The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

The Set Up: One of Nintendo's most beloved franchises, installments of the Legend of Zelda series are always highly anticipated, especially entries on new platforms.  So when a technical demonstration of the GameCube hardware at Space World 2000 featured a clip of Link and Ganondorf sword fighting, it got loyalists very excited.  Despite being less than a half-minute long, it planted assumptions for what the future would hold for the franchise.  A year later Space World 2001 rolled along and the new form of Zelda was revealed.

The Reaction: At the initial revelation of Link's new cartoonish form, there was an audible gasp in the audience.  The game that would become The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker almost immediately split the fan base in two between those who liked the cel-shaded look or were at least tolerant of it, to those who hated the new look with a passion and felt betrayed that the game didn't have a "realistic" look like the Space World 2000 demonstration.  Long threads in gaming forums took place, with both sides debating Wind Waker's merits, and even when the game released its graphical style almost received more attention than its gameplay.

The Aftermath: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker ended up selling over three million copies worldwide.  This is by no means a failure, but is still less than half the 7.6 million that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time sold on the N64.  To this day, we know Legend of Zelda fans who refuse to acknowledge Wind Waker in any way, and the next main series entry by Nintendo was the much more realistic looking The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess which has sold nearly six million units.  The legacy of Wind Waker lives on, however, in the portable incarnations Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks.