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The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Nintendo Wii) discussion [game]
 
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on the Wii
9.03/10 from 69 user ratings

Welcome to the official discussion thread for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on the Wii!

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Alrighty everyone, the game is finally out in all primary regions.... IDreamofHime was the first to receive their copy here on the boards. This is the place to discuss it!!!

Welcome to the thread on Negative World where all wondrous Zelda talk can occur. I would recommend that if you wanna talk about deeper-game stuff as we get going, perhaps spoiler-tag it and then describe outside of spoilers where in the game it is. The recent Super Mario 3D Land Discussion Thread is a good example. That'll allow people who aren't too far to read the thread without actually spoiling stuff for them. Just try to be courteous but definitely have fun with the game and discussions!!


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Be sure to hit up the Skyward Sword Game Page and add the game to your collection once you've received yours. Be sure to mark it as "Playing" while you work on it and after you're played it sufficiently, give it a score you deem fitting!

If you've beaten the game, click on over to roykoopa64's Skyward Sword story/ ending discussion (SPOILERS), and general thoughts thread! It's like this thread part deux!!


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11/17/11, 19:54    Edited: 09/20/12, 03:19
 
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@Chozoman
I felt the same way until the second dungeon. That's when the game grabbed me.
The opening to the game is its biggest flaw, in my opinion. Everything from dungeon 2 onward is (mostly) great.
11/30/11, 17:41   
Edited: 11/30/11, 17:42
@TriforceBun

Well, that's good to hear. I guess if there was some payoff for the "quest". You search out these guys, just to go back to the quest-giver and him to advance to the next step. It feels like filler...well...because it is filler. Even if it was disguised filler, but it's blatantly a time filler fetch. With the number of devs and development period, I would have thought this game would be more focused with better pacing.

@ploot

Again, great to hear! Thanks!
11/30/11, 17:53   
Edited: 11/30/11, 17:54
@Chozoman If you understand what you're getting into I think you'll truly appreciate the awesomeness of Skyward Sword. It doesn't have the best towns (or, I should say town), sidequests or characters. Nor does it have that much genuine exploration or a good overworld. If that's all you want out of a Zelda game, then you'll probably be disappointed.

Here's what you do get: The best pacing in the series, some of the best puzzles in the series (this is truly genuine stuff, plenty of these you've never seen before - the days of pushing blocks, lighting torches and shooting arrows are gone). Some of them weren't that hard, but I still got stuck on them because I was thinking inside the Zelda box. You got an awesome item selection - literally every single item uses WM+ in a unique way, or at the very least the IR. Awesome graphics, enemy and local designs, and some fun (albeit a bit easy, though not as easy as TP) boss fights. The combat is great too - every single enemy is a small puzzle. And there's room for experimentation, you can try to use other offensive items aside from your sword to see how effective they are on each enemy (as in other Zelda games, but it's better here). Some enemies you can't even touch with the sword.

This is the Zelda game with the most amount of pure, genuine gameplay out of all of them. And the less of everything else, all the "living breathing world" aspects are diminished quite a bit. After you beat the first dungeon it truly picks up, and a lot of the times it feels like Metroid Prime.

Yes, the dowsing feature is a bit lame, and toward the end there's some annoying stuff you need to do. But the game's got it where it counts. And I'm not just saying that.
11/30/11, 19:35   
Edited: 11/30/11, 19:36
@GelatinousEncore

Well, I'm past the 1st dungeon, so I'm ready for the good stuff. To be honest, I'm not all that concerned with a bustling town and loads of side quests. I just want a solid, well-paced adventure that eases up a bit on the filler fetch quests. I trust you, man! I'll be playing more!
11/30/11, 19:52   
Just wanna add, the second area is better than the first, but it's when you get to the desert, and the dungeon in it, that the game sky rockets.
11/30/11, 19:55   
@GelatinousEncore

Good, cause that's where I'm at right now.
11/30/11, 20:03   
Simbabbad said:
The desert is by far the best part. It has some sort of actual freedom, and an excellent gimmick.

I've said it before, but I'd like to see an entire Zelda game built around this idea. The amount of potential it has is impressive, both in puzzle/gameplay-related scenarios and history/plotwise. SS has done well with it, but I can only imagine how cool it'd be to play a Zelda game taking place after the rest of the timeline, and seeing glimpses of past Hyrule, i.e. other Zelda games.
11/30/11, 20:14   
The fifth 'dungeon' is incredibly awesome. I'm really feeling the whole "dungeons blend in with overworld" thing at this point, and it's a nice change of pace.
11/30/11, 20:41   
@anon_mastermind

This is something Zelda games have needed for a long, long time.
11/30/11, 20:45   
@anon_mastermind

How sad this is since I beat that dungeon just the other day but I can't remember which one was the fifth. What was the key quality about it again?

The first three stick out in my mind, and the nearly final stuff is sticking out cause I just did it but the middle stuff I'm blanking on lol.
11/30/11, 22:37   
I'm liking the fact that I don't have to hunt down a compass in this game. Give me the Map...give me the keys...give me the treasure. That's all I want..really.

And damnit... that floating rock in the South West is just too much FUN.

In the middle of the 4th dungeon now...

S
11/30/11, 22:43   
@DrFinkelstein
I think the fifth dungeon is the pirate ship, and you may or may not want to include the sailing around the sand sea to various spots in there as well.
11/30/11, 22:44   
(Just a little analysis ahead...I'm not knocking the game for something it's not really trying to do.)

I still never felt for a moment that there was a "blend" between the dungeons and overworld. I think they put a lot of puzzles INTO the overworld, but every time I entered a dungeon, I was pretty well aware that I was entering a dungeon. There was an absolute distinction between the overworld and the game's 6, technically 7 dungeons.

Also, the game doesn't really deviate from its overworld/dungeon pattern set up from the first level. While some of the settings were a little unorthodox (really only two come to mind), the game absolutely establishes a rhythm that it adheres to throughout the entire game. This isn't necessarily bad or good, but honestly, I do feel like it takes away from the game a little. I think if you contrast this to a game like Okami, I rarely remember feeling like I was entering 6 arbitrary dungeons for the sake of getting to their respective bosses. Maybe I have to play through it again (I never beat it), but I kind of just felt like I was organically moving through the different areas of the game.

In SS, I was always very well aware when I was in a dungeon (if we define a "dungeon" as a very concentrated area of puzzle solving that includes things like a map, keys, and a boss key). This game also still requires you go grab a special item that will inevitably help you navigate the rest of the dungeon, and defeat the dungeon's boss (minus a couple bosses in the game, and that made me happy). Every time you entered a dungeon area, there was some eerie music with a dramatic shot of Link walking into the next area. There was also typically a big reveal of what a dungeon area was, or an area would be named such that it felt like its own 'level' (that is, an area was literally named a temple)

To me, if there's a blend between the dungeon and overworld, I shouldn't realize I'm in a dungeon until I'm a ways into it. Maybe I don't realize I'm OUT of a dungeon until I've already completed it. If I'm going into THE EARTH TEMPLE or THE SKYVIEW TEMPLE then I'm pretty well aware that this is an area separate from the overworld. Perhaps you could finish a 'dungeon' area, and there isn't your average boss fight before you can leave. For instance, maybe there's a "dungeon" in a mountain cave, and your reward isn't a boss fight and a heart container. Maybe you don't even get a magical item that helps you navigate that area. Maybe you come out of the cave and you come across a woman who is tied to a tree by a monster, and you free her, and then this rope becomes your next item that you use to fight the monster. Why does the series necessarily have to adhere to these tropes that it has clung to since a Link to the Past? Is that what defines Zelda? Having a set number of dungeons that all operate under the same set of mechanics? While I applaud Nintendo for being bolder about what, in fact, WAS a dungeon, I still don't understand why every dungeon has to feel the same (Looks like I need a key to unlock this door, find a map, my item, get a boss key, and defeat the boss)

I think they had a real opportunity to fake the player out a bit with the Lanayru Mining Facility but they gave that area a HUGE reveal, complete with the dramatic cutscene of Link walking down the stairs. If I had gone into that area (or a similar area) and just started going through some rooms and then start getting lost a bit, I would've been more likely to go...wait, is this a dungeon? I think this is what happened to me in the Arbiter's Grounds in TP (though I did not feel this way upon a second playthrough...maybe I wasn't paying attention the first time). It just feels like another area of the game. I think they could've done this with the Sand Ship as well, but again, I thought they were pretty heavy handed about telling the player they were in a 'dungeon.' Snowpeak is a great example of what I wish they would do more of. When you first find a locked door in Snowpeak Ruins you're like...wait a minute, I'm in a dungeon now?

Maybe it's just me, but when these dungeon areas have context or feel like they're just an area you need to progress through, that's when I start to feel pretty heavily immersed in a world. If something is an armory or a boat or a mountain cave an abandoned town or whatever, then I get the illusion that this is part of the game world, and not simply an arbitrary, artificial area of puzzle solving. And if this area is ingrained INTO the world, rather than exist as a dead end, then I really start to get more immersed, because then it doesn't feel like it was an area solely designed for me to grab an item and kill a boss.

Again, that's all just analysis. I know Skyward Sword isn't necessarily trying to reinvent the wheel as far as the structure of Zelda is concerned, but I feel like they made some attempts to disguise the dungeons a bit better. I just don't feel like they were really successful in doing that. I think that in the future, the less that Zelda games can say "Link, you need to go to these three places," the less dated the mechanics of the games will seem.
11/30/11, 23:42   
@PogueSquadron

That's an interesting point actually. I had the same reaction to the Arbiter's Grounds. Didn't realise it was a dungeon right off the bat.Same deal with Snowpeak.

Even the City in the Sky, you've got a shop and this big outside area. First thought is "Alright, now to find the dungeon that must be around here somewhere"...then you realise you're already in it.

Skyward Sword is a bit of a backward step in that regard.
11/30/11, 23:53   
Yeah that's kind of where I was hoping the series was starting to go. I wonder if they'd feel more comfortable doing it on more powerful hardware? Not that I think it would matter, but they could at least try doing things like gradually changing environments so that you're not inside or outside what we'd call a "dungeon," but maybe there's a gray area between both of them. Something like caves that gradually start to look a little more manmade. You see some stone blocks here and there...you keep going and you start to see some crumbled archways...and you keep going still and all of a sudden you're in this underground castle or something like that.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is also a game I like to go back to now and then regarding this topic. You don't really guide the Prince through 6 concentrated areas to collect things...you're just kind of going through the game. Your progress isn't marked by how many magic jewels you have collected, but you can guage how far you are through the game by the complexity of the environments and pacing of the story.

That isn't to say I want Zelda to become a linear beat by beat romp similar to Call of Duty. I think what I'm thinking more of is like a realtime Crono Trigger. You go through the events of the story, yeah, but there are plenty of times you can run around and talk to people in towns and things like that. I'd love to have all of the Zelda gameplay I love, but with more of an organic structure that doesn't even make me think about dungeons or collecting 3 pendants or what have you. I think moving forward, the less I see Nintendo's "puppet strings," the better.
12/01/11, 00:04   
Edited: 12/01/11, 00:14
Yeah, I think I agree that a little more of an organic blend would be cool. I think a major aspect of the whole dungeon/overworld separation is still Link's cause for going in. It's almost invariably "Go here to grab this, then leave." It's hardly ever "This place is in the way, we must travel through it to get to our goal" or, outside of the final bosses of Zelda games, "There's a frightening monster that resides here and someone needs to kill it." I think TP did a decent job of separation, with Snowpeak Manor's unconventional layout and City in the Sky's mix of indoor/outdoor environments and NPCs.

So yeah, less clear "get x objects" would go a long way in changing the formula. I'm kind of tired of having to reduce one's progress in the game to "pre-3rd dungeon" and "post-4th dungeon." They shouldn't have that much "weight" in determining the overall structure/progression of the game, and I'd probably prefer a system where it's hard to count the number of dungeons.
12/01/11, 00:31   
I've been having a great time with the game, only wishing I had more time to play! I kind of lost track of the dungeon numbers, but I think I just started #6, the Fire Sanctuary, on my way to obtaining the final flame to power up my sword.

I was annoyed by my little buddy, the heavy-item-carrying robot dude. 'Oh, we went to the wrong spot of the volcano region? I'm too tired to carry this water basin back up, let's just stroll along and you can protect me, Mister Shortpants!' That nickname is pure LOL.
12/01/11, 00:45   
@TriforceBun I think they did a cool job of that with the mining facility. You really weren't going through it for any other reason except that it was on the way to where you needed to go. The dungeon, unlike other areas of the game, didn't have a dead end at the end of it. It was just part of the world.
12/01/11, 00:55   
The reasons dungeons exist in my opinion is to have an isolated place a player can know they can beat with their current character. While Zelda 1's dungeons were hidden and accessible out of order, they were still numbered. This is their way of saying 'if you beat dungeon 4, you are guaranteed to be able to beat dungeon 5 entirely.' Not knowing you are in a dungeon and not knowing their number would defeat the purpose of their existence.

What if you could beat dungeons out of order? Technically, you could combine the out of order dungeons into one.

What if you went back to dungeons later with more abilities? Then you are breaking the promise to the player that they can handle everything inside the dungeon if they beat the last dungeon. It should have been part of the overworld.

When you blend dungeon/overworld, they degenerate into an overworld. This is skywards's Faron/Eldin/Lanyru areas. If dungeons aren't dungeons in every way, then they aren't dungeons. If overworlds are not like overworlds in every way, they're still overworlds.
12/01/11, 01:18   
Just dropping in to say I'm almost at the second dungeon. And wow... there is a lot going on to get there. I feel like it can't keep up at this pace... can it? Whatever the case, it's definitely been a long and interesting stretch of play just to get to the dungeon. I'm impressed.

I'm also very tired because I stayed up until 1 playing when I should have been in bed.

Albeit, I haven't actually gotten inside it yet. Damn dowsing is confusing me a bit. Found three of the key pieces right away and then spent like a half hour and didn't find any more. Don't tell me what I'm doing wrong! I'll figure it out.
12/01/11, 01:41   
Edited: 12/01/11, 01:41
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