@kgtennispro

Agreed.

Finally finished the game yesterday.

Holy shit, the last form of the last boss was tough. You really have to pick your spots. Overall, a satisfying conclusion.

I have to echo a few of the complaints about the Sky and the surface being so disconnected. To me this game felt a lot like Wind Waker in some ways, which is a bad thing. Thankfully it improved a lot on Wind Waker's boring navigation (loftwing > boat), and fleshed out the three main areas on the surface enough as the story progressed. Still, I would have liked to have more stuff going on in the sky, the overall feeling was on the "empty" side.

I can't say the same for Skyloft though, which I thought was vibrant place full of life. The design of the city, the characters, the side quests, were all excellent. The bazaar really stood out as a cool spot to hang out and get all of your preparation for the next quest done at once.

The character design throughout the whole game, I thought, was very good. Just those eel things in the Faron woods water section that were sub-par, but everything else was great. Fi had a nice design too, but pales in comparison to Midna as a side-kick, for various reasons, but I won't go into it since it's been beaten to death. Overall she was alright, and didn't get on my nerves too much.

I thought the pacing was typical 3D Zelda, dungeons with your token fetch quests thrown in here and there along the way. It didn't feel particularly different to other Zeldas in this regard. However what did feel different was the blending of overworld and dungeons, which really immersed me in the game while down on the surface. Every lead up to a dungeon had some significant puzzles and/or compelling gameplay, which can't be said for other Zeldas. Furthermore, certain dungeons didn't appear to be dungeons at all until you notice that you need to find a small key. This is probably the thing that the game did best, IMO.

The motion controls were excellent. Although I think they could be expanded on, with more enemy variety, they were really fun and engaging. They made combat the best in the Zelda series. I even liked the flying/swimming controls. Skydiving was awesome, and all of the items use the motion plus well. I thought gyroscope aiming in lieu of IR was ok, not ideal, but it got the job done. It's not as fast or accurate as IR, but for a Zelda game it works. I think it's simply wonderful that we finally got the motion control masterpice that we dreamed of since late 2006 when we first played Wii Sports.

That's all I have for now, will think of more comments later.

Just finished the game five minutes ago. AWESOME FINAL BOSS FIGHT; right up there with "Wind Waker's"! I totally didn't see the Wise Woman as Impa in the future coming (but my girlfriend figured it out before me). Ummm....I'm way too hyped right now to continue on with my comments so I'll post more in the near future once I gather my bearings!

@Simbabbad

I guess you could maybe argue that since the "past" is actually portrayed as more futuristic (see: Lanayru Mines), and Fi was created in the past, and seems to have a summon over Scrapper...that's the only rationale I could come up with. Also, when you see the Gate of Time come together for the first time, everything has a very computer-y look to it.

But as you noted, none of that really came across in the story. It's more of something that you have to look back on and put two-and-two together, and obviously everything I posted could have no bearing on Fi's design. I guess that's just how I always looked at it, though.

@Simbabbad
Zelda excels at inconsistency.

@Simbabbad

It's funny, because you get the impression that someone at Nintendo thought that the whole "85% probability, etc." stuff was cute. The first few times it was amusing, but an entire game of it was just brutal. I got tired of it pretty quickly.

I absolutely hated Fi, though. I can see where the whole high tech-ness of it maybe originated, but that's only speculative. I think it's more likely that someone at Nintendo was amused by it and didn't consider stretching that concept across a 40+ hour game.

@Simbabbad

Fi's lack of emotion is contrasted by Ghirahim's flamboyance; she represents order and peace, he represents chaos and temptation.

I'm just pulling this out of my ass, but you never know.

I think Fi was a great idea in practice, but was executed pretty poorly. I liked her roboticness at first. She was a very utilitarian helper that was assigned to Link by the Goddess. It would've been very engaging, however, if she started to become more humanized throughout the story. Part of me feels like they wanted to do this (by the events at the end of the game, where you that Link has grown an attachment to her), but it wasn't realized well at all.

Midna was a character that DID have that transformation, and I thought it was awesome. In the beginning, she seems very sneaky. She's in this adventure for her own selfish purposes, and she just wants to use Link to accomplish her goal. As the game goes on, she changes. By the end, she's become a friend.

Just played the first 2-3 hours of the game - it's one of the most charming and memorable openings to a game I've played in quite a while.

The lack of VA is a bit jarring after Xenoblade, but the animations and design of the characters give the world so much life. Absolutely cannot wait to play more.

@TheBigG753 Totally agree. The whole percentages thing wasn't clever for me once, so having to read it over and over. I dunno.

Still love the game though. At the third temple now. I feel like as far as the core gameplay, Zelda has never been better. Just wish some of the stuff around it was better. And that it allowed for exploration more...

Well, what I learned last night is that if you start playing Zelda at 2 in the morning, you may end up playing it until 6 in the morning. Blah.

I wish there were more to do with sidequests. I did like the little nod to Majora's Mask with the hand in the toilet although I'm not quite sure where, if anywhere, that is going yet. Don't tell me!

I actually didn't give the letter to the hand and the hand went away. Does it make a difference at all? I want to unlock all side quests and I don't know if the hand comes back later on. Just finished dungeon 4 and I thought dungeon 3 was better.

@gencid

A couple of side quests actually have multiple endings. The hand/paper one is one such quest.

I completely missed one side quest on my playthrough. The shadow on the inventory screen looks like a mailbox or something.

@gencid

I preferred dungeon 4 myself. I loved how the Ancient Cistern had a heaven-and-hell theme to it, with the basement feeling like a completely different area than the serene, Eastern-religious feel of the upper levels. And the spider thread near the end is a direct reference to a piece of Japanese folklore--cool stuff! Not to mention the boss.

Dungeon 3 was great with the Timeshift Stones, but the enemies there ticked me off. You had those annoying frog things that barfed electricity, and those annoying scorpions that messed with your room-cleaning, and those annoying electric blobs that were annoying.

Tried to speed run yesterday. Got to the end of dungeon six in 11 hours, including cutscenes.

You can finish the dungeons really fast once you know them. Somehow (5 spoilers) I didn't need to hit the Sand Ship's timeshift stone 20 times in order to complete the dungeon. You'd be surprised how many shifts you actually need.

I just completed the 4th Dungeon and am ready to start talking about the game, man am I loving it. This is the type of game that gets me loving gaming again after a 3 month gaming funk. I don't think I have any major complaints at the moment and am always ready to jump into the next area.I love the sidequests and how they really personalise the people in the area, from Batreaux, the Fun Fun Land guy to Cawlins crush I really feel for these guys. The dundeons are awesome and really well designed, I honestly can't pick a bad one at the moment although the 4th is probalby my favourite.
I will comment more as I delve deeper into the game but so far, thumbs up.

@Renjaku Wait... are you saying that you played 11 hours straight yesterday?!

@Zero Yea. =X

@Shadowlink

That's what I thought. I guess I will do them differently the 2nd time around.

@TriforceBun

Ancient Cistern was great too (probably the 2nd best after Mining Facility for me). But while I liked AC's 2nd half a good deal, the fact that I struggled with the MF while I breezed on the AC made MF more memorable to me. I also liked the Gust Bellows better than the Whip, though the later made me think how a 1:1 Wii Castlevania game could play. (see also: Pandora's Tower)