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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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The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Review (Nintendo Wii) (4.2)  by  
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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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I think in part it had to do with the fact that she lived with her mom before moving here, so she never owned her own TV and felt no need to buy one upon moving. Especially since she moved here to do her PHD so she didn't want any added distractions. Albeit she does have Netflix on her computer and watches that a fair amount.

Anyway the "that's adult life" comment kind of fits but... I don't have many real adult responsibilities outside of work and school right now! I mean, as stated above, I'm still playing a ton of 3DS. Just finding it tough to get in front of my TV and play lately.

And we do play some games together from time to time, but with the PHD and all she just does not have time to play through anything like Zelda with me. There was one day where she was over and I was playing Zelda while she was doing some school stuff, but I always feel weird goofing off while she is working.

With all of this said, I don't believe in fate or karma or whatever but... my class tonight was just canceled. I think the universe is telling me to play Zelda tonight?
01/24/12, 18:43   
Edited: 01/24/12, 18:51
So I finally finished the game and surprisingly found it lacking in a few components/features/gameplay, while excelling in others. The 1st third of the game was the best for me and the last 3rd was the worst.

Things that the game did well:

-Verticality of the world designs. Faron Woods and Lanayru Desert areas are the best forest and desert areas in any 3D Zelda games ever.
-Story setting and pacing: Link/Zelda relationship was a real tease and Link actually showed feelings in this game unlike say TP.
-Timeshift based gameplay. That sort of world duality should have been spread in all areas. It would have been a much better way of moving the story forward than the scenarios that were presented in last third of the game.
-Character designs. It only took 11 years since Majora's Mask for the Zelda series to make proportional and coherent NPC designs.
-You finally collect the Triforce. THANK YOU NINTENDO!
-Some of the boss designs (Koloktos, Tentalus, Ghiraim 1st and 3rd battle, Demise).
-Link can finally run/dash.
-Item upgrades idea.
-Dungeon #3 has quickly become a personal 3D Zelda favorite.

Things that the game didn't do well:

-1:1 motion controls. Sorry Nintendo, but you still didn't convince me that motion controls can be a replacement for traditional ones. When it takes half a second for the controls to respond to me and when most enemies/boss fights could still be delegated to waggling, you have a major problem. Good riddance of them on WiiU.
-DOWSE! DOWSE! DOWSE! How about shut the f*** up Fi. I don't want to DOWSE!
-You got a jelly blob. It can be used to make many things. Here, I'll interrupt the gameplay and show you for the umpteenth time where the blob goes and what your quantities become. Because having an icon with the quantities showing up in a corner of the screen is too unobtrusive.
-Master! I have important spoiler for you. Here is how you solve this puzzle. You are totally dumb master. I calculate a 85% possibility that you also suffer from ADD.
-Unskippable, super slow moving, text. Because implementing a 1998 function is too much of a hassle. We like the 1988 option better.
-You have only 5 bosses, beat 2 of them 3 times because we ran out of ideas.
-Unconnected overworlds. Because it is too hard to put a couple of caves/paths to connect the three different regions.

Things that weren't bad but weren't great either:

-Super Legend of Zelda Galaxy levels
-Fetch quests after fetch quests after fetch quests
-Warp to map, than warp to sky, than warp back to a different point of the same map
-Finish minigames to complete your heart containers
-Orchestrated soundtrack is nice, but half of the compositions aren't anything to write home about

Things that I want to see in the next Zelda game:

-Have a AAA western developer (read: Retro Studios) develop it. I'm tired of Japanese conservatism.
-Keep the verticality of the SS overworld design
-Have 100% orchestrated soundtrack and actually make it memorable this time
-NPC voice acting, even if it means that they would speak in Hylian (no need for VA localization)
-No motion controls anything, KTHXBY.
01/25/12, 00:16   
Edited: 01/26/12, 07:16
gencid said:
When it takes half a second for the controls to respond to me

This sounds completely foreign to my experience. To the point where I actually wonder if people who have this complaint have some weird syncing issues going on with their set-up.

gencid said:
most enemies/boss fights could still be delegated to waggling

I'm not sure I agree with this at all. The basic moblins can be waggle beaten, not much else.
01/25/12, 02:02   
There are much more than 5 bosses. By my count, the number is 8, not including the rematches with Ghirahim and The Imprisoned. I definitely agree about the scroll speed though.
01/25/12, 03:55   
@gencid

Sorry man... nothing against you - ok maybe it is .... a little but I'm finding your issues on controls perplexing. I've given this game a perfect score because the controls were perfect. I actually agreed with IGN for once.. I felt like a bad ass swinging my sword - I was more involved and was more emotionaly attached. Ending fighting stuff: When I was chasing Ghirahim for the final time and all those enemies came rushing at me I couldn't wait to swing at their asses... and nobody can possibly believe that the final dual with Demise would be better with button mashing.

Other things you mentioned that "they didn't do so well" I mostly agree with. Why is everyone in such a flippin hurry to read the text though? FUCK! This game took years to make and you guys try to push through it like a hot knife through butter. Maybe Fi is right - you people do suffer from a little ADD

With the things that "weren't bad but weren't great" I agree with the exception of the music, I rather enjoyed it - especially the desert sea level and Fi's theme. But I also don't understand your comment about the Legend of Zelda Galaxy levels. Because of these changes, Zelda felt really fresh again and I find it amusing that you really like the verticality of some of the worlds yet hate this 'galaxy design'. I don't think it's possible for an Adventure game to have the verticality thrown in without at least some Galaxy influence somewhere. I didn't find myself jumping everywhere in Zelda either - I was definitly not Mario in a green tunic with this game.

Voice acting - Next Gen..it's time. Agreed. Although I wouldn't care if Link spoke or not..

S
01/25/12, 05:05   
Edited: 01/25/12, 05:06
Man some of the dungeons in this game are weird. You get the map and you're like oh... the dungeon is only 5 rooms.
01/25/12, 08:11   
@Zero
They cram a lot into each and every room, I kinda like that.
01/25/12, 17:23   
I did find myself spending a lot of time in dungeons, but I think it was largely because many concepts were new to me. If I went back and played it now, I have a feeling that I'd breeze right through the dungeons.

I actually agree with a lot of what Gencid has to say. I absolutely agree that a western take on the game would be extremely refreshing. There are just too many elements of the last couple Zelda games that still feel really stuck in the past. I'm not saying that these games aren't designed exceptionally well, but there are a lot of little things that hold the games back from feeling like modern games (text skipping, text prompts all the time, static inventory screens that telegraph your progress, arbitrary puzzle design, etc).
01/25/12, 17:33   
@Zero

Yeah, but those five or so rooms cram a lot into them, and can take a couple of hours to conquer. The Ancient Cistern didn't look all that big, but...
01/25/12, 17:51   
That's the one I'm talking about! Just played through it last night. Yeah it did end up a lot longer than it first seemed. And I loved how the underground part had a completely different tone to it. Suddenly it's darker and I'm fighting off (small) hordes of zombies.
01/25/12, 19:57   
@Zero

Great dungeon. I really liked the whole "heaven and hell" thing, and apparently the bit with the spider's thread at the end is based off an old Japanese folktale. Koloktos is probably my favorite boss in the game too.
01/25/12, 22:42   
I too would like a Western take on Zelda, esp. if it is from Retro. People say that the last two Primes were more Zelda than Metroid, so if that's the case, well, might as well give them a Zelda game to design, and expand upon into a 30-50 hour game.

I find it disappointing that Aonuma says he keeps coming up with great, fresh ideas for games, yet he keeps bringing them back to Zelda; those are ideas you could be using for a new IP, damnit! The man is a genius sure, but he needs a break from Zelda, have a little breather, just like many other artists do with their respective mediums (Christopher Nolan for example making The Prestige, and Inception in between the Batman films to keep his mind fresh). If you work on something too long, even if it's something you love, your mind eventually gets worn out. Try something new, and then whenever you decide to come back to it, you may have some new ideas for it.
01/25/12, 22:47   
@Zero

It goes like this. I make a diagonal motion. Half a second after I am done, 85% of the time Link makes a diagonal slash. The other 15% of the time I have no clue what he is doing (but it's likely not a diagonal slash). Now a second later when I see that the enemy changed the defense stance or Link didn't follow my command, I change my motion accordingly. Same thing happens. Now speed this cycle up and it eventually feels like I'm just doing 2 quick vertical slashes, 2 horizontal, and 1 diagonal, with over half of them being a hit regardless of the mogoblin's stance. Boss fights, specifically part of Ghirahim and The Imprisoned battles could be beat by just doing a spin attack or quick directional motions. I am using the original WM+ attachment in a dim lighted room.
01/26/12, 06:32   
Edited: 01/26/12, 07:50
@Smerd

Well, as I explained on my previous post, motion controls weren't fast enough or accurate enough for me. I also prefer to not move my wrists and arms up and down if I can help it, and at times it felt like you had to do exaggerated motions for the game to read accurately (for example I simply hated motion controlled dialogue choices or menu selections. Why do I need to move my arm 1/2 ft left, 1/2 ft right, or 1/2 ft up and 1/2 ft down to ensure 100% WM+ accuracy when I only had to move my wrist a couple of inches with the IR pointer? Sorry but WM+ in some cases felt forced and counter intuitive.) I also think that the IR pointer as seen on TP is better for basically any projectile weapons such as the slingshot and bow & arrows. The only good use of motion controls was the beetle which I loved, the gust bellow which was lots of fun, the grapple hook which was underutilized, 1:1 sword fighting, and to a much lesser extent everybody's favorite, the bug-catching net.

By Super Zelda Galaxy levels I mean collectaton levels like the flooded Faron Woods. That was nice, but I would have preferred to explore Faron Woods for things like a newly formed underwater village or a new dungeon instead of shiny little things that don't add any real value to my quest. I also thought that Lake Floria was underused.

Again, sounds like I didn't like the game that much, but I actually liked it a lot as you could deduct by my 9.5 score, my post notwithstanding. SS did a lot of things very well, but after I beat it the first time and 100%d everything, I didn't feel like going through it again just to see how Hero Mode plays out. For a self declared Zelda fanatic I am surprised at myself. I surely thought I'd replay it at least once. Maybe sometime in the future when my backlog isn't about to turn in triple digits like it is right now.
01/26/12, 06:51   
Edited: 01/26/12, 08:28
@gencid

Super Zelda Galaxy - Ah... I understand now. Yes - Agreed on all points.. it was ok, maybe because it was just ok, I forgot all about those events.

Motion control dialog choices/menu selections were different for sure - I guess I didn't mind it as much. And I beat the final boss twice because it was so much fun but having 100%d everything like you did the first time, hero mode is not calling to me at the moment. I have the backlog too... *sigh*
01/27/12, 04:51   
My Dad is currently obtaining the Triforce.

It's his first ever Zelda game. I'm so proud.
01/27/12, 05:40   
So I'm currently on the sand ship and I didn't even realize that it was a "dungeon" until I saw the key door. This is the kind of seamless working together of overworld and dungeon that Zelda needs more of.

gencid said:
Why do I need to move my arm 1/2 ft left, 1/2 ft right, or 1/2 ft up and 1/2 ft down to ensure 100% WM+ accuracy when I only had to move my wrist a couple of inches with the IR pointer? Sorry but WM+ in some cases felt forced and counter intuitive.)

Hey, that's my complaint!!!
01/31/12, 08:40   
Edited: 01/31/12, 08:43
@Zero

Agreed. I did not expect THAT to actually be the dungeon, and was surprised once the "Link entering dungeon cutscene" started. In fact, the whole area leading up to that dungeon was really well done. That was probably the best example of where the game overworld meshed really well with the dungeon.
01/31/12, 14:02   
@Simbabbad Sort of, but I didn't really mind that. After all, you are supposedly searching for something, if you stumble upon it first try it isn't much of a search. Plus those were some fun mini-dungeons. Although I did expect the super important "sea map" to do more than make the map I already had like 25% bigger.
01/31/12, 16:35   
@Simbabbad
Still, it was fun to ride the mine carts and climb through that other section. I never have a problem with doing "artificial" quests if they're fun.
01/31/12, 17:20   
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