4. The Story
One of the most refreshing things about Wind Waker was the story. It wasn't the tired tale of "predestined hero thwarts maniacal, power-hungry villain". In fact, Link spends the first half of the game just trying to rescue his kidnapped little sister. Perhaps the most interesting facet of Wind Waker's story was Ganondorf, or more specifically, his motives. Ganondorf isn't hell-bent on destruction or conquering the world, unlike his previous incarnations. Simply put, he was the king of a desert kingdom adjacent to the verdant Hyrule. His people were dying due to the harshness of the environment, and he wanted to take over Hyrule in order to save his people from dying out completely. You feel for the guy, and in a way, you want to see Hyrule restored to its former glory, too. He actually has a personality, and he uses the evil power of nostalgia to speak to players who once ran across the fields of Hyrule themselves. Nintendo has some deep storytelling chops, but you wouldn't know it if you examined its most recent offerings. Even Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword had predictable, mundane exposition that painted good and bad as black and white. The Ganondorf in Wind Waker operates in the grey area between those shades. If Nintendo were to bring a powerful, complex narrative back to the Great Sea, the response would be overwhelmingly positive.