Kyrith_Ranger_Pso
Feb 16, 2012, 04:13 PM
Kyrith here, and I like bashing my opinion into people's heads :D, so here we go
Skyward is the first Zelda game to hit consoles since Twilight Princess (so 5 year difference), it boasted having a good narrative to tie up some of the plot of the Zelda franchise (which they have recently been trying to make into a continuum). It also made an attempt to mix up the Zelda formula by using Wii Motion Plus for the combat and "blurring the line between dungeon and over world" (the quote was something like that). Without further ado let's get into the thick of it, did it work out?
First and foremost let's take a look at the dungeon over world mix-up. This aspect becomes incredibly obvious from the moment you drop into the over world. First off, you no longer walk around in the over world, you drop from the sky and click where you want to land. Your location choices are where-ever you have found a save point (that's right, save points). From there you can walk around the area as you plea- WAIT, first Fi will probably have some useless nonsense to tell you, and then you can begin your trek through the area. But then you'll realize something, it's not really much of an area. It's basically just a little circle connected to another couple of little circles populated with enemies, simple puzzles... and a crap ton of fetch quests that haven't been nearly as present in recent installments in the Zelda franchise. After completing the many simple puzzles throughout the "world" you happen to be in, ( not to mention there are only 3...) you will enter a dungeon. These dungeons are actually a bit refreshing to a degree, they are pretty small because of the increased amount of time spent in the over world which I actually liked since in theory it would mean you wouldn't get sick of the dungeon but it was still going to have some clever puzzles. For the most part the dungeons are pretty enjoyable with a decent amount of fun combat and a few small puzzles that you'll be happy figuring out, but the real problem lies in what I just said, few, many of the puzzles aren't clever at all and simply require you to find a repeatedly copied and pasted rock with an obvious hint on it. Then after solving the puzzle you will probably get a key, repeat this sometimes fun, sometimes not action until you find the boss. The bosses in this game are mixed. A few of them are just far too easy, such as the first fire boss, and then a few of them are really fun and make you feel like a bad-ass, namely the tentacle monste- WAIT Fi has to explain the boss almost entirely before you even get a chance to attack this one (I swear, she's like a constant kaepora geabora). Now about that pesky little thing i said earlier, fetch quests directed by Fi, the worst partner character to be in The Legend of Zelda to date. These little things are everywhere during the second half of the game especially and are both easy as crap and tedious as crap. Expect them to take 15 - 20 minutes of your time over and over again as you get closer to the end of the game (one of them is actually really awesome but I won't spoil that part).
Next item on the list is the narrative upgrade. This game starts out like many others in a town with a few little quests to give you a tutorial and some characters before starting the meat of the game. Your time in Skyloft is actually pretty fun though, flying your bird feels great and the town itself is a ton of fun to be in. The music is great, the graphics are spectacular up here and fit the setting perfectly. You don’t spend too much time here, maybe an hour and a half or so. The biggest problem with this place is that Fi is there… such is a problem with most areas in the game… because Fi is there through the entire game… oh how I hate her. Aaaaaanyway, Zelda is then pulled out of the sky while the two of you are having one of the games well-made cut scenes (they’re actually pretty cool as long as Fi doesn’t say much during them). You are then tasked with following her after getting the goddess sword. So you head to Faron Woods and I’ll try not to spoil much, though I will say the narrative doesn’t really appear as much more for a while aside from meeting a questionably (to say the least) male demon who will be your antagonist. The game, like most, doesn’t make an attempt to show you any of the story in the environment or optionally which I didn’t expect to be there but still wish it was. By the end of the game you’ll finally be getting to the narrative that was talked about before-hand, but honestly it’s not very impressive (though a few of the lines at the very end are very well done). It’s basically an attempt to make a continuum for games that until the last 5 – 10 years or so didn’t care about having a continuing story. And as such the games attempt to tie up loose ends is appreciated but not exactly satisfying. Many of you already know my opinion on the subject of Zelda which is that it should get rebooted with storyline in mind from the start, but that’s another topic entirely.
The motion controls have also been a much disputed topic since the game was announced to have them so let’s address that. They work very, very well. You swing the sword within a reasonable speed and Link’s sword will follow (assuming you calibrated it well at the games start-up). They are a lot of fun and your self esteem will really fly up a bit (I certainly hope that’s not actually true for most people since that may be a bit of a problem when you get back to the real world), but anyway it is satisfying for the most part. One of its issues though is that most enemies work the same way, you either hack till they die or you watch the way they shield and hack in the other direction. My primary gripe here is that The Legend of Zelda already had one of the greatest combat systems ever produced. It was perfectly fluid, the targeting system was just about spot-on perfect, and has been since Ocarina of Time, and I was really liking the direction Twilight Princess (and Wind Waker a little bit too) took it in by adding new techniques to the sword play but keeping the basic core of it the same. So for some people the new combat will be awesome and they’ll be happy to have it, but for others you’ll be kind of sad to see the combat system you loved from the previous game gone.
My next target is the presentation, and primarily the graphics, and from the get-go Nintendo seems to have bulls-eyed it. Skyloft is absolutely gorgeous; everything down to the trees and vines looks great and lively. The people look a little odd but I guess that’s ok in Skyloft for the most part. As Link hits the ground though you’re hit by something much harder, you probably can’t take the world seriously, and if you can’t take most of the world seriously you can’t very well take the narrative or yourself seriously either. Not to mention Fi’s absolutely terrifying face when she “sings”. The goron you encounter looks ridiculous and cell shading isn’t lending a helping hand into the non-existent seriousness of the game. For some people this probably won’t be a problem, especially if you didn’t play Twilight Princess or Majora’s Mask and aren’t expecting Zelda games to be serious. For me, on the other hand, these graphics were very annoying and became one of the major reasons I didn’t like the story telling too much especially with all the detailed animations present during cut scenes. On a side-note, all the work that appears to be put into the cut scenes has really gotten me annoyed at the lack of voice acting (though maybe that’s a good thing since I doubt Nintendo would have half-serious voice actors for this particular game).
Now it’s time to discuss something terrible, perhaps the worst part about the entire game……. Fi. I’ve mentioned her incredibly annoying self a few times already but now it’s time to go a little deeper into why I hate her so much. She’s your partner character for the game, and as I learned from Midna, Zelda partners can actually be pretty cool. Up until the games release Fi seemed like she might actually be a cool character, that was… not true, the primary issue with her is not her dumb dialogue or ridiculous percentage calculations (*Spoiler* they’re never wrong), or even the fact that she’s terribly animated unless she’s doing her boring as hell dance thingy. The worst part about Fi is how prominent she is. She basically shows up every time anything happens ever. She re-tells you what almost all NPCs say during the main quest and she practically spoils a ton of the dungeon puzzles. Not to mention that half the time she points out things that anyone would notice! She explains every item you collect to make sure you don’t have any experimentation what-so-ever.
Now I’ll hit on a few of the changes to the series that really were a good idea. First and foremost there’s really a reason to have rupees. In previous 3D Zelda games you occasionally spent rupees on potions and basically nothing else so you’re wallet filled up and you had almost nothing left to do with it. In Skyward Sword however, there are tons of item upgrades to obtain that are actually useful. You can give your beetle (this item doesn’t exactly lend a helping hand to taking the game seriously) higher stamina or a speed boost, you could make your slingshot shoot up to five bullets at a time (though the slingshot is basically useless after the first dungeon or two), you could make your shield more durable (that’s another addition that I’m not too fond of, shields can break easily for the first portion of the game), or many other upgrades. There are also a variety of potions to buy and even those can be upgraded once or twice. Beetle’s ship has also made a return in this game and he sells quite a few useful, and very pricey, items such as expansions to your adventure pouch, which brings me to my next point. You can only hold a certain number of items in this game at a time (the rest go in storage). This isn’t really a problem and is actually a fairly good idea that can be pretty fun and adds a sort of customization layer (for lack of a better word).
Last but not least I’ll tackle the Skyworld. Within the Skyworld you have Skyloft and a whole bunch of islands floating around. Skyloft is filled with a decent number of side quests (though all the ones I’ve played are kiddie and boring for the most part) and the aforementioned shops that are located in a bazaar and in Beetles airship that floats around Skyloft. The other islands however have significantly less content on them; most of them boil down to holding a treasure chest that is only open able after you’ve hit a goddess stone in the surface world. There are a few islands with mini games and an island with a bar on it (which contains some boring fetch quests). Flying though, as I’ve mention before I believe, feels like a dream and is controlled by turning the Wii Mote and having your loftwing turn with it. You can also shake the Wii Mote to raise your altitude so as to enter into a swift dive.
Conclusion Summary: Skyward Sword doesn’t really re-invent nearly as much as it boasted it would and most of the changes are for the worse. The new dungeon-over world mix just kills the feeling of having an over world at all and the motion controls work very well but, as with all motion controls, they just aren’t very fun to use (though it they are probably an improvement on some of the extra items because you can now walk around in first person while pulling back an arrow or readying your clawshot). The art style looks good sometimes but really makes it hard to take the game seriously, not to mention that the writing, assumedly made to fit the goofy character models, is very poorly written for most of the game. I guess my final opinion is that the other 3D Zelda games were so good that even though I don’t think Skyward Sword is nearly as good it was still a decent amount of fun. So I guess I was kind of disappointed with the game even though I still think it’s worth buying.
It’s kind of hard to give it a number score but I will, 7.0
Skyward is the first Zelda game to hit consoles since Twilight Princess (so 5 year difference), it boasted having a good narrative to tie up some of the plot of the Zelda franchise (which they have recently been trying to make into a continuum). It also made an attempt to mix up the Zelda formula by using Wii Motion Plus for the combat and "blurring the line between dungeon and over world" (the quote was something like that). Without further ado let's get into the thick of it, did it work out?
First and foremost let's take a look at the dungeon over world mix-up. This aspect becomes incredibly obvious from the moment you drop into the over world. First off, you no longer walk around in the over world, you drop from the sky and click where you want to land. Your location choices are where-ever you have found a save point (that's right, save points). From there you can walk around the area as you plea- WAIT, first Fi will probably have some useless nonsense to tell you, and then you can begin your trek through the area. But then you'll realize something, it's not really much of an area. It's basically just a little circle connected to another couple of little circles populated with enemies, simple puzzles... and a crap ton of fetch quests that haven't been nearly as present in recent installments in the Zelda franchise. After completing the many simple puzzles throughout the "world" you happen to be in, ( not to mention there are only 3...) you will enter a dungeon. These dungeons are actually a bit refreshing to a degree, they are pretty small because of the increased amount of time spent in the over world which I actually liked since in theory it would mean you wouldn't get sick of the dungeon but it was still going to have some clever puzzles. For the most part the dungeons are pretty enjoyable with a decent amount of fun combat and a few small puzzles that you'll be happy figuring out, but the real problem lies in what I just said, few, many of the puzzles aren't clever at all and simply require you to find a repeatedly copied and pasted rock with an obvious hint on it. Then after solving the puzzle you will probably get a key, repeat this sometimes fun, sometimes not action until you find the boss. The bosses in this game are mixed. A few of them are just far too easy, such as the first fire boss, and then a few of them are really fun and make you feel like a bad-ass, namely the tentacle monste- WAIT Fi has to explain the boss almost entirely before you even get a chance to attack this one (I swear, she's like a constant kaepora geabora). Now about that pesky little thing i said earlier, fetch quests directed by Fi, the worst partner character to be in The Legend of Zelda to date. These little things are everywhere during the second half of the game especially and are both easy as crap and tedious as crap. Expect them to take 15 - 20 minutes of your time over and over again as you get closer to the end of the game (one of them is actually really awesome but I won't spoil that part).
Next item on the list is the narrative upgrade. This game starts out like many others in a town with a few little quests to give you a tutorial and some characters before starting the meat of the game. Your time in Skyloft is actually pretty fun though, flying your bird feels great and the town itself is a ton of fun to be in. The music is great, the graphics are spectacular up here and fit the setting perfectly. You don’t spend too much time here, maybe an hour and a half or so. The biggest problem with this place is that Fi is there… such is a problem with most areas in the game… because Fi is there through the entire game… oh how I hate her. Aaaaaanyway, Zelda is then pulled out of the sky while the two of you are having one of the games well-made cut scenes (they’re actually pretty cool as long as Fi doesn’t say much during them). You are then tasked with following her after getting the goddess sword. So you head to Faron Woods and I’ll try not to spoil much, though I will say the narrative doesn’t really appear as much more for a while aside from meeting a questionably (to say the least) male demon who will be your antagonist. The game, like most, doesn’t make an attempt to show you any of the story in the environment or optionally which I didn’t expect to be there but still wish it was. By the end of the game you’ll finally be getting to the narrative that was talked about before-hand, but honestly it’s not very impressive (though a few of the lines at the very end are very well done). It’s basically an attempt to make a continuum for games that until the last 5 – 10 years or so didn’t care about having a continuing story. And as such the games attempt to tie up loose ends is appreciated but not exactly satisfying. Many of you already know my opinion on the subject of Zelda which is that it should get rebooted with storyline in mind from the start, but that’s another topic entirely.
The motion controls have also been a much disputed topic since the game was announced to have them so let’s address that. They work very, very well. You swing the sword within a reasonable speed and Link’s sword will follow (assuming you calibrated it well at the games start-up). They are a lot of fun and your self esteem will really fly up a bit (I certainly hope that’s not actually true for most people since that may be a bit of a problem when you get back to the real world), but anyway it is satisfying for the most part. One of its issues though is that most enemies work the same way, you either hack till they die or you watch the way they shield and hack in the other direction. My primary gripe here is that The Legend of Zelda already had one of the greatest combat systems ever produced. It was perfectly fluid, the targeting system was just about spot-on perfect, and has been since Ocarina of Time, and I was really liking the direction Twilight Princess (and Wind Waker a little bit too) took it in by adding new techniques to the sword play but keeping the basic core of it the same. So for some people the new combat will be awesome and they’ll be happy to have it, but for others you’ll be kind of sad to see the combat system you loved from the previous game gone.
My next target is the presentation, and primarily the graphics, and from the get-go Nintendo seems to have bulls-eyed it. Skyloft is absolutely gorgeous; everything down to the trees and vines looks great and lively. The people look a little odd but I guess that’s ok in Skyloft for the most part. As Link hits the ground though you’re hit by something much harder, you probably can’t take the world seriously, and if you can’t take most of the world seriously you can’t very well take the narrative or yourself seriously either. Not to mention Fi’s absolutely terrifying face when she “sings”. The goron you encounter looks ridiculous and cell shading isn’t lending a helping hand into the non-existent seriousness of the game. For some people this probably won’t be a problem, especially if you didn’t play Twilight Princess or Majora’s Mask and aren’t expecting Zelda games to be serious. For me, on the other hand, these graphics were very annoying and became one of the major reasons I didn’t like the story telling too much especially with all the detailed animations present during cut scenes. On a side-note, all the work that appears to be put into the cut scenes has really gotten me annoyed at the lack of voice acting (though maybe that’s a good thing since I doubt Nintendo would have half-serious voice actors for this particular game).
Now it’s time to discuss something terrible, perhaps the worst part about the entire game……. Fi. I’ve mentioned her incredibly annoying self a few times already but now it’s time to go a little deeper into why I hate her so much. She’s your partner character for the game, and as I learned from Midna, Zelda partners can actually be pretty cool. Up until the games release Fi seemed like she might actually be a cool character, that was… not true, the primary issue with her is not her dumb dialogue or ridiculous percentage calculations (*Spoiler* they’re never wrong), or even the fact that she’s terribly animated unless she’s doing her boring as hell dance thingy. The worst part about Fi is how prominent she is. She basically shows up every time anything happens ever. She re-tells you what almost all NPCs say during the main quest and she practically spoils a ton of the dungeon puzzles. Not to mention that half the time she points out things that anyone would notice! She explains every item you collect to make sure you don’t have any experimentation what-so-ever.
Now I’ll hit on a few of the changes to the series that really were a good idea. First and foremost there’s really a reason to have rupees. In previous 3D Zelda games you occasionally spent rupees on potions and basically nothing else so you’re wallet filled up and you had almost nothing left to do with it. In Skyward Sword however, there are tons of item upgrades to obtain that are actually useful. You can give your beetle (this item doesn’t exactly lend a helping hand to taking the game seriously) higher stamina or a speed boost, you could make your slingshot shoot up to five bullets at a time (though the slingshot is basically useless after the first dungeon or two), you could make your shield more durable (that’s another addition that I’m not too fond of, shields can break easily for the first portion of the game), or many other upgrades. There are also a variety of potions to buy and even those can be upgraded once or twice. Beetle’s ship has also made a return in this game and he sells quite a few useful, and very pricey, items such as expansions to your adventure pouch, which brings me to my next point. You can only hold a certain number of items in this game at a time (the rest go in storage). This isn’t really a problem and is actually a fairly good idea that can be pretty fun and adds a sort of customization layer (for lack of a better word).
Last but not least I’ll tackle the Skyworld. Within the Skyworld you have Skyloft and a whole bunch of islands floating around. Skyloft is filled with a decent number of side quests (though all the ones I’ve played are kiddie and boring for the most part) and the aforementioned shops that are located in a bazaar and in Beetles airship that floats around Skyloft. The other islands however have significantly less content on them; most of them boil down to holding a treasure chest that is only open able after you’ve hit a goddess stone in the surface world. There are a few islands with mini games and an island with a bar on it (which contains some boring fetch quests). Flying though, as I’ve mention before I believe, feels like a dream and is controlled by turning the Wii Mote and having your loftwing turn with it. You can also shake the Wii Mote to raise your altitude so as to enter into a swift dive.
Conclusion Summary: Skyward Sword doesn’t really re-invent nearly as much as it boasted it would and most of the changes are for the worse. The new dungeon-over world mix just kills the feeling of having an over world at all and the motion controls work very well but, as with all motion controls, they just aren’t very fun to use (though it they are probably an improvement on some of the extra items because you can now walk around in first person while pulling back an arrow or readying your clawshot). The art style looks good sometimes but really makes it hard to take the game seriously, not to mention that the writing, assumedly made to fit the goofy character models, is very poorly written for most of the game. I guess my final opinion is that the other 3D Zelda games were so good that even though I don’t think Skyward Sword is nearly as good it was still a decent amount of fun. So I guess I was kind of disappointed with the game even though I still think it’s worth buying.
It’s kind of hard to give it a number score but I will, 7.0