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The Legend of Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma previously took the blame for The Wind Waker feeling unfinished on the leadup to Twilight Princess' release.
If you ask people what is the best The Legend of Zelda game, you tend to get a lot of Ocarina of Time or Breath of the Wild, but before Tears of the Kingdom, The Wind Waker would be a strong contender to take that third place spot.
It's sometimes easy to forget just how derided The Wind Waker was at launch – mostly down to its cartoony art style not matching what people had in mind for a proper 'next-gen' Zelda – but it's firmly a fan favourite now. But it's not without its problems, mainly a feeling of it being 'unfinished' with dungeons being cut from the final release, and the tedious Triforce quest took the place of them to lengthen the game.
Back in a 2005 issue of Edge, Aonuma was asked about The Wind Waker feeling unfinished, to which he responded "I think that that's my fault. To tell the truth, originally we were thinking about something bigger, and in order to make it on time we had to make it more compact-sized," adding, "even though I say compact, we were trying our best so that we could entertain people enough."
Aonuma continues, "That was our intention and I thought that we could do that But if people are feeling that way, that was my fault for lack of effort, and of course when it comes to the new Legend Of Zelda, I really don't want to have that kind of impression from the players,"
Of course, The Wii U version of The Wind Waker brought the game to a new audience and fixed some of its biggest issues, only furthering its popularity, and the game continued to grow on people once the issues with its artstyle subsided (although contrary to fan backlash, it was extremely well received by critics at the time). Plus, fans speculate those extra dungeons ended up being used as the basis for future entries' dungeons.
