The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

[speedfreak]

Yeah, Fi sucked. Kinda strange considering how great Midna was. She was the best character in TP. Maybe they made Fi so boring so she wouldn't overshadow Link and Zelda because Midna was easily the most best character in TP.

[lounge]

I like Fi because she was respectful to Link. I didn't see a difference as far as popping up and stating the obvious though. But hearing her call me master was very nice to hear.

I disagree with SS being linear though. I actually found it really open.

I just wish Koji Kondo had more of a hand in this. Cause everytime some other people handle the music they manage to create really underwhelming stuff. I mean that Lanayru Mine music drove me insane. Stuff like the Desert also sound really meh.

Other than those nitpicks one of the best adventure games I've ever played. Is it the best zelda? For me it's hands down the best gameplay and cutscenes. Nostalgia with the N64 games is still hard to let go of though.

I haven't tried Hero Mode. I want to wait many years before I play it again. Maybe 5-10 yrs so that everything will be somewhat fresh.

[Wraith]

Fi sucked.

But everything else about this game is incredible. It's pretty much my favorite Zelda.

But Fi really sucked.

[Komodin]

Well Fi, there's a 100% chance that you are the most useless sidekick to ever grace a Zelda game. God.

Well, I certainly wouldn't go as far as say that she's the most useless sidekick in the series; as far as being a bestiary is concerned, she's simply the best of the sidekicks.

[Gregzilla]

Fi isn't useless. She's just a terrible character. Nothing she says is interesting, and the majority of what she tells you is stuff you already know (probably because you just heard it two seconds ago). She can be helpful when you go out of your way to talk to her (SOMETIMES), but that doesn't excuse her obnoxiousness and utter lack of personality.

[Old dead account]

Fi's a pretty cardboard cutout character. I wish they would've given her an actual personality rather than just a robot, I mean Midna was so awesome if not a bit of a spotlight hog and then we get Fi and personally I prefer a character that steals the spotlight a bit rather than someone that pops up to say what we may already know. Seems like she got a very slight bit of development at the end but nothing worth noting.

[Conando]

Fi was like Navi 2.0 that had a say in everything. It makes me wonder if the Japanese really like having their hand held that much. I could get over her shittiness due to the over all quality of the game, though. I honestly liked the changes.

[DarkDefeater]

I actually liked Fi, because I like the emotionless, android type character. Like Data, from Star Trek - The Next Generation. Favorite character in that series. So, I liked Fi too.

I also liked the music in Lanayru mine as well. One of my favorite tracks in the game. Yes, the 'present' version can get to be grating, but the past version - it has such a beautiful buildup and truly makes you feel you are in a technological marvel of the past.

[Speederino]

(Warning, huge wall of text incoming. Again. Oh and mild spoiler warning, I guess)

Finished it, and I have to say that my final thoughts are substantially more positive then they were initially. The dungeons from Sandship onwards were absolutely fantastic in my book, especially the final one where you had to rearrange the rooms via a sliding puzzle. Innovative! Brilliant!

...But it's still my least favorite of the 3D Zelda's. Not to say it's a bad game, because it's really not. As we've come to expect, even a sub-par Zelda game is still great when compared to most other franchises of its ilk. But the fact that I originally quit halfway through and then felt like I was slogging my way through the second act definitely counts against it. I felt a lot of the game design was very formulaic, copied and pasted, and in some cases downright lazy. The events leading up to each Sacred Flame temple were just so monotonous. Learn a song, do a trial, do a fetch quest that involves a pointless mini-dungeon, do another fetch quest, FINALLY get in the temple and oh yeah Fi is nagging you the whole way to tell you shit you already know. It just makes for an overall annoying experience.

Another big gripe is with the motion controls. They're great for swordfighting, but did they really need to implement them into everything? I got so tired of flapping my arm while on the bird, trying to be a precise swimmer was sometimes aggravating, and the minecart. Fuck the minecart. And no, don't go telling me I suck at and/or aren't used to motion controls. I got the Wii at launch and stuck with it as my exclusive current gen console until 2010. I know how to use the thing faaaaaaaar better than most other gamers seem to, and I have genuinely enjoyed control schemes that most people deemed unresponsive or waggly (Force Unleashed and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance to name a couple).

And finally, I'd like to discuss some issues I had with the story. Don't get me wrong, it's a good story...once it finally kicks in about 2/3rds of the way through. Before that it's just "You need to look for Zelda!" or "Link, you need to improve the sword...so you can get to Zelda!" Okay, so tell me...why should I care? All I know about Zelda is that she's on a quest and being chased by a long-tongued Michael Jackson, and that he can not be allowed to get her under any circumstances. That's it. That is seriously the only narrative we get until the big reveal. I have no reason to get invested in this world when it doesn't feel like there's any real threat. Compare this to other games. In Ocarina, you learn pretty much straight away that an evil dude is trying to break into the Sacred Realm and steal the Triforce. In Majoras Mask, all you need to do is look up at demonic smiley-man to know what's at stake. In Twilight Princess, the world gets shrouded in darkness within the first five minutes. All these games give you reason a good reason to care about the story.

I suppose you could argue that it's similar to Wind Waker since they both begin with someone you care about getting swept away, but there's a difference. Aryl was obviously in huge danger. She's a little kid being held in a dark dungeon filled with monsters run by a literal demon king. Zelda, on the other hand, is pretty much just walking around. The credits sequence give me the impression that she rarely faces danger, and when she does Impa is perfectly capable of defending her. So basically, for the entire first half of Skyward Sword you're just following your love interest around. That's it. What's Michael Jackson plotting? Why is Zelda on a big epic quest? And most importantly, what is at stake? You don't find any of this out until the third act, and yeah, once you finally know this stuff the story becomes intersting. But it takes way too long to kick in.

And as I've mentioned before, the exploration felt lacking. I appreciated that more mini-games and sidequests opened up towards the end, but I still feel this aspect could have been waaaaaaaay better. The sky area is just this big expanse of nothing but tiny rocks you have no reason to visit until they're marked on your map via goddess cubes. And flying sucks. Yes, really. Say what you will about WW's sailing, but at least that gave you enemies and obstacle courses to deal with while travelling. Skyward Sword throws an occassional easy-to-avoid tornado your way. That's it.

So what did I *like*? The dungeons, the bosses, the combat, Demise, the fact that Hero Mode exists, most of the sidequests were fun, Groose was awesome, there were some genuinely clever puzzles, and I for one enjoyed most of the music, particularly the main theme and Song of the Hero (Speaking of which, that entire quest was actually pretty good). Still a really good game, but for a Zelda title it could have been better.

And Fi still sucks.

Edited August 16, 2012 by Speederino

[speedfreak]

Yup, exactly how I felt about the game. I did like it but it was my least favorite 3D Zelda.

[Speederino]

Pure genius.

This video is exactly why I don't like Fi.

[Chaos Warp]

Am I the only one who likes the motion controls? IMO these are some of the best motion controls in gaming. They always worked fine for me, except for a bit of struggling selecting what gear I want to use sometimes, and I found the swordplay very satisfying. I guess I'm the odd one out........

[Soniman]

I enjoyed Skyward Sword more than most people. And I agree as well.

[Ekaje]

Am I the only one who likes the motion controls? IMO these are some of the best motion controls in gaming. They always worked fine for me, except for a bit of struggling selecting what gear I want to use sometimes, and I found the swordplay very satisfying. I guess I'm the odd one out........

I liked them. I thought that this and Red Steel 2 were the only Wii games (not counting the minigame in Wii Sports Resort) to do motion sword fighting well.

Am I the only one who likes the motion controls? IMO these are some of the best motion controls in gaming. They always worked fine for me, except for a bit of struggling selecting what gear I want to use sometimes, and I found the swordplay very satisfying. I guess I'm the odd one out........

I liked them. I thought that this and Red Steel 2 were the only Wii games (not counting the minigame in Wii Sports Resort) to do motion sword fighting well.

[speedfreak]

I loved the motion controls for the sword, but the pointer controls were better in TP for stuff like the bow/slingshot then the motion controls were in SS. Also I felt they went overboard on the things that required motion controls. Flying, swimming, tight rope walking, bomb rolling all just came off as annoying over time IMO. Thought the bettle was pretty cool too.

[lounge]

the swimming and bomb throwing were annoying but that was it.

I think people who are say the flying hurts their hand are doing it wrong to be honest. It sucks that they're getting rid of motion in the next zelda because people don't know how to play it. Also sucks we have to wait another 4-5 years. That feeling on christmas of opening up a new epic zelda.

[speedfreak]

I'll give you flying wasn't that bad, but no..... tight rope walking was really annoying to me. And the pointer is MUCH better in TP for the bow and slingshot then the motion for them in SS.

[Octarine]

Odd that this topic would choose to suddenly rise from the dead right as I started replaying Skyward Sword.

I don't recall having had many problems with the motion controls the first time around, but they're not cooperating as well this time; the worst offender is the harp, which sort of tries to jerk Link's hand around to a hundred different positions at once whenever I try to sweep from left to right. I had to do the Lumpy Pumpkin minigame something like fifteen times to get my heart piece*, when I managed it on my second try the first time around. It's weird. I'm starting to think there might be some kind of real technical issue going on.

*Note to every single video game developer on the planet: if you're going to include a minigame that requires the use of skills almost entirely unrelated to the main gameplay of your game (e.g., trying to match a slightly dubious rhythm in a game about sword fighting, exploration and puzzle solving), for God's sake don't have the game make you sit through a dozen text boxes about how much you suck every time you get it wrong.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Octarine

[JezMM]

While I had no problems with motion control in general in the game, fuck that minigame man. Ridiculous.

[speedfreak]

Got that on my first try actually.

[Speederino]

The harp gave me trouble at first, but now I can play that mini-game like a pro. Actually, all I really did was watch this video. It gave me a pretty good idea of how I was supposed to be following the arms.

[Octarine]

My main problems have really been the menus (mainly the item wheels and the map) and the harp; the sword's fine, flying's fine, the slingshot/beetle/bellows have mostly been okay, and rope-balancing actually seems like it's working a lot better than it was before for some reason. I guess I'm lucky that the story-critical harp sections are really easy (read: I still couldn't really get the harp to work properly, but it passed me anyway), and the Blessed Butterfly spots just want you to make noise.

I've only just passed Farore's Trial, though, so we'll see how swimming holds up. It didn't blow me away on my first run, but swimming in Zelda has frankly never been good, even in the 2D games.

[Soniman]

What was wrong with the 2D games? It's pretty inoffensive in those games, and once you get the flippers its not even remotely an issue.

[VO.SUPER]

Swimming has always been just a nuisance in Zelda games that just impedes your progress. In Skyward Sword however, I think the swimming is hindered by the motion controls, though the swimming levels are pretty fun on their own. I liked the swimming quest for the Water Dragon's song, but the constant shaking and shaking!

Edited August 24, 2012 by VisionaryBlur

[Soniman]

It impeedes your progress because that's how the areas were designed (Link to the Past and Minish Cap being the obvious examples) but the actual swimming ACTION you do was basically the same as just walking, at least in 2D.