My thoughts on Skyward Sword

All right, so I completed the main quest of Skyward Sword 3 days ago (exactly one month after I bought the game), and I've spent those 3 days mulling over everything in it. I'm not going to be holding any spoilers back, so if you haven't finished the game it's probably best if you just jump away to another part of the Internet. Run along now.

So first things first:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km50mNRnX4U

Okay, you have now witnessed what I feel is the single greatest moment in all of Zelda history. This is a joke. The single greatest moment in Zelda history is debatable, but I honestly think Skyward Sword could put forth a few strong nominations; the scene where you forge the Master Sword, the scene where Groose follows you down into the surface, the scene where Zelda tells you that you are worthy to hold the Triforce, and the scene where you confront Demise.

The Demise fight itself was typically lacklustre, but the setting and the implications from his curse was quite spectacular and was certainly an epic finisher to the Zelda Origin Story.

Grirahim was an extremely fitting secondary antagonist - the Sword Spirit belonging to Demise and the complete polar opposite to your own Sword's Spirit; Grirahim is emotional and random, whereas Fi is calm and calculated. I absolutely loved his character progression, and in general I love the characters and personalities in this game, who I could identify with and actually care about, unlike the majority of characters from previous Zelda games, who I have mostly forgotten. Because of this, the sidequests were extremely fulfilling, and as the game comments, "helping people feels good!" Apart from Grirahim, the story of Groose and to a lesser extent, the side-story with Peatrice were enjoyable additions to the game's story, and the former character in my opinion almost justifies his joke of the game being known as The Legend of Groose. If he doesn't get a spin-off game I'm gonna get mad.

The dungeons were for the most part forgettable and lacklustre, as well as small in number. The Ancient Cistern, the Sandship (the feel of the whole area and its dungeon was breath-taking, that Captain was one of the most tragic characters in the game, as he was aware of his own demise) and Sky Keep were pinnacles of level design, but the remainder of the dungeons were trite and unchallenging. The external worlds were much more developed, as part of the game's puzzling (Silent Realm, Dragons' quests) take place in them. The Ocean was quite a spectacular area in the way it felt, though it was rather small and empty (I guess that's the point), and was actually the only area not revisited through the main story, which was disappointing. The bosses of the dungeons were also unfortunately bland (how many Arachnids are we going to fight, Nintendo? How many?), with the exception of Koloktos (possibly one of my favourite Zelda bosses of all time), and to be quite honest I did enjoy the Grirahim fights, though I would much prefer meeting a different boss in the Fire Sanctuary, and perhaps Grirahim at a different point. As for the Imprisoned...guh. That's all I have to say on him.

The previous two paragraphs sum up my opinion on the larger parts of the game, but unfortunately there were many small things that I simply cannot ignore. The dialogue boxes moved at a snail's pace, and the way the game takes you to your inventory screen whenever you pick up a new item (even ones you've picked up before, in a previous game session), even during a fight makes absolutely no sense. The world did feel very small, but at least this allowed you to be familiar with the locales and the inhabitants, each of whom felt very alive and unique. The upgrade system excited me when I first heard of it, but ultimately it was largely unnecessary (what's the point of upgrading your shields when one shield in the game is indestructible and doesn't have any elemental weaknesses?). A longer and more branching upgrade tree for each item would have been quite nice, for example, being forced to choose whether you wanted your bow to upgrade its damage, or its attack range, but not both! Or maybe an option to make your shield bash stun for longer, at the expense of being unable to increase the durability of that shield. There's no point in an optional upgrade system if there are no alternatives and no consequences of upgrading your equipment!

The controls were fine. I'm not going to comment on it. They worked more or less the way I expected it to. I have no particular opinion of them.

So ultimately Skyward Sword was the Zelda game I enjoyed the most of all that I have played (I haven't played many), but I feel previous entries were more solid design-wise and had fewer issues. The vibrant world and characters of Skyward Sword really brought it to life and made it a much more enjoyable experience, which would have otherwise been quite good, but mostly forgettable.

8/10 for the sake of being on the Internet.

Skyward Sword!!

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR SKYWARD SWORD!!

So I picked it up yesterday morning in eager anticipation. I've been waiting for this game since I saw the trailers at E3 last year, and now I've played about 7 hours into it. Man, I forgot how much they padded out Zelda games, but for some reason the lengthiness feels justified, and I'm absolutely thrilled that I'm nowhere near the end of the game. So I'd like to take this time to talk about my experience in the game's first 7 hours. Firstly, I'm impressed with the role they've given Zelda - she's no longer a damsel in distress, and rather she has her own mission to complete alongside you. An unfortunate hitch in the plan forced her to depart sooner than expected, so up until now, she's been running off ahead of Link in the story as she prepares for the mission. Whatever the mission actually is - I imagine it's something along the lines of cleanse the world of evil, but I'm gonna give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt and hope that there's more fancy twists than that in store. I'll be honest, I didn't see Ganondorf coming at the end of Twilight Princess at all =P

Speaking of Twilight Princess, that's probably the game I would compare closest with Skyward Sword, for obvious reasons. The way combat is handled is very different, and obviously the new items add some freshness to the game's puzzles and combat, but even with the radically different graphics, the game still feels very Twilight Princess. The way Link runs, climbs and swims is mostly the same, and I imagine they probably borrowed the same animations from the previous game, but the new Link is much more athletic, which really adds to the way you explore the world. The world itself underwent a huge change, and I'd probably liken it more to the kind of world found in The Windwaker or Phantom Hourglass. It essentially feels like you're swimming in a sea of clouds and descending to remote islands, which house a dungeon as well as a unique world in them with both friends and foes inhabiting them.

Now I'm probably going to spend a bit of time talking about the combat. It still pays off, at least against the weaker enemies, to flail the remote without paying too much attention to how the enemy actually blocks, because Link is able to swing his sword faster than they can change their stance. As soon as I realised this, I was both disappointed because I thought the combat would be much more strategic, and relieved because fighting hundreds of enemies would quickly become a chore if I was actually required to put effort into figuring out all their weak spots. I've only encountered one boss fight and one mini-boss fight, but both were against sword users, which helped teach swordfighting well, but were rather uninspired characters. The boss fight was against an important antagonist, which I wasn't prepared for, since usually the first boss in any Zelda game is some nameless overgrown behemoth unique to the dungeon. I'm happy for this, since it adds more depth and familiarity to the characters you meet, rather than just some evil mastermind in the background plotting things without really having anything to do with you.

The other characters also seem more full of life than in previous games, and the vibrant colours in the environments tend to remove a feeling of lethargy from the game, which I felt was present to a small extent in the previous game. The game certainly isn't bland, and they use this well to mask the aging technology of the Wii and its blurred textures and jaggy models. Collecting bugs and other little trinkets is now actually meaningful in the game, as they're used to upgrade potions and equipment, which compels me to explore a lot more than I would otherwise.

So far I'm impressed with what Nintendo have done with Skyward Sword, and I look forward to the 40-50 (or more) hours I'll spend with the game!