After the first dungeon, Windwaker went downhill fast.
I dunno. Wind Waker still had it's charming moments. Things I remember enjoying:
1. The Tower of the gods - I loved the rising and falling water levels. Not new to the series, but it was well-done.
2. Prominence of the King of Hyrule and Zelda. Zelda plays much more prominently WW than in the other games. My biggest disappointment with TP was the lack of Zelda; we saw much more character from in WW.
3. Strong narrative ties with OoT, and the nods to events that happened in the previous game. I think Wind Waker made much more sense in context with OoT and LttP. TP was a great game, but it just muddied the waters plot-wise; it's almost as if it was in an alternate universe...Ultimate Zelda or something.
4. Ominous feel of the game during the search for Jabun. Unfortunately the encounter is short, and there's no dungeon involved, but at least you didn't have to travel through his digestive tract this time.
5. Valoo's torching of the watch tower on the Forsaken Fortress.
6. Brief glimpses of Old Hyrule and Hyrule Castle.
7. Final fight with Ganon.
Wind Waker did go downhill, but I don't think it did so until the very end when you realize that they only had six real dungeons counting the repeated visits to the Forbidden Isle as one. I think that's the right count, but my memory may be a bit fuzzy. By the end, I was left feeling as if I had only played 2/3 of a Zelda game. The Triforce quest was a little lame and anticlimatic; I expected the Triforce pieces to be harder to obtain.
This probably belongs in the other Zelda thread, but the biggest problems I
did have with Wind Waker didn't change in Twilight Princess. Much of the time, I heard that Ganon (and Zant) were really evil, but aside from a few events, I didn't really sense an ominous threat. Most of the time, in both games, it always felt as if the stakes were being lowered as the game progressed. In Twilight Princess, you consistenly beat back the Twilight, and you really see little to no reaction from the forces of evil. In Wind Waker, aside from kidnapping of Aryll, the destruction of the Great Fish Isle, and ominous storm that occurs when you search for Jabun, the player isn't shown why Ganon is so dangerous or considered to be so evil. In contrast, in OoT, there was a certain shock value to seeing how 7 years of Ganon's dominion had affected Hyrule.