VGB: Review: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)

[Valigarmander]

Today, I review:
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)



The game is finally here. The new Zelda title I've been waiting for since 2008, in all it's glory. A new story! A new setting! New controls, more refined than those of the Wii iteration of Twilight Princess! It's been a long wait, and I've been quite patient. How does Skyward Sword stand up to my expectations?

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is chronologically the earliest game in the series. According to the game's introduction, a dark force descended upon the newly-created world of Hyrule, laying waste to those who inhabited it. To protect her people, the Hylians, the Goddess Hylia raised them into the heavens on floating islands called Skyloft, and then battled the dark force until it was sealed away. Ages later, our game begins in Skyloft with Link, who is a student at a knight academy. Following a special ceremony, Link's childhood friend Zelda it knocked out of the air by a mysterious twister down to the surface beneath the clouds, which none in Skyloft had ever visited. Shortly thereafter he encounters a spritelike entity called Fi, who informs him that he is the chosen hero of the Goddess. Thus, Link descends beneath the clouds and begins his search for Zelda.

Skyward Sword doesn't diverge from the Zelda formula greatly. The game is still about moving from dungeon to dungeon, collecting new items and equipment and upgrading old ones. The game's world is composed of two regions: sky, the land above the clouds inhabited by numerous floating islands; and the surface, which is divided into several provinces. The sky acts as a sort of hub region, where Link can travel from one surface province to another, or visit one of the sky's many floating islands, including Skyloft. Travel through the sky is done via Link's Loftwing, a giant bird that serves as his mount in this game. Flying through the sky on your Loftwing is comparable to sailing in The Wind Waker, only far less tedious. Flying in this game is actually pretty fun.



Admittedly, the game takes a little while to pick up. The first half hour or so will have you running around Skyloft learning how to wield your sword and ride your Loftwing using MotionPlus, among other things. The game gradually becomes more engaging from the moment you leave Skyloft the first time, but doesn't hit full swing until around the third dungeon. The reward is well worth the wait, though.

Your companion in this game is Fi, a spirit that resides within the Goddess Sword. She plays the same role Navi did in Ocarina of Time by giving you information about your surroundings and giving you hints about how to defeat enemies. Unfortunately, another quality she shares with Navi is that she can be rather irritating at times. Many of her comments are of the "no ****, Sherlock" variety. Also like Navi, and quite disappointingly, she doesn't play a very active role in the game. Whereas the King of Red Lions and Midna were important and dynamic characters in their respective games, Fi doesn't do much except provide exposition and ballet dancing. She's not as bad as Navi, I'll admit, but still a bit of a letdown.

The game features the usual items such as shields, bombs, slingshots and bows, but also introduces some new ones, such as the Beetle, which is kind of like an RC helicopter that you can use for reconnaissance or to carry objects, and the Whip, which can be used to stun or steal items from enemies or manipulate switches from afar. Many of the game's items can be upgraded at the bazaar in Skyloft using items dropped by enemies or collected around the world.

But I'm forgetting the most important item of all. Obviously, the most prominent feature of the game is swordplay, which is far more interactive than in any other game in the series. Thanks to the MotionPlus controls, Link holds his sword in the same position you hold your Wii Remote. Swinging the controller vertically will cause Link to swing his sword vertically. Swinging it diagonally will result in a diagonal attack. Thrusting it towards the screen will make Link perform a stabbing attack. The way you attack is of utmost importance in this game, because almost every enemy in the game is capable of defending itself against certain attacks. Sometimes an enemy will only be vulnerable to vertical attacks. Other times, it'll be horizontal. In some cases, they'll only be open to diagonal slices coming from the lower-left to the upper-right. And most of the time they'll be actively repositioning their defenses, forcing you to adapt and attack them from another direction. This is one of the game's most entertaining features, as it makes almost every enemy a puzzle. You can even use the position of your sword to feint and open up weak spots in an enemy's defenses.

Unfortunately, since swordplay is such an important feature in the game, imperfections in the control become very apparent. The MotionPlus is very sensitive to the way the remote is positioned, and if your form is slightly off it can screw up your attacks in game. The Wii Remote is meant to stay facing up the most of the time, and tilting it left or right (which can happen a lot when you're swinging it around in a heated battle) can cause it to misread which way you're swinging it and turn, for example, a horizontal slice into a diagonal one. This can be rather annoying when fighting enemies that have only a narrow region that can be hit. Once you get the hang of the controls, this occurs much less frequently. The problems with the MotionPlus persist, however, with the Goddess's Harp. The Harp is much less interactive than most musical instruments in past Zelda games, and yet somehow it's much more difficult to control. Ostensibly, you can play the Harp by simply swaying the Wii Remote from side to side, causing Link to play a pleasant melody. But instead, the wonky controls make it quite difficult to get Link to move his fingers from one side of the harp to the other in one undisturbed sweep. Changing the way you wield the Wii Remote doesn't seem to help. Fast or slow? Broad swings or tiny ones? Swing the remote from the wrist or with the entire arm? Nothing seems to work, and portions of the game where you had to play the Harp were an utter chore. Thankfully, you don't have to play it very often.



The level design in Skyward Sword is superb. The sky isn't as big and empty as the Great Sea in The Wind Waker, and similarly, the surface world isn't as sparse and boring as the overworld in Twilight Princess. The places you visit are packed with things to do, enemies to fight, and secrets to uncover. The temples in this game may be my favorite in the entire series. The puzzles are challenging, all of the items get plenty of use, and the bosses are always good, and will test your skill with the MotionPlus. The game's progression is rather linear, however, there are plenty of sidequests to keep you busy if you don't feel like heading straight for the next dungeon. The game's NPCs are fun and unique, and they add much to your enjoyment of the game.

Visually, the game is gorgeous. The art style stands somewhere between The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, mixing the realisting proportions of TP with the bright colors and cel-shading of TWW. The game itself resembles a painting, and even has a filter that makes distant areas and objects look like a pointillist work. The game's soundtrack is very well done, though may not be quite as memorable as some earlier games.

To summarize my experience with Skyward Sword, there were indeed a few bumps along the way. But Navi didn't ruin Ocarina of Time. Sailing didn't ruin The Wind Waker. And the flaws of this game didn't keep it from being an exciting and enjoyable experience overall. The game is beautiful, action-packed, and one of my new favorites in the series. So, what're you waiting for? Go out and get your copy right now, fool.

Pros: The gameplay is excellent. Combat it fun as well as challenging, and the dungeon desing is some of the best in the entire series. The game's visuals are beautiful.

Cons: The controls can be rather annoying at times. The game's progression is also rather linear. Fi isn't very helpful.

Final thoughts: All things considered, this is an excellent game and one of the best the Wii has seen. Is Skyward Sword the best game in the Zelda series? It just might be.

My rating for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword:

[Marilink]

Thanks for posting this, Val. I'll read it after I beat the game, though.

[Valigarmander]

Do you not trust Val to keep spoilers out of his reviews?

[Loot]

Val you would manage to spoil Pong

[X-3]

Just finished it today. I give it the extremely low score of 8.5/10.

It's a great game but it has its issues.
-The padding the game employs gets ridiculous. I think at one point in the last third of the game I just wanted the game to hurry up and end, or at least get to a dungeon.
-Remember how TP used to stop you to tell you how much a Blue Rupee was? This game is even worse about that. Collecting a 'new' item stops the game to tell you about it, then goes to the Collection Screen and adds it to your list. I say 'new' because if you turn the game off every bug and treasure is considered 'new' again, so the game ends up telling you about the joys of Amber Relics when you already have 30. So unnecessary.
-Story was...eh. I won't go into detail but there really wasn't much tension. On a positive note, most of the characters in the game are wonderful.
-Fi is terrible and basically irrelevant to the plot.

[Cosmonautical]

I'm not sure where all the hate for Fi is coming in, she doesn't order you off to other locations or anything like Navi, and she actually gives in-depth descriptions about all of the enemies and items(unlike every other helper and especially Navi, who couldn't even manage to give you helpful combat info most of the time). Those descriptions include historical info, which is very much appreciated.

The things she pisses me off with are the interruptions to tell me my remote battery is low, and to tell me that my hearts are low. I know that it is low, it has an icon in the corner when it is low that is accompanied by a chime. I know my hearts are low, they are always on the screen and I've been watching them - and no, it's not an emergency to fill them unless it's 2 or 1 left, godsakes. Those were never in any other game, and they are especially frustrating only because of that.

Originally Posted by Valigarmander

the surface world isn't as sparse and boring as the overworld in Twilight Princess*

* OoT


Also, the art style is firmly in imitation of the Mana series, and some of the music and environments are remniscent of the better parts of Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma.

[CuccoLady]

^ I swear everyone on the interwebz hates her. Her input regarding the eyeball in the first temple and regarding a ton of other enemies was really useful, and she actually DOES STUFF [like dowsing], and she doesn't tell me that HEYYY arrows are painted on the floor or to GO TO THE NEXT DUNGEON RIGHT NOW or to CONQUER MYSELF.

The low heart reminder IS annoying considering I already have the blip noises telling me as much, but that's hardly something to merit all of the Fi hate.

[Cosmonautical]

One of the primary things I'm going to offer my criticism on here, and this is just having played up to the third temple/dungeon;

The enemy design isn't bad, but it falls back on re-use too much. If they're going to change minor bits about how you combat an enemy, they could very easily include an entirely different enemy rather than just a Zol/gel with an elemental theme or whatever. There are legions worth of Zelda backstory and it's very disappointing that they don't ever tap that when it comes to enemies - it seems like they're only ever pulling from the most recent games for enemies.

Need an enemy that shocks? There's like 5 of them. Need a blobby type monster? 10ish of them. One that flies and drops bombs? Already had one.

It's not that I think that they need to avoid making new enemies, it's that they keep reusing like 10% of the least interesting ones, and in this game so far they've gone especially out of their way to avoid designing and animating new enemy models? I mean, I've seen enough deku babas - they were overplayed after OoT. The return to Zols/Gels instead of Chus was nice, since the chus were just a bad mashup of the potatomen things with zols/gels/bots. But, man, I really did not need another iteration of generic troll-imp-man, and this game keeps crankin them out.

Have to say though, the Lizalfos in this game are way cooler and remind me tons of enemies from Zelda II - they're kind of a mashup of a few from that. Early Zelda games had way more focus on different types of weapons, btw, and the recent ones lack that. It's nice to see it being represented in the Lizalfos, at least slightly.

[X-3]

The re-use was annoying, but not a huge negative for me. That said, uh...yeah, it's going to continue.

regarding Fi:
1998: Navi is annoying, irrelevant to plot.
2000: Tatl is slightly less annoying, more relevant to plot.
2003: KotRL is still annoying, really relevant to the plot.
2006: Midna is still annoying, extraordinarily relevant to the plot. (probably more relevant than Zelda)
2011: Fi is extremely annoying, irrelevant to plot.

Hmm, something seems wrong here.

I think stopping the player to tell them to go follow a linear path is bad.
I think stopping the player to tell them that their hearts are low, or to tell them that they should do something obvious is worse. I don't think treating the player like an idiot is a good idea at all.

Hmm, maybe we just have different tastes in companions.

anyway here's some positives so I don't sound like a total negative nancy:
+The game was really funny at times.
+Characters were mostly enjoyable.
+Music was awesome.
+Lanayru region is ridiculously awesome. Probably one of my favourite Zelda areas ever.
+Wii Motion+ worked really well for me. That means I didn't even have much trouble with the Harp.
+Items were used a lot.
+Upgrade system is good, though I wish more items could be upgraded. I think I had everything upgraded by the sixth dungeon.
+The economy (I guess) were handled well. I never reached max Rupees because I was always buying expensive things, which is wonderful.
EDIT:
+how can I forget about the ability to run? That was an awesome addition.
+Bosses were really good.

Example of awesome music (comes from the second dungeon):

Click to view video.

[CuccoLady]

^ Agreed on Lanayru. Epic win dungeons in that province. <3

[Marilink]

^Timeshift stones were one of the best things to ever happen in a Zelda game.

[Cosmonautical]

Originally Posted by CuccoLady

^ Agreed on Lanayru. Epic win dungeons in that providence. <3

prov·i·dence
noun
1.
( often initial capital letter ) the foreseeing care and guidance of God or nature over the creatures of the earth.

Yeah, you mean province.

Originally Posted by X-3

regarding Fi:
1998: Navi is annoying, irrelevant to plot.
2000: Tatl is slightly less annoying, more relevant to plot.
2003: KotRL is still annoying, really relevant to the plot.
2006: Midna is still annoying, extraordinarily relevant to the plot. (probably more relevant than Zelda)
2011: Fi is extremely annoying, irrelevant to plot.

Hmm, something seems wrong here.

I think stopping the player to tell them to go follow a linear path is bad.
I think stopping the player to tell them that their hearts are low, or to tell them that they should do something obvious is worse. I don't think treating the player like an idiot is a good idea at all.

Hmm, maybe we just have different tastes in companions.

Perhaps. I think you're trying to measure them based on how justified by the story they are, when they were going to happen one way or another because nintendo needs a way to communicate with players. I don't like partner/companion characters in Zelda at all, but Fi actually relates relevant information unlike pretty much all of the other ones, despite the usual flaws.

And no, I don't recall any instance of Fi bugging me to get on with the story, so far.

[CuccoLady]

Derp.

You know what I meant.

--

I just liked Fi because her concept is cool. And even when she does bother me about hearts, I just get some hearts and everything is fine. NAVI, on the other hand, would yell at me about going to the water temple when I am trying to deliver an Eyeball Frog in under 2 minutes, and after I listened to her to get her to shut up, SHE SAYS THE SAME FREAKING THING FIVE MINUTES LATER.

Like, I can deal with annoying reminders if it's just once every now and then. Navi was persistent and obnoxious and didn't even do anything useful to supplement her obnoxiousness. My favorite part in OoT was the ending when she flies away. Because she had absolutely no redeeming qualities.

Fi is at least an interesting concept, who gives useful information and doesn't scream at you eight times in a row about the same thing. And I'd vastly prefer a ringing sound over HEY LOOK HEY HEY LISTEN HEY HEY HEY. Worst. Idea. Ever.

[/rant]

[Marilink]

I tolerate Fi mostly because I realize why they made her so emotionless. In Twilight Princess, Link and Midna had a much stronger emotional connection than Link and Zelda did. Since they wanted to establish the emotional connection between Link and Zelda in SS, they made your companion someone without any emotions at all. I think they might've gone too far and done better to go with a character more like the KoRL, but whatever.

Still want to punch her in the face sometimes.

[CuccoLady]

I'm personally down with an ice-skating computer sword, but hey. It's like a shiny blue floating robot. Awesome. x{D

[Marilink]

As long as we're talking about her, check this out:

[CuccoLady]

I think in the thread where we all first theorized that TGiaS, pretty much everyone at first thought she was a Great Fairy because of that.

I'd like there to be some significance, but I think it's more likely Nintendo just decided to put a random little shout-out to WW in Fi's design

[Valigarmander]

The Great Fairy is a sword, too.

[Marilink]

^^Which is really what a lot of the "Timeline" elements are in the first place. Nevertheless, I like to pretend they're canonical connections. :P

[Cosmonautical]

Originally Posted by DJ Blue J

I tolerate Fi mostly because I realize why they made her so emotionless. In Twilight Princess, Link and Midna had a much stronger emotional connection than Link and Zelda did. Since they wanted to establish the emotional connection between Link and Zelda in SS, they made your companion someone without any emotions at all. I think they might've gone too far and done better to go with a character more like the KoRL, but whatever.

Still want to punch her in the face sometimes.

If you haven't tried targeting the townspeople with Fi yet, you really should.