In my opinion, sort of. I'm not ranting against the graphics or anything; it just doesn't suit my personal preferences. OoT and MM were often criticized for having a lack of exploration. I understand this, it wasn't the same as LoZ or ALttP, but I spent much more time exploring in OoT and MM than in WW. OoT has people, many people. They give subtle hints, give information about the world, and produce a much richer sense of atmosphere than LoZ or ALttP give. There is character development, and there are many things to collect. But is exploring for quests really different then looking for a new lake? I like MM a lot more than most other people seem to, I have never seen a game before that has had stories as good as MM has, I actually wanted to see what was happening to characters. I may not have found a lake, but I spent more time exploring in OoT and MM than any other games.
I find none of this in WW. I haven't found a lake, and there is only one town I feel that is big enough to explore. The only thing to find at sea that you aren't forced to find (that you could 'explore' for) is heart pieces. The gallery is too loose to have to explore for the photos, it only takes a lot of time and hassle to only have three spaces, then having to warp, then having to play the song six times for three trophies. Heart pieces over a map 49 times the size of Hyrule field. Most of the time the islands have little significance, and are irrelevant. The treasure maps only lead to some rupees, which I never need, or heart pieces, and if I have already found the treasure maps, then there is no exploration involved in getting the heart pieces. Sailing over nothing I do not find interesting, and especially not nothing 49 times the size of Hyrule field. I love Windfall island, because it feels like there is something to find, but I can't say I love sailing.
There are other things that I dislike about WW. The wind waker itself I don’t like. You can’t play around with it, and it doesn’t seem like you’re playing a song with it. The ocarina was perfect, I felt, I can’t understand why they choose the wind waker over the ocarina. There were too few dungeons, in my mind as well. I still like WW, but in my mind, it doesn’t live up to the other games in the series.
These are my favourite 5 games.
1) Majora’s Mask*
2) Ocarina of Time
3) Chrono Trigger
4) Super Mario 64
5) A Link to the Past
Tetra’s Trackers is going to be a puzzle game – a franchise game. I hope Zelda doesn’t tun into a franchise like Mario does.
*As I said before, I like MM more than most people, but that's another story.