Game Mechanics

This page is dedicated to intended mechanics in Wind Waker.

Travel

The main way to travel in Wind Waker is walking/running or sailing on the King of Red Lions. Faster movement on foot can be achieved by rolling. Faster sea travel can be achieved by warping.

In some cases where rolling isn't an option (Like holding a bomb or a statue), sidehopping is the preferred way of moving, however, in some cases, setting up for a sidehop might take too long, so you would be better off by target turning or just walking to where you need to go.

Horizontal Movement Speeds (Ordered by speed)

Data collected by Cryze and JarheadHME (Obtained from ZeldaSpeedRuns and modified to match the Randomizer values)

Movement type	Speed
Hookshotting	62.66
Rolling (Maximum Speed)	26
Sidehopping	24.87
Sidehopping with Iron Boots	24.87
Backflipping	22.50
Jumpslashing	18
Swimming	18
Walking	17
Jumping	17
Flying with Medli	17
Walking backwards	15
Walking sideways	12
Leafing (No Wind)	12
Crawling	11.42
Backflipping with Iron Boots	11.25
Midair Jumpslashing	9
Rolling with Iron Boots	5
Walking with Iron Boots	4.05

All of these values are taken directly from in-game memory addresses. Speed is measured in units per frame. Each quadrant of the ocean is 100,000 units.

Note: Techniques such as Rolling, Crawling and Sidling along walls have been modified for the Randomizer, so their data might differ from the vanilla game or work differently in the Randomizer. Check out their respective sections for more info.

Rolling

Rolling is the fastest way to move on ground in the game, especially if you chain them constantly with no steps in between them. There's a 2 frame window between each roll in order to keep maximum speed (See the values above). It's also important to try to cut as many corners with each roll as possible. This is made easier with the Notches on the Gamecube controller.

To roll, you need to hold a direction on the analog stick, then press the A button, Link will then roll to the direction you were holding on the stick with an animation that can not be interrumpted. If you collide with certain walls or objects during this animation, you will bonk into it, losing all your speed and entering an animation that loses a little bit of time.

It's important to note that rolls have been modified in the Randomizer to be basically the same as the rolls in the HD version of the game, where they were improved by reducing the minimum speed of a roll from 5 to 20 units of speed, making them easier to do optimally without losing time.

Target Techniques

They're performed by holding the L button to target and pressing the A button. They generally make Link jump in some way, so they're used to get on ledges that normally would make him do a slow climb or hop animation instead.

They normally make you move in straight lines, but since they make use of targetting, if there's an enemy or a targeteable object near you, their direction might get messed up since Link will try to turn to be facing towards that object. To avoid this, you gotta press A and target at the same time.

They're very common for a lot of different setups because they keep your initial angle and they make you move at consistent distances.