It only took about six months to create our five-star favorite The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, series producer Eiji Aonuma told 4Gamer (translated by Siliconera.) The remastered HD version of the game came together quickly, though “development was still difficult” thanks to the difference of hardware.
Aonuma said scaling the game up visually was much easier than getting it to work in the first place, as cel shading is much more familiar than it was in 2003.
“At that time, the technique was established, but had not be used before by our staff, everyone had to do everything by hand,” Aonuma said.
While Wind Waker HD is largely a graphical update, it does have a few changes to the gameplay like (optional) faster sailing and a streamlined hunt for the Triforce pieces. Some cutscenes had to be re-framed to fit the 16:9 aspect ratio, as well.