During the cutscene where Link meets the King of Red Lions, he's staring directly at the boat's figurehead as he listens to the story of Ganondorf's return to power. Afterwards, the King looks away in shame at not possessing a sail, yet Link continues to stare at the space where his head was beforehand.
An unbarred door in the Forbidden Woods uses the wrong sound clip of metal bars rather than wooden ones.
When Link first meets Laruto's spirit on Headstone Island, he goes from a default expression to a look of surprise instantly when it cuts to a close-up of his face. In the same scene, for some reason, his gaze keeps drifting to the side and then snapping back to Laruto and repeating continually.
There are several of these during the ending cutscenes. Link's shield disappears from his model after Ganondorf is defeated but reappears after the credits roll. Also, when the two are listening to the King of Hyrule, Zelda is initially standing on Link's left but then switches to his right when the camera cuts away.
In the original game, attempting to conduct the Song of Passing during the curse of endless night triggered a message about the song's power being blocked by evil magic. In the remaster, this text is mistakenly displayed any time the song is conducted where it can't be used (inside buildings, dungeons, or in Hyrule), replacing the text from the original game about it only working in places where the sun or moon are visible.
Christmas Rushed: According to Eiji Aonuma, the game was set to release on a strict date and couldn't be delayed any; this resulted in two possible dungeons being cut, and the infamous Triforce quest being put in as padding. The response of Shigeru Miyamoto to this trope is the current page quote (though not, as is commonly misattributed, referring to this game in particular).
There is an item in-game that can't be accessed without hacking. It has no in-game visual, and on the menus, it simply shows up as kanji translating to "Water Boots." Equipping it and pressing the button makes Link hop as if he was slipping on the Iron Boots, earning it the nickname of the "Link Shuffle."
Of all of the levels on the original game disc, about a third of them go unused. Examples include an early version of Outset Island from E3 2002 (which itself includes assets belonging to an even older version), the map used for the Spaceworld 2001 demo (though only its collision survives)note The collision file is a normal DZB file containing the Spaceworld 2001 demo map collision. The visual model, on the other hand, is a mis-named Autodesk Maya text-based file containing what seems to be a Hyrule Castle interior consistent with that of the final game., and the workshop in the head of the tower on Tingle Island (mentioned in Tingle Tuner quests but never visited in-game). This is by no means a comprehensive list.
While making the original version, the development team created huge, high-resolution texture assets which had to be pared down to run on the GameCube. With the HD remaster, they were able to finally use them when creating the enhanced graphics.
Model Dissonance: One Pro-Action Replay cheat code enables the player to hold a button to levitate. This can be done indefinitely (unless you crash the game). When climbing Dragon Roost Mountain, the player will pass through several doors that actually load new maps at the top of the mountain. Thus, if the player levitates up to the top of Dragon Roost Mountain from the overworld map, they'll find that the top of the Mountain isn't actually animated at all from above, and it's just a hollow, glitchy tube that allows the player to see all the way through to the ocean.
The first concept designs for Link depicted him as an adult, before opting to make him a pre-teen instead.
The game's art style was initially an evolution of the one used for Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. However, the concept artists came up with the Toon Link design, and the team loved it so much that they decided to base the game's look around it.
At least two other dungeons were planned to be in the game, but eventually had to be cut due to the game being Christmas Rushed. They were thinking about having them be added in the HD remaster, but decided to stay true to the original version of the game, and instead streamlined the Triforce collection quest.
The eponymous Wind Waker was originally a theremin, which had a more complicated control scheme involving both sticks. Shigeru Miyamoto thought it was no good, so the team eventually settled on the baton.
The Deku Leaf was initially just a paper fan that only blew gusts of wind.
In the original E3 trailer, Link wore clothes in the style of Link from the original game instead of Ocarina of Time-style clothes.
The game was to have Dual-World Gameplay by way of the underwater Hyrule, which was also meant to be much more elaborate than the one in the final version. Link would have been able to warp back to the surface by grabbing onto fishing hooks that would pull him out.
Concept art shows various unused Tetra designs, including an Ambiguously Brown Zelda.
The first trailer shows that Link originally had a sneak ability for the fortress section of the game. It was later replaced with using barrels.
When you enter Gohma's boss room in Dragon Roost Cavern, if you do not move for a while, the King of Red Lions will tell you "A mighty enemy stands before you!" and give you advice on how to fight Gohma, even if Gohma hasn't appeared yet. Similarly, if you don't attack Phantom Ganon the proper way on your first encounter, the Pirate's Charm will activate and the King of Red Lions assures you that you can strike back his projectiles with the Master Sword's power to repel evil.
Nintendo consulted a retired Toei animator who worked on Toei films of the 1960s for direction on The Wind Waker's art style, explaining why the game's cel-shading style is so different and more polished than other games' cel-shading.
As per Zelda tradition, when you defeat a dungeon boss, you have a moment to relax and get the heart piece before going to the teleport to exit the dungeon. Typically, ambient sounds or a calm relaxing melody plays. In this game, for the first two dungeons, the first few notes of the "final hours" music from Majora's Mask play. note The sound itself turned out to be one of many that the devs ripped from one of those off-the-shelf stock sound effect CDs that they had.
The cell-shaded art style was purposefully kept hidden from Shigeru Miyamoto, as Eiji Aonuma thought he'd dislike it. Miyamoto was only made aware of the game's look when it was too far into development to realistically change.
, which had a more complicated control scheme involving both sticks. Shigeru Miyamoto thought it was no good, so the team eventually settled on the baton.