Memory and Time on the Great Sea

The penultimate section of The Wind Waker is so freeing.

The overworld can be explored in its entirety. Since you've got nearly every item in the game, most hidden treasures can be found. And, back in town, you have the resources to finish just about every sidequest. As vast as the Great Sea is, and as long as the sailing time between islands can run, the game continues to be fun through this section.

For whatever reason, the last two dungeons strike my memory as being pretty short. Maybe it's a result of them being co-op experiences with AI controlled characters. Or perhaps it's just another example of how fun, vividly designed dungeons just appear to be shorter. This is the one Zelda game, where none of the dungeons really drag on and on.

But memory is a funny thing, especially when it comes to Zelda games. Recall is strangely important for them, though they don't usually have you matching things from memory or even memorizing the songs that were characteristic of the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube era games in the series.

Recall in Zelda games is important for the sake of exploration. It's about remembering the places that you could previously get to, but where you couldn't do anything. Or remembering exactly where an NPC was so that you could bring back whatever wild item they had requested. Ultimately, this is one reason to play such games with as few lengthy (week-long, month-long) breaks as possible.

Though playing with such breaks does bring an element of reality to the experience. It often takes a couple of in-game days to sail from island to island. Translated to real time, that means that some errands could well take weeks or even months to complete. This is a common aspect of many games, though.

Still, wouldn't that be a wild Nintendo peripheral - something that makes in-game time feel, for all intents and purposes, like real time?