List of missable pictographs and figurines in Zelda: The Wind Waker

Today, we’re going over a list of missable pictographs and missable figurines in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

Recently, we’ve been playing the game on GameCube. More specifically, the version that’s available on Nintendo Switch Online. While the game is fun to play casually, it’s not fun to 100 percent complete. The Wind Waker’s side content includes plenty of tedious Heart Pieces and trading sequences, but its biggest task is completing the dreaded Nintendo Gallery. For this task, you have to take pictures of almost every single entity in the game. The picture needs to include its face and most of its body in order to count. You can then hand this picture off to Carlov, who makes a figurine based on it. There are well over 100 different figures to make, and some of them are actually permanently missable. If you decide to play through The Wind Waker with a walkthrough (Zelda Dungeon’s is particularly good), it most likely won’t tell you which pictures are about to become unobtainable.

Missable figurines and pictographs

It’s important to note that one of the figurines, Knuckle, is completely unobtainable in The Wind Waker on Nintendo Switch Online. This is because it doesn’t support the Tingle Tuner, which normally connects to a Game Boy Advance. As a result, all of the Tingle Statues are also unobtainable in this version of the game. Fortunately, Knuckle’s picture isn’t required to complete the Nintendo Gallery.

• Cyclos is a character who appears in a tornado in the Great Sea. You normally have to hit him with an arrow to learn the Ballad of Gales, and once you do that, you can no longer obtain his picture. Make sure you take a picture of him before you attack!
• There are a few Big Octos spread throughout the Great Sea, and they’re missable if you fail to take a picture of them before beating them all.
• Kogoli is a Rito character who stands outside on one of Dragon Roost Island’s wooden platforms during the day. Take a picture of him before you awaken Medli as the Earth Sage or he’ll disappear forever!
• Phantom Ganon is battled twice, but you need to take a picture of him before beating him for the last time.
• The Helmaroc King is only battled once, so make sure you take a picture before you defeat it. It might be a good idea to create a restore point during the fight just in case Carlov decides your picture isn’t good enough. He does that a lot.
• The Orange Wizzrobe mini-boss in the Wind Temple is a one-time character, so if you don’t take a picture of it you won’t be able to afterward.
• Tetra’s picture will also unlock figurines of her entire pirate crew as well. The only time you can take this photo is when you’re taking her to the very bottom of Hyrule Castle under the ocean.
• Puppet Ganon is the last missable figurine, and it’s tricky. You actually have to take a picture of him and then save and quit the game in order to escape Ganon’s Tower. Then, go to Forest Haven and give the picture to Carlov. You’ll have to fight Puppet Ganon again afterward.

As we mentioned with the Helmaroc King, a good strategy is to create a restore point during crucial moments. That way, if Carlov doesn’t accept your missable pictograph, you can load the restore point and try again. The camera’s limit of three picture slots is absolutely brutal for 100% completion – you’ll need to take well over 50 trips to the Nintendo Gallery in order to finish everything, and your reward in the end is a figure of Link and the King of Red Lions.

To take the best possible pictures in The Wind Waker, you have to include the character’s face and most of their body. This makes taking pictures of character duos, like the gossiping women in Windfall Island, difficult. It’s also tough to take pictures of characters who are facing the ocean with no platforms in front of them. In this case, there is usually a place you can glide to nearby. From there, you can zoom in on the character’s face with the camera to take a better picture. We’d recommend taking three different pictures of problematic characters so that you have multiple pictographs to show to Carlov. Getting each character properly in frame is annoying, but definitely possible.

Have you ever finished The Wind Waker’s Nintendo Gallery, or do you prefer just playing through the game casually? Let us know in the comments down below. You can play Zelda: The Wind Waker on Nintendo Switch 2 via the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack.