The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii) Second Opinion Review

By this point, the series is kind of in love with itself. The number of visual, structural, and narrative cues this game is taking from the rest of the series is ridiculous, even compared to Twilight Princess, which was 40 hours of the developers reminding everybody that they also made Ocarina of Time. This almost narcissistic quality is most apparent in the art style, which was explicitly stated to be a compromise between those of The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, but doesn't reflect the strong traits of either. It only takes its colour palette from The Wind Waker and ditches the stylisation, while similarly taking the scale of Twilight Princess' art, but removing the detail (and keeping the hilariously ugly NPC designs, for some reason). The end result looks bright and clean, but also kind of bland and empty, like a middling children's cartoon.

Similarly, the overworld is akin to The Wind Waker's vast, free-roaming ocean, except with a single, densely-populated city at its centre, much like Clock Town from Majora's Mask. Here, however, both of these elements are boiled down to their most basic, literal descriptions, without any of the nuance that made their inspirations compelling. The Wind Waker's Great Sea wasn't the most exciting place, but it was at least atmospheric and encouraged exploration. Skyward Sword has you flying around the sky amid some floating rocks with no purpose until you find their corresponding object on the surface. This makes exploration, and by extension, the whole concept of a large, open world, pointless. The town fares better, in that it's at least more interesting than the between-dungeon commute that is the sky, but again, the charm of Clock Town was in the organic, intertwined schedules of its citizens. The new town, Skyloft, on the other hand, functions on a binary day/night system, and its side-quests become available at completely arbitrary times, such as a character deciding to give a girl a love letter because Link completed the Earth Temple.

The actual meat of the gameplay takes place in three provinces of the surface world, each with its own subareas and dungeons. At first, the unconnected world is disappointing, but the structure turns out to be a positive point. Each area feels like a strong, self-contained level where puzzles, combat, and NPC interactions are woven together seamlessly, rather than the usual dialogue-driven intermission between combat sections. It helps that both the provinces and the dungeons feature some of the best level design in existence. Particular highlights are a pair of dungeons containing crystals that, when activated, send the immediate area centuries into the past - and the Ancient Cistern, which, through nothing but atmosphere and creative structure, is right up there with Ocarina of Time's Forest Temple as one of the best dungeons in the series. The main reason these dungeons work so well is that most of them are small and focus on one central puzzle, so they never overstay their welcome or become too confusing to navigate. Additionally, while each province will be revisited a few times, there are enough new subareas and changes to existing ones that it never feels like retreading old ground.

Actually, there are quite a lot of intelligent and obviously deliberate design choices to be found here. The most important is that the game is actually quite challenging. One of the biggest problems with recent Zeldas was that they were insultingly easy, and with Skyward Sword, Nintendo apparently realised how much this drained the tension out of boss fights and the like. In addition to the obvious fixes (don't make enemies pathetically weak, and don't drop instant-heal fairies on Link's head every other step), the game also finds a way to make money a valuable resource for the first time since the original NES release. First, the shield is very important to the new combat system, but it will also break if used carelessly. Second, healing items appear more rarely now, so healing potions are more important than usual. Finally, both shields and potions take up slots in the inventory, and, of course, shields, potions, and additional inventory space are all acquired with money. So for the first time in 24 years, you'll actually be happy when you open a chest and find 50 Rupees.

All of this makes some of the less inspired choices noticeably out of place. In particular, the new sidekick character, Fi, comes with a new mechanic called Dowsing. It boils down to slowly looking around an area until the game announces the correct direction. It's tedious and unnecessary, and it makes you do it all the bloody time. In fact, fetch quests make up a disproportionate number of the out-of-dungeon activities, to the point where players are likely to be completely burned out on them when it comes time for side-quest completion. It's also worth elaborating on Fi, because she is, without question, the worst support character in the entire series. Her specialties are calculating pointless probabilities and stating the obvious. Be prepared for numerous frustrating situations where pressing a switch shows a machine activating, only to have Fi pop up and say, "I have calculated that there is a 90% chance that pressing this switch activated that machine." This also happens all the bloody time. Say what you will about the fairy companions from the N64 games; at least they never repeatedly interrupted gameplay to laboriously declare that the Wii Remote batteries were dying.

Fi isn't the only one with a verbal diarrhoea problem, either. For the first quarter of the game, characters just don't shut up. Zelda games usually have an hour-long introduction, but they've gone overboard here. Most of the gameplay up to and even a little past the first dungeon is nothing but Dowsing and fetch quests, which doesn't help, but the worst part is that none of the redundant, patronising dialogue has any payoff. Skyward Sword just doesn't seem to understand foreshadowing; when four different characters state that Link and his pet bird have a special bond, that fact is expected to mean something past the first two hours of the game. Otherwise, why should we care? The story as a whole is kind of a mixed bag. Skyward Sword was heavily promoted as the first game in the Zelda timeline, and it does an adequate job of explaining the origins of the Master Sword and Ganon. Aside from being an origin story, the plot's mainly there to drive the gameplay, which is a policy I respect to a point, but when Link is asked to do a menial task to "prove his courage" for the 12th time, my patience wears a little thin. The final hours also feature the most unnecessary time travel plot since the first Final Fantasy.

Now, to the elephant in the room: the motion controls. Skyward Sword tries really hard to make the Wii Remote relevant again, and it succeeds...partially. The game makes for some of the best use of the Wii MotionPlus available. The new sword-fighting system works spectacularly - 1:1 movement involving aggressive sword swings just feels good - and the many, many different ways that enemies, bosses, and even puzzles are designed to accommodate a wide variety of techniques is really impressive. Enemies intelligently block imprecise attacks, thrust attacks are required for targeting weak points, and some setups, like an enemy with three moving heads that must all be killed with one slash, are refreshingly creative. Outside of the sword controls, however, problems arise. The biggest one is the usual problem with motion controls: they don't work for everything. Repeatedly jerking the controller to the side to climb a ladder more quickly is always going to be an immersion-breaking gimmick, and it's disappointing that Nintendo hasn't realised this yet. Similarly, the flying controls are moronic; tilting the controller to adjust pitch and yaw is fine, but snapping it back to simulate wings flapping is the only way to gain speed. Somehow, none of the developers realised that flicking the controller also tilts it, making it impossible to fly in a straight line, ever.

The weirdest thing about the controls, though, is that they don't use the Wii Remote's optical sensor at all. Everything, including aiming and menu selection, is done using Wii MotionPlus. It's actually a really great idea; it prevents the pointer from being blocked by objects, it prevents awkward periods of looking at the sky while trying to centre the crosshair, and it just streamlines the process overall. Unfortunately, it comes with an important flaw: without the sensor bar, the Wii Remote can't tell which direction is "forward," so it has to treat its initial position as such. If the initial position happens to be angled oddly, the player receives a lovely wrist cramp as they twist the Remote into the necessary position. This comes up a lot more than just during aiming. Flying, swimming, and using items all get this same treatment. There's a button to reset the position, which works alright, but that's not a whole lot better than the standard practice of just moving the cursor to the centre of the screen, is it?

However, one of the most respectable things about Skyward Sword is that unlike most Wii games, it doesn't just rest on its motion controls as its sole source of innovation. Some of its new features have been touched on already, but there are also a couple of new items - most notably the Beetle, a remote-controlled device capable of performing all sorts of neat tasks once released. There's also the semi-new Whip and Mogma Mitts, which are reinventions of The Wind Waker's Grappling Hook and The Minish Cap's Mole Mitts, with some new abilities. Additionally, potions can now be infused with caught insects for additional effects. Of course, no Zelda review would be complete without mentioning the game's soundtrack, and Skyward Sword's lives up to the legacy of the series, skilfully jumping between catchy and atmospheric for different areas. It also features one of the best implementations of a technique that Zelda games have been excelling at recently, where more instruments or different arrangements will fade in and out depending on the player's actions. The sound effects are excellent, too, though it may be time for voice acting to enter the series, if only to speed up those long dialogue sections.