Reasons why The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (WW) is not a copy of Ocarina of Time (OoT):
- WW is a sequel. You wouldn't say that F-Zero GX is a copy of the original F-Zero, and that has even less of a story progression than the one that occurred between OoT and WW. Nor would you say all the Mario games are copies, even when it is Mario saving the Princess from Bowser just about every time. (sometimes not...just like the variations in Zelda storylines like Majora's Mask, Oracle of Ages/Seasons, and Link's Awakening). The WW takes place at least 100 years after OoT. Hyrule is under the ocean; the tons of little islands dotting the ocean are all that are left of Hyrule. The people have even changed - the Kokiri forest people are now bizarre little wooden blobs that sound like rainsticks when they walk and have no fairies. The Zora (water people) are now bird-people, the Rito [which makes perfect sense, now that Hyrule is a land of water...uh, yeah...]. The events in OoT are reduced to legends of the remnants of Hyrule.
- The WW world is much larger than the land you could explore in OoT. Getting from the farthest point north to the farthest point south in the WW takes for-ev-er (and is really annoying) even though the King of Red Lions (Link's talking boat) is at least as fast as Epona (horse in OoT).
- OoT and WW have different ratios of dungeon/non-dungeon playing time. OoT had a ton more dungeons - The Great Deku Tree, Dodongo's Cavern, Inside Jabu-Jabu's Belly, Forest Temple, Fire Temple, Water Temple, Shadow Temple, Spirit Temple, Ganon's Castle - vs the WW's Forsaken Fortress x 2 [hardly counts - pretty wimpy and first time you don't even have a sword and there isn't a boss battle], Dragon Roost Cavern, Forbidden Woods, Tower of the Gods, Earth Temple, Wind Temple, Ganon's Tower [which only halfway counts since re-killing the previous 4 bosses isn't that amusing]. If you count a dungeon as a long dangerous adventure full of puzzles and battling in a specific place with a boss battle at the end, and disregarding the final Ganon "dungeon", you have 8 OoT dungeons versus 6 WW dungeons. Most of the adult Link dungeons in OoT also require work as young Link before each dungeon (like getting the Goron tunic, going down in the well, or getting the Silver Gauntlets). In general, I found the OoT dungeons were much longer, more challenging, and comprised a much larger part of the game than the dungeons in WW.
- The flipside of the dungeon/non-dungeon playing time ratio: in the WW, interacting with other characters is much more important and comprises a larger part of the game than in OoT. Partly due the larger size of the WW world, there are more people with whom you interact (and want to interact with). Collecting treasure maps, finding pieces of heart, sidequests etc require more interaction with other characters than they did in OoT.
- There are more mini-games (of a greater variety) than in OoT. It isn't just archery anymore; you have battleship, picture-taking, item collecting (Knight Crests, feathers, etc), golfing with huge nut-like things, an auction to attend, etc.
- Fairies are no longer little balls of light with wings in the WW as they were in OoT. In the WW, fairies look like little angels, which makes their apparent death when they heal you all the more disturbing. And the Great Fairies no longer look like scary exotic dancers as they did in OoT; in the WW, they look more like bizarre Hindu goddesses, with their four arms and lotus flowers.
- The weapons and items are NOT the same between the two games. Sure, they're pretty similar, this is a sequel after all, but the differences are there. First, you can hold so many more arrows and bombs in the WW than OoT and those upgrades are much easier to get (thank god). In OoT you had to be pretty awesome at archery, not to mention patient, to get to hold the maximum of 50 arrows in your quiver. Patience was also required to get your bomb bag up to a max carrying capacity of 40 bombs. In the WW, you could get up to 99 arrows and bombs simply by dropping in on the great fairies. Second, the boomerang can lock on to as many as 5 targets as once in the WW, an awesome feature not found in OoT. Third, there was no Deku Leaf to use for wind generation or as a parachute/glider in OoT. The same goes for the grappling hook, picto box, telescope, Tingle Tuner (joy...), and Wind Waker baton. Likewise, WW lacked these weapons and items found in OoT: masks, Gold Skulltulas, tunics, hover boots, slingshot, ocarina, magic spells, scales for diving. Also, the hookshot is a lot cooler in OoT (can be shot at lots of stuff) than in the WW (used infrequently, assumes you need a cutesy visual cue to alert you that something can be hookshoted).
- No gold skulltula collection in WW.
- No diving underwater in WW, and you have a air gauge so Link can't swim forever like in OoT.
- Iron boots are used differently in the two games.
- Link in WW is (at least) the spiritual descendant of OoT's Link, not the original Link of OoT. Tetra (Zelda) (WW) is the biological descendant of OoT's Princess Zelda but is unaware of her identity until partway through the game. [question: is Tetra the descendant of OoT's Zelda and Link? :) ] Link's still without parents in WW, but he does have a relative (grandmother), unlike OoT Link.
- Money plays a more important role in WW, as you have to come up with the cash to pay Tingle to decode the maps in WW. And speaking of Tingle, he wasn't even in OoT, but was most recently seen in Majora's Mask (and is still annoying). You can also carry a lot more money in the WW than in OoT.
- At the end of OoT, Ganon is banished to the Evil Realm, while in the WW, Ganon turns to stone. I hope he's dead, but turning to stone could still give him a means of escape. Of course, he is stone at the bottom of the ocean, but still, Ganon is good at getting out of bad situations.
- Basically, the flow of the two games are different, the amount of time within and without dungeons are different, the amount of time to beat the two games is different, the difficulty levels of the two games are different. The plotline is different, the amount of time interacting with other characters is different, the weapons and items in the two games are different, the size of the game and means of traveling are different...these two games are not the same! The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has all the elements of a LoZ game: Link, puzzles, dungeons, and it is a more typical Zelda game in that it involves the Princess Zelda and Ganon. But it is not a carbon copy of Ocarina of Time presented in cell-shading.