Welcome, VGR faithful, to the first (and apparently eagerly anticipated) recap of Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker. It should go without saying that this game will only be referred to as “Wind Wanker” from this point forward. If using the word “wanker” to make fun of this game offends you…what in the hell are you doing HERE?

Wind Wanker is a big first for VGR in that it’s the first Nintendo title to be recapped, it’s the furthest we’ve ever strayed from a “real” RPG, and it’s the first co-recap between Jeanne and myself. Unfortunately, she won’t be around until part 2, so you’re stuck with me. Cue the sound of Baby Jesus crying.

That’s enough filler rambling for now, so let’s get down to business!

The opening screen pans down on a happy little island, swayed by a happy little background ditty, blessed with sandy beaches and pristine blue waters. After pressing the all-important Start button and setting up a new game file, I’m prompted to name our green-clad hero. Now, it shouldn’t be a secret that in our humble (but correct!) opinion, the one known as Link is fruitier than a mango margarita. His new name needs to convey this. Jeanne, in all her wisdom (and with the help of a gay slang dictionary), found a suitable moniker. Link will now be Twink. All shall bow before the fearsome Twink! Yeah, bend over!

Before we get to Twink, though, it’s time to learn about his predecessor. Wind Wanker is a direct sequel of sorts to the old-school fanboy scream fest that was Ocarina of Time, so we have to start off with a heaping helping of exposition. I almost expect a “Last time, on Hyrule” voiceover à  la one of those WB teen dramas…that I don’t watch. Really. Stop looking at me like that. For those of you who’ve never played OoT, I’ll recap the, uh, recap (sadly sans the cool music and imagery):

Pigs are evil. So when Twink buttrapes them, it’s all about bad karma.

1) The Triforce is shiny and everyone wantssss it.
2) Ganon Is Evil.
3) The Hero of Time slays Ganon because He Is Evil.
4) The Hero of Time goes away (presumably to play with festive masks and transform into various furries).

But lo, there is more! Some time after these events, the following also went down in the land of Hyrule:

1) Ganon returns, and guess what, He’s Still Evil.
2) All the citizens of Hyrule sit around on their fat asses waiting for the Hero of Time to return and deliver the smackdown.
3) The Hero of Time goes AWOL, and there’s darkness and other bad stuff.
4) The citizens of Hyrule, with no notion of rising up against the bad guy themselves, pray to the gods to save them.
5) The gods do something unspecified, and now there’s a whole lot of water everywhere.

As a lead-in to the beginning of the game, we’re told, “On a certain island, it became customary to garb boys in green when they came of age,” to honor the legendary Hero of Time Who Was a Little Late in Showing Up. Said teenage boys, upon dressing up like Legolas, are supposed to become real men and learn to fight evil. But since there’s no evil around to bitchslap anymore, they settle for just wearing the gay green costume. Poor kids.

Fade in on the happy island from the startup screen. This island (actually two connected islands) is mostly steep cliff terrain with settlements near the beach below. This is Outset Island. What a creative name for the starting point of Twink’s adventure! I hope he fights the final boss at Destination Cove.

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From a house on the western end of Outset, a small blonde girl emerges. Immediately several seagulls flock to her feet. This won’t be a recurring point or anything. She calls out (“Oyyyyyyyyyyyy!”) for her big brother. Three guesses who her onii-san is, and the first two don’t count. Little Sis sets off across the island, before using her telescope to seek out her bro. It’s a cute orange telescope with little seagulls painted on it. Nope, nothing special about the seagulls, no sir. Cut to the top of a wooden observation tower, where our homosexual hero Twink is currently slumbering. Odd place to take a nap, but I suppose boys just love their treehouses. Little Sis pokes her head up above the ladder, telescope still to her eye. She watches his sleeping form through the telescope for several seconds, which isn’t at all creepy. Finally, Twink wakes up, but by then the girl has moved behind him. She scares me.

At this point, now that Twink is standing up, we can see that his blue shirt features the likeness of a lobster. Do I even want to know?

Little Sis chirps some good morning exposition at Twink. The observation deck is her favorite place on Outset, because she can sit up there and frolic with the gulls. Say, I wonder what her favorite animal is! “When I play with the gulls,” she giggles, “I call it ‘Aryll’s Lookout.'” Way to slip in the name, sweetie. As of late I’ve read one too many “Serena Potter” Mary Sue fics (featuring a Parselmouth Animagus sibling of the Boy Who Lived), and so I’m a bit wary of sister characters in general. Plus, the girl’s name is begging for a makeover.

‘Shit, did I miss the pride parade?’

Maryll Sue plows on with her exposition. “So, do you remember what day it is today?” Twink is still half-asleep–no doubt wishing Maryll Sue hadn’t interrupted that exciting pool-boy dream he’d been having–so of course he doesn’t remember squat. Maryll Sue intuits this, and tells him what he’s forgotten: “Big Brother, it’s your birthday!” Twink’s eyes widen in surprise. I don’t know if he’s surprised that it’s his birthday, or surprised that he could be stupid enough to forget something like that, drowsy or not. Maryll Sue continues that their grandma is waiting at home for him, to give him some kind of birthday surprise. I sincerely hope that Granny isn’t a pedophile like me, because no one wants to see that.

Twink takes his leave of Maryll Sue and jumps down to the dock. On his way back home, he chitchats with everyone on the island. As there are perhaps a dozen people on Outset, this isn’t too daunting a task. First he meets a brunette man named Mesa, who is outside his home in the middle of a very overgrown lawn. It’s Mesa’s job to tell Twink that if he finds something sharp, he can cut down the grass and keep the swag he finds therein. But Twink has no long, hard sword to call his own yet, so no lawnmowing for him. What he can do is enter Mesa’s house and snatch up his life savings. Twink’s gotta make his money somehow! What do you want the poor boy to do, get a job?

A bridge connects the two halves of Outset, and in the middle, standing on a large flat rock, is a little boy named Joel. He’s staring with longing at the shiny Rupees on other nearby rocks, wondering if he’ll ever be man enough to jump across and gather the monies. Twink proves his studliness to the lad by jumping himself and collecting the Rupees. But he keeps the money for himself–hey, he needs to save up for that spiked leather collar he’s had his eye on.

‘Here, piggy…come to daddy…’

Across the bridge Twink meets Abe, another brunette man, but Abe has a beard. Abe is on his hands and knees near a tall palm tree. This initially excites our young hero, but it turns out Abe is merely trying to catch a little piggy. Nothing dirty about that. …Wait a minute!

Abe gives Twink some pointers on how to catch pigs: he can either crawl up behind it veeeeewy quietly and grab it from behind (Twink likes this method), or he can acquire some bait and use that to attract the other white meat. No one has yet established why Twink would want to do this, but does he need a reason to get some pork? Exactly. Once Twink has grasped a hog in his boyish hands, he runs up the hill to a house with a fenced-in paddock. No, Twink doesn’t know what he’s doing or why he’s doing it, but I do, so there. Twink chucks the pig into the enclosure, where a robust blonde woman is pacing aimlessly. The woman, named Rose, is just thrilled that Twink brought her a cute new pet. She asks him to bring her more little piggies, and gives him a red Rupee as a reward. Catching the other pigs around the island nets Twink a solid 60 Rupees total (that’s three red ones, for those of you not versed in Rupeenomics).

It’s the Squally Stance!

Nearby Twink meets Zill, Joel’s younger brother–they’re the sons of Rose the Pig-Lover and Abe the Pig-Grabber. That must be an interesting house to live in. Zill looks much like Joel, except he has a long string of snot (I hope that’s snot) coming out of his nose. He takes to following Twink around the island, which leads to him bouncing against ledges and stuff if Twink ever climbs higher than Zill can reach. He makes a boing! sound and everything when he smacks his noggin against something. Head trauma is funny, kids!

Ew. Just…ew.

In the same general area as Zill, Twink finds Sue-Belle, Outset’s resident twentysomething babe. She spends her days carrying a large blue jug back and forth from the town well. I’m not going to make any “jug” jokes, boys, but feel free to come up with your own. Sue-Belle clues Twink in on how to pick up and carry things, since that’s her specialty and all. She does so in the context that Maryll Sue wanted to know how to properly carry a jug around like her. That’s more than I wanted to hear.

Last on Twink’s visit-the-neighbors tour is a two-story house in the middle of the village. A short old man with a gigantic protruding forehead speaks to Twink from the second story, thereby demonstrating how to target people and speak to them. Everyone in this village is so helpful! This man is named Sturgeon, and he’s apparently the genius of the village–we can tell because of his horrifically deformed head. Sturgeon is also Sue-Belle’s grandfather, which implies that at some point there was a girl who saw fit to have sex with a man whose head is shaped like a cashew.