Skyward Sword, thoughts so far?

[GryeDor]

I would LOVE that. There may be some that prefer this style and some that prefer another. An option to turn off the hints would be magical.

[optmusprimenumber]

I'm a fan of it.

As mentioned in above posts(s) I had some problems with thrusting and the aiming view being centered in reference to where the remote is pointing. But those were really the only problems I had with the controls, other than getting used to them. I ended up figuring (or reading?) that the stab is simple if you just hold the remote flat and move it forward not so much like you're sword fighting. And the pointer deal ended up being useful once I knew what the hell was going on. (I play sitting on my bed with my right arm over the side of it so I can chill, get my game on, and still swing a sword )

So with that said, the sprinting (and the stamina meter in general... Shadow of the Colossus! I'll take it) is completely awesome. Run faster and run up walls? Yes please. Limit my use of spin and flip attacks? Alright, if you have to... you video game, you.

The whole Sky situation is a hit as far as I can see. The controls for flying are fun (again, once you get used to them). The gliding mechanics and animations (dive bomb!) are sweet. Skydiving is also completely cool. Faceplant landings are funny. I also like how (though I wish there were more...) you have to skydive onto the islands in the sky. The Sail Cloth (parachute) thing would have benefited from some gliding action, but no matter. All those things are cool things. Fun video game stuff.

The overworld gets an E for effort. It's new for the series, it's fun and thought provoking and in the context of the story it's perfectly fine how it's separated provinces. And they kind of reminded me of the 2D LoZ overworlds more than the other 3D one's. (The whole notion of "vast" was taken a bit too far, I think, in some of the areas in the 3D LoZ's.) The way you have to travel "as the crow flies" to get from target place to the next and how shortcuts were opened up (if you opened them up) to get back and forth the next time you come through here. Which, by the way, was always part of the LoZ games. You're always on an adventure in a land. It only feels like "backtracking" because freaking Fi tells you where to go all the time. If you figured it on your own you'd be saying something to the effect of "maybe i should look over here? ::looking:: oh! I do! hm.. it was hidden here before but now I can get it". Fi is the real problem there. The option of "No Help" or "Yes Help" would have been nice.

The dungeons are less stumpy but they're still really fun. There were some seriously clever set pieces and you'll probably never see the final dungeon layout coming. They definitely managed to invoke the same senses of "ooh, neato" and "hmm, what now?" and "oh! YES! haha.." that were part of all the other LoZ's. The bosses (most of them) are totally badass and fun to fight. More cleverness and fun to be had there.

I find the weapons and items almost completely satisfying. I would have appreciated a grappling hook rather than a whip and I'm not a fan of how the Beedle became the replacement for the boomerang. The whip is sort of fun to use and the Beedle is definitely useful and cool to have, but no boomerang? In a LoZ game? come on. It would have been one more good way to swing the remote. Not to mention Link should never be seen, fully equipped, without a boomerang.

Like I said before, I found the pointing mechanics to become useful once I knew that whenever entering aiming mode, wherever the remote is pointing is center (whether above, below, to the left, etc the TV). The Gust Bellows item was actually quite awkward I think, until I purposefully started aiming below the TV before equipping it. The clawshots work as they should, though you can no longer change the length of the chain like in Twilight Princess and that feature is lacking from exploration/puzzle solving/whateveryoucallit. Also, they no longer pick up items.

I found the story mostly enjoyable. Well the meat of it anyway. It was awfully long winded and like I read somewhere above, I think LoZ games work better with less story telling and more action (and random tasks and hobbies that apparently the bringers of doom don't mind waiting for) But yea, what he said. NPC's pretty much just talk too much in general. Instead of targeting an item for sale and hitting A to get it's name, function, and price you have to read 3 dialog boxes worth of text to find out. Why is that a problem you might ask? Because it's extremely likely that someone playing this game will have to read that crap OVER and OVER and OVER. I did a good job of goofing up the first skydiving lesson about 9 times. That meant that I had to listen to Zelda's extremely long explanation of how to do it, advice AND encouraging words to try again. The best part was that it only takes about 4 seconds to screw up the part where I'm not reading. That was frustrating. Oh, and way too much hand holding. But, you can typically ignore it or just know that you were gonna figure it out anyway so whatever. But it gets annoying. I hit the wrong button in the middle of my first attempt at a cool puzzle and Fi popped up and told me how to do it. I missed out on trying the wrong thing 3 times or so, considering my facts and options, analyzing my data and materials and coming up with the solution. She did it for me, in 3 seconds, yay. AND! It was probably going to be one of the most satisfying puzzles to solve. ARG. Nonetheless, I don't think they're a deal breaker.

The enemies who can now defend intelligently in response to the 1:1 sword play is also a plus. It's a well implemented system and I think anyone who refuses to give it a honest try is missing out on a very OK thing. The combat is virtually identical to all other 3D LoZ's only with the sword being controlled by swinging the remote like a sword. You don't have to warm up first or have a good stance, just move your arm around. I'm willing to bet any LoZ fan would love to swing a real sword at the face of a Bokoblin, now's your virtual chance. It's not very awkward at all, as long as you give it time to feel natural. I messed up a lot and hadn't quite gotten a great grip on the controls until my second playthrough (50ish+ hours). But the game is damn fun, well designed, interesting and worthy of any LoZ fans attention.

With all the Legend of Zelda games that we have to play, most of them offering something different than the others, we now have another. One with a village in the sky, giant birds to cruise around on and skydive from, a disjointed surface world that must be saved (it's gonna be Hyrule gosh darn it!), thoughtful motion controlled sword play (and item usage), more great dungeons, more great bosses, more fun puzzles and a sidekick that's more annoying than the last! Everything seems on course. Half of me even thinks this is just another Wind Waker type experiment which means the next LoZ may be closer to OoT and TP. I'm just hoping they use the tablet controller with the next one (but I don't see how they'd do that if you still have to swing a Wii remote..). Also, I have trouble actually comparing the LoZ games to each other. If I want a Twilight Princess experience, I play Twilight Princess. I'll be glad down the road (though I am in the middle of a second playthrough now) that one of my choices will be the one with bird riding and stuff.

[Zing]

I'm a fan of it.

Great post. Thanks for managing to express so much without any spoilers. Well, technically the "claw shot" was a spoiler for me, but I suspected there would be a grapple of sorts as soon as I saw the target looking symbols stuck to the wall in hard to reach areas.

I was thinking about that the other day. My girlfriend was watching me play when I first discovered those targets and I said to her "those are probably for the hookshot". It wasn't until later that I realized she probably had no idea what I even meant by "hookshot". That is a Zelda term.

Players new to the series will be genuinely perplexed by those targets and get to experience the hookshot for the first time, ever. I'm jealous.

Having a young child also reminds me of how many assumptions us veteran gamers make while playing a new game. We have built up so much experience with games, that we could sit down and figure out the entire game without even being told what the controls are. We would instantly know to tumble toward a tree as soon as we suspected something was hiding in the leaves. We would know to look for a switch if we came to a locked door. We would know that we can catch faeries in a jar to save them for later. New players don't know any of this.

It's a shame that Nintendo is treating every player as a new player.

[AppleQueso]

Anyone else notice just how few fairies there actually were? I think I'd seen a total of maybe 4 or 5 of them my entire playthrough.

[Zing]

I've found two. I just let them go since I already had my bottles full of upgraded potion. I have yet to have a need for any potions. I did use the invincibility one once just for fun.

[k.vlaros]

I probably only found 4 or 5 too, but remember...

there are the goddess walls, too!

[optmusprimenumber]

So I just checked, and you DO need to use the pointer to play Skyward Sword - but not how you would expect. You need to point at the centre of the screen to calibrate when you first start playing, but after that all of the weapons and items use motion plus for aiming. I wonder why it even makes you use the pointer for calibration at all?

I do have problems with the calibration screen. The pointer is very jumpy and doesn't recognize the A button until I press it multiple times. I wonder if it's because I'm 10-12 feet from the TV? I'll have to try moving closer.

Otherwise, the game works just fine for me.

Just pokin through the thread... I posted something recently, but hadn't at the time combed through everything... I had some of that calibration A button noise going on a couple times. 98ish% of the time it worked fine. Whenever it bugged out on me I just took off the battery pack, let the Wii tell me it lost contact with the controller, plug the batter pack back in, let it try again, and it worked fine. Try that out.

Also, it seems that the sensors can be "fooled" and "confused" at times but haven't failed greatly enough to make me stop trying to be good at it. The whole Measuring and Interpreting Movement Through Space Interface must be mastered, as button pressing has been. Tell the robot what to do! It will listen, just make sure you're not mumbling.

...I suspected there would be a grapple of sorts as soon as I saw the target looking symbols stuck to the wall in hard to reach areas.

I was thinking about that the other day. My girlfriend was watching me play when I first discovered those targets and I said to her "those are probably for the hookshot"...

I always kind of wished they would make the grapple points a little more ambiguous. This bull's eye setup is insulting. I thought I was waiting to get a weapon that could trigger them or something (like the center was a button). It didn't even cross my mind that they had gone out of the way to make the grapple points that insanely obvious. When I got the clawshots and the game went "hey, look at the target right there!" I groaned a little. It would be cool if they just blended in with the environment a little more. Not hidden, but not some weird out of place object that almost breaks the fourth wall.

[Zing]

I've been in need of bird feathers to upgrade my shield for a while now. I already had my sacred shield break once. The feathers were the only item I wasn't able to find. I was thinking about it last night and I had an idea. I tested it today and, yes,

you use the net to catch feathers from the little birds you see.

Something odd… At one point, I am climbing around and I hear this snoring sound. I finally reach the source of the sound, a little creature that is sleep. Fi helpfully pops out and claims that she calculates with 60% certainty that this creature is making the sound. What the… I am supposed to trust everything this lady says and she can't even tell for sure if a little snoring creature is making a snoring sound, despite standing literally 6 feet away from the creature?

Speaking of that, the whole Commander Data thing where she throws out arbitrary percentages for random stuff got old real fast. It adds nothing to the game and is super cheesy. It makes no sense in most cases. "95% chance that is the chest we seek" and useless info such as that. Yet somehow this lady has pretty much all the information of what has happened and what will happen hidden inside her.

And whoever thought it was cute to have her tell me every… single… time… I am at three hearts or lower can go fly a kite. The guy who added the "your batteries are low" speech can join him.

Basically, this game would be much, much better without Fi included at all. Every aspect of the game except Fi is outstanding and enjoyable.

[vgmastercleveland]

Whoa, Zing, you aren't very far in the game. Later on you can get the Hylian shield, which doesn't break or take damage. Anyways, yes, I cannot stand all of that 60%, batteries have decreased, and hearts have decreased stuff. I wish you could just turn Fi's comments off.

[Zing]

I am probably an hour from getting that shield, assuming that stupid goron or whatever they are called in this game moves out of the way when I return from this next dungeon.

I am happy to hear you say that I still have quite a bit of game left to explore!