.

People outright hated Wind Waker back at launch, primarily as it looked like the 'big serious RPG' they'd grown up with was getting too many lashings of Nintendo's cute paint tipped overtop, but in hindsight (and if you didn't mind such a thing in the first place) this tenth instalment was like some gorgeously-rendered, playable fairytale-twist on a formula that was always begging to be done in such a way anyway.

Nintendo didn't change a whole lot to the now-standard gameplay formula and control schemes established in both Ocarina and Majora's Mask, but they did throw in a huge amount of sailing; something that was used in abundance to get between the various islands and caves of the world, the game pulling a GTA and loading everything around you without the necessity of load screens.

Fans can point to Majora's Mask as having the most expansive set of abilities for Link to use in the world thanks to its titular masks, but chances are the affinity you have towards something like Ocarina was down to it being one of the first times you truly let yourself get lost in an entire world of possibilities - something Wind Waker taps back into through bucketloads of charm and identity.