Review: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

This pretty much conflicts with my opinion of the game. I absolutely loved Skyward Sword, the 1:1 motion controls introduced even more puzzles into the mix, boiling down to the fact that even enemies themselves were mini puzzles. I found it to be an engaging and enjoyable experience. I seriously need to replay it at some point!

Also, I actually kinda liked Fi. If you look past all the usual nonsense such as the in-game tutorial, she's a pretty loyal companion and will do all she can to aid Link in his quest. I found her departure at the ending to be quite emotional, tbh. Maybe that's just me!

( Edited 13.07.2017 18:26 by Guest )

My favourite 3D Zelda, ace controls, best dungeons in the series, best characters in the series. Story and soundtrack were also pretty great.

( Edited 13.07.2017 18:26 by Guest )

Glad I wasn't the only one reading that review thinking I'd played a completely different game. Loved Skyward Sword from beginning to end. It was such a massive step up from Twilight Princess.

( Edited 13.07.2017 18:26 by Guest )

Twilight Princess, which was 40 hours of the developers reminding everybody that they also made Ocarina of Time.

It's also worth elaborating on Fi, because she is, without question, the worst support character in the entire series.

many players will find themselves wishing they could turn their sword on Fi.

Similarly, the flying controls are moronic

it may be time for voice acting to enter the series, if only to speed up those long dialogue sections.

The padding is also unreal in this game. This really needs sorting and going back to its roots in the next Zelda.

The point of bad decisions for every smart one is spot on. It's not a bad game; just a bad Zelda game. For all the bravery and clever level designs and boss battles, there are equally some awful elements that make it extremely difficult to play through. It becomes a huge slog to see to the end. It's the only 3D Zelda I've never felt the urge to replay, which says a huge amount. I would like to give it another playthrough one day, but that desire is still not there.

Great review. Definitely encapsulates exactly how I feel about it.

Ironically, I actually like Twilight Princess a lot. It gets a lot of "clone" flak, but I feel like the horseback combat, wolf abilities/sections, and new equipment more than set it apart. I just couldn't resist getting a dig at it as a point of comparison for how self-referential Skyward Sword is.

Guest said:
My favourite 3D Zelda, ace controls, best dungeons in the series, best characters in the series. Story and soundtrack were also pretty great.

Azuardo said:
And that's not getting into the recurring Imprisoned boss battle. What the hell were they thinking?

The padding is also unreal in this game. This really needs sorting and going back to its roots in the next Zelda.

Excellent review, basically agree with pretty much everything you said about it.

Even from the very first moment I saw Skyward Sword, I was very under whelmed by it. Not just because of the bad stage demo, but it just looked so bland and unexciting. The feeling I got from the new Zelda reveal was the complete opposite, same for TP and same for Wind Waker.

There's not much good things I can say about the game. I liked some of the bosses, there's very few music tracks I liked, I liked the motion controls once, which was the Koloktos boss and it actually felt satisfying to use there. That's about it. Oh, I liked that Link could run!

The main reason I didn't like it above anything else was the unnecessary padding to the story. This was the biggest problem, because I found the game not fun and pretty bland overall, so it just made it even more painful to finish.

To be honest, there's so many things I dislike about it, but I've talked about it in-depth so much before, that I just can't be bothered any more. So here's a bullet point list:

- Wasn't a fan of the visual style

- Wasn't into the majority of the music, only like a couple of tracks

- Bad pacing and unnecessary padding to the story

- Didn't like the motion controls in the majority of the game

- Fi was the most bland support character ever in a Zelda game.

- The Imprisoned was horrible and made even worse by having to do it 3 times. Again, unnecessary padding and not fun.

- The overwold/underworld was one of the worst ever. I still find this insane how bad it was. Tiny little rocks in the sky with nothing on them and then the underworld was sectioned off and had no exploration feeling. Even then it was so generic, Forest, Lava, Desert. The most generic areas you could pick.

- Throwing and rolling bombs was awful.

- The entire game just felt very sterile to me, in a bad way.

- Then there was robotic Link. For whatever reason, he felt more robtic to control in this game than previous titles. I think Wind Waker was the best. Anyway, coming off playing Uncharted, playing Skyward Sword felt super dated. They need to make Link control more fluently, like an actual human. You have to be so precise with everything and it just feels odd to me and not fun to play.

- Also, I do think the lack of voice acting does make these games feel like they're lacking. I mean, I'm fine with reading text still. It doesn't ruin the game, but replaying TP again in 2016, it just seems so odd to see the character moving their lips and nothing is coming out. Just a little sound at the beginning of sentences. I do feel it would just add to the overall experience.

Anyway, so hyped for the new Zelda! To the future!

( Edited 13.07.2017 18:26 by Guest )

Characters were a mixed bag; on the one hand, you have Groose and Ghirahim, on the other, you have Fi and the "let's push Link off a cliff for a laugh" incarnation of Zelda.

I do agree with the time travel stuff. As the first game in the series' timeline, was that necessary?

This is a huge improvement I've noticed with A Link Between Worlds. It's much more immediate, and the fast-travel system is super efficient.

I've mentioned elsewhere here, but this is what Zelda needs to get back to being great again - less padding and bringing the main game down to a 15-20 hour one, instead of a padded 40-hour one. When you look at both the soul/tear collecting in TP and SS, it's clear Nintendo thinks making a Zelda game longer is the way to make Zelda games good. Thankfully, after ALBW, I've got hope that they've seen what needs to be done, and it's just a case of transferring that into 3D Zelda, now.

Throwing and rolling bombs was awful.

Then there was robotic Link.

Marzy said:

- Wasn't a fan of the visual style

- Wasn't into the majority of the music, only like a couple of tracks

- Bad pacing and unnecessary padding to the story

- Didn't like the motion controls in the majority of the game

- Fi was the most bland support character ever in a Zelda game.

- The Imprisoned was horrible and made even worse by having to do it 3 times. Again, unnecessary padding and not fun.

- The overwold/underworld was one of the worst ever. I still find this insane how bad it was. Tiny little rocks in the sky with nothing on them and then the underworld was sectioned off and had no exploration feeling. Even then it was so generic, Forest, Lava, Desert. The most generic areas you could pick.

- Throwing and rolling bombs was awful.

- Then there was robotic Link. For whatever reason, he felt more robtic to control in this game than previous titles. I think Wind Waker was the best. Anyway, coming off playing Uncharted, playing Skyward Sword felt super dated. They need to make Link control more fluently, like an actual human. You have to be so precise with everything and it just feels odd to me and not fun to play.

- Also, I do think the lack of voice acting does make these games feel like they're lacking. I mean, I'm fine with reading text still. It doesn't ruin the game, but replaying TP again in 2016, it just seems so odd to see the character moving their lips and nothing is coming out. Just a little sound at the beginning of sentences. I do feel it would just add to the overall experience.

Anyone's ideal voice for a certain character may not be the same as another person's, voice acting would just polarise the Zelda fanbase even more than it already is.

Anyway, so hyped for the new Zelda! To the future!

Oh man, I forgot about bomb bowling. Most of the motion control problems stemmed from stupid setups (flying), but bomb bowling just straight-up did not work.

I may be instinctively comparing the visual style to those of WW and TP, which is a little unfair. There's nothing wrong with the style on its own merits, it's just boring compared to the spectacle of previous games.

Mush said:
I'd say that there were less memorable tracks in the game, but that's not to say the music was bad. Given this being an orchestrated soundtrack, a lot of the music was more atmospheric and I think it played well with the atmosphere.

I kind of agree with this, but there's been a couple of Zelda games like that. Wind Waker to an extent, with the Triforce Shard fetch quest and fighting earlier bosses again. Never had a problem with this, just an example I'm throwing out there. I loved Wind Waker.

If you look past the usual tutorial stuff, she's not as bad as she appears, at least in my opinion. Her and Link have that master and servant bond, which later disappears as Link starts seeing her as more of a friend than a servant. Make of it what you will, but Fi was pretty much on par with Navi, just with less of the "Hey Listen" and more about probabilities. Maybe the probability thing was overused, I understand that.

Azuardo said: 
I could never really like Groose as much as everyone else did. Ghirahim the same. It was great to see more personality to Zelda here, but that push off the cliff lol... Yeah.

I do agree with the time travel stuff. As the first game in the series' timeline, was that necessary?

Marzy said: 
- The entire game just felt very sterile to me, in a bad way.

I agree that its one of the weakest Zelda games in the franchise

I hated the motion controls, they turned certain moments in the game into pure frustration. They were great at first for fighting various monsters who reacted differently but after a while when I knew what way to take out the different monsters I just felt like i was just going through the motions and felt like more of an annoyance. I down right hated the motion controls when it came to fighting the bosses. They often required quick reflexes and half of the time my swings were read properly, so id swing a wrong may through no fault of my own. It's the first time I've felt I've died unfairly in a Zelda game. I hated motion control implementation in the flying sections too. 

I was also not a fan of the art style, it was pretty bland and detracted from the dark parts of the story. It's bright and colourful, yet you're supposed to take the foreboding nature of the story seriously. 

I wasn't a fan of the overly structured, compact world either. I like to explore and feel like I'm finding new places. I just felt like I'd seen all those places before and what I could do there was heavily controlled to the point of only being able to do one thing.

There are so many other things about Skyward Sword that I didn't like too, which in my opinion make it one of the weakest but I still enjoyed the game over-all.

( Edited 13.07.2017 18:26 by Guest )