All the New Skyward Sword Information Here! Screenshots, Gameplay Videos, Trailers, and More!
Posted on September 14 2011 by Nathanial Rumphol-Janc
I know keeping up with the massive flood of Nintendo news is hard, and it’s even harder to keep up with Skyward Sword because the information seems to be ever flowing. So, in this post contains every tidbit any of you could possibly want to gather from the last 24 hours. Inside includes all brand new screenshots, video gameplay, a CGI Skyward Sword trailer, a brand new traditional trailer showing off never before seen gameplay and a new character that is sure to get theorists hearts racing, and a heck of a lot of info courtesy Nintendo and Game Informer. Seriously, if you have been having a hard time keeping up, then this post will be your Skyward Sword coverage bible.
UPDATE: We’ve got up all the information and images from the Game Informer article on Skyward Sword up and online for your viewing pleasure!
And if you think this is thorough coverage, just wait for our Skyward Sword Walkthrough, which will be published on the game’s release date. We’ll have a spoiler-free main quest guide up on the dot when the game launches, with a 100% guide following soon after. It’s going to be something special, I assure you. You can get a brief taste of what it’ll be like in our E3 2011 Demo Walkthrough.
Details from Nintendo of America’s Twitter:
Did Mr. Miyamoto just announce a second play-through and boss challenge mode for Skyward Sword? Awesome!
Mr. Miyamoto says Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword could have 50-100 hours of gameplay, one of Nintendo’s largest projects EVER!
Mr. Miyamoto also announces hint movies in Skyward Sword, similar to Ocarina of Time 3D.
Eldin Volcano
We were already excited and surprised to get this clip early yesterday morning. No one expected Nintendo to talk about Skyward Sword at the 3DS conference, let alone flood us with additional screenshots and trailers afterwards.
4+ Minutes of Gameplay
There is so much new in this video it kept my heart racing the whole time. If you still think you’re missing something important after watching this for your 30th time, then be sure to check out our own Alex Plant’s breakdown of everything important to be seen here.
CGI Trailer
If only Skyward Sword actually looked this good. While it’s a prerendered CGI, one can’t help but wonder if we can get something close to this quality on the Wii U. Skyward Sword sequel, anyone?
Zelda 25th Anniversary Montage, New Skyward Sword Trailer at the 4:50 Mark
Here we have the brand new trailer for Skyward Sword, with some epic speed boat action and… what’s this? A Sheikah? Is that a younger Impa? Is it even a Sheikah at all? What is going here? Who knows, but theorists are going to love this one.
Item Upgrades Trailer (in English)
Item upgrades are something we’ve heard about for awhile – but now we can see them firsthand! Watch Link upgrade his Wooden Shield to a stronger one with just a few things he found out in the field. Also gives a good glimpse at returning to Skyloft as well as the game’s save system.
New Skyward Sword Screenshots
Massive List of Brand New Information
- The game reportedly features 50 to 100 Hours of Gameplay
- Features some kind of Second Quest – although the depth of this New Game + remains to be seen
- Skyloft is a group of floating islands, and Link is a Skyloft resident
- Skyloft residents travel between islands through the use of birds
- Link befriends a rare breed of this bird early in the game via a special ceremony
- Link and Zelda are out flying on their birds when they encounter a tornado which sucks up Zelda; Link spends much of the game finding Zelda using a powerful weapon that eventually becomes the Master Sword
- Forest Temple is Skyward Sword’s first dungeon, and the Fire Temple is the second dungeon
- Eldin Volcano is where the Mogma race lives; they are muscular creatures that each have unique hair styles, and only pop their upper body above the ground to talk
- The Mogma warn link about a group of shady ‘guys in red’ as he heads deeper into the volcano
- Phi is a female spirit who inhabits the Skyward Sword and fills the role of Navi this time around
- Phi makes a loud beeping noise to let you know of a point of interest
- This Skyward Sword has the power of dowsing, which has you hold the sword out in front of you in first-person until the sword makes a noise when pointed in the direction you need to go. You’ll use this ability to find keys, hearts and even Zelda herself: for example, the sword tells you that Zelda is indeed in the Fire Temple
- There’s no compass in this version of the game, as it’s replaced by the dowsing ability, and dungeon maps automatically fill in treasure and boss locations
- The developers are treating the overworld as a big dungeon itself – between-dungeon segments now feature combat and puzzle solving that would normally be in dungeons
- A seal-like enemy called a ‘Pyrup’ hides beneath rocks and inside walls, will climb into walls and spout fire that blocks your passage
- Depending on how you hold the Wiimote, you can perform an overhead bomb, or roll one, and you can put spin on bombs as well by twisting your wrist
- Throw the bombs into the cracks to blow up Pyrups, some enemies require accurate bomb tosses to destroy
- Orange slime monsters split into smaller enemies when you hit them, and these smaller bits grow in size if you don’t destroy them quickly enough
- Some Pyrups drop Eldin Ore, slimes may drop collectible goo – items grow more powerful as you continue on by upgrading them with these materials in Skyloft
- The upgrade system is still being worked on – example of how it might work: collect materials and rupees to upgrade a slingshot to utilize a spread shot. Every item has multiple levels of upgrade – it’s unclear if you choose upgrade paths, have to upgrade items to progress, or have the ability to use all upgrades
- The Game Informer dev that played the game was playing for over an hour and still hadn’t reached the dungeon
- Statues that serve as save points and portals to the world above the clouds are scattered about dungeons and the overworld
- Skyloft’s map resembles that of The Wind Waker thanks to its grid-like structure
- Bird flight is much faster than boat speed in Wind Waker
- You’ll come across enemies and tornadoes while flying
- Bomb Bag returns, which allows you to store bomb flowers
- use the Digging Mitts to find rupees, hearts and other secrets
- The Whip can grab onto certain elements of the environment, and also stun enemies
- Gain a new musical item – the harp – that uses the MotionPlus to play
- No worries about controlling wind patterns, a tedious part of sailing in Wind Waker, while flying
- Beams of light shoot up from the clouds to indicate locations – there’s a green beam above the forest, red beam above the volcano, and you can set your own blue beacon to guide yourself during flight
- Treasure hunting system – while on the ground, find hidden rune-encrusted boxes and raise your sword to build up power and slash the boxes to teleport them to the clouds. This unlocks treasure chests above the clouds, which appear as glowing points on your map
- Link can jump off his bird above any island or beacon. Control the fall by moving the Wiimote and then pressing B for your parachute. If you overshoot your target, your bird will swoop in and save you
- You’re only required to return to Skyloft between dungeons and at certain plot points
- Use your dowsing mechanic to find pieces of a key to unlock a door to the Fire Temple
- Grab a refreshing fruit to refill your stamina meter, or let it slowly refill on its own. If it empties all the way you’ll be immobilized for a few seconds
- Dash up steep hills or into a wall to climb up a short distance
- Climbing puzzles have you figuring out where to go so you can rest and climb more, or find a spot to eat a fruit and continue on
- One scenario has you run up a hill while bokoblins throw bounders from above – you have to use certain types of swings to take out this enemy, and when you do they’ll hit the hill below and roll down to the bottom before they disappear
- Bokoblins will also stomp on your hands when you’re climbing up ledges and swing at you with their maces
- Some Bokoblins have horns that allow them to call in reinforcements, others hide in wooden towers that you have to blow up with bombs. Aonuma credits director Hidemaro Fujibayashi for these new additions
- It took the Game Informer staffer 3 hours of overworld action before he could enter the dungeon
- A Mogma will ask you to get a bomb bag for him, but then lets you keep
- You can pick up bomb flowers anywhere and refill your bag
- The volcano has a fish enemy that pops out of the lava and shoots fireballs at you. Defeat the enemy by tossing a bomb in its mouth
- If you get set on fire and pull out a bomb, it will explode
- Lizalfos can block all sword attacks at first, but if you dodge his move you’ll make him taunt and then you can attack
- Part of the area has you balance on a stone ball and navigate through lava, while another section has you running towards the camera to avoid an oncoming boulder
- Ghirahim shows up in the Forest and Fire temples, calls Zelda a ‘precious oracle’ and a ‘female servant of the Goddess’. In the Fire Temple, he summons the boss, tells you you’ll never find Zelda and then flees
- Mogma are accompanied by upbeat, jazzy music that features snapping fingers
- Guardians of the Silent Realm are accompanied by industrial music akin to something in Silent Hill. This new approach to music comes as Aonuma’s goal to ‘break down some of the typical patterns you see in Zelda games’
- Aonuma reveals details behind the main theme for Skyward Sword, which is Zelda’s Lullaby reversed
- There are other musical cues in the game that long-time fans will appreciate, including a surprising use of the overworld theme from the original Legend of Zelda. This is the song you hear before starting the game
- Fire Temple boss battle takes place on a narrow ramp with a pit of lava at the bottom and bombs/hearts at the top
- The boss’ name is Scaldera, which looks like a giant bolder with legs. Scaldera climbs the ramp and shoots fireballs at Link. He will also try to suck Link up. Toss a bomb in his mouth to chip away at his exterior, revealing molten skin and a single eye on a stalk. His eye can dodge and position itself in ways that require you to slash in specific ways
- The Silent Realm lets you take on ‘spiritual tests that Link must go through in an alternate world’ that returns you to twisted versions of previous areas
- The first Silent Realm location involves the overworld area that surrounded the Forest Temple
- The Silent Realm mixes tear collecting of Twilight Princess and stealth of Phantom Hourglass
- Shove the Skyward Sword into the ground to access these areas, and enter with no weapons
- Fill a spiritual vessel with tears, all while Guardians try to block you – these Guardians can knock you out with one hit
- You enter the Silent Realm in a circle of safety, but the Guardians activate as soon as you leave that circle – this is when the Guardians raise their arms/swords and the industrial music begins
- Guardians deactivate as you pick up tears – you get 90 seconds after grabbing a tear to get the next, or the Guardians wake up
- Lantern-wielding ghosts float by, and if you are hit with their light the Guardians activate no matter how much time has passed
- Collect light seeds to make the remaining tears shoot a beam of light into the sky for 30 seconds
- Skyward Sword will include 100 minutes of cutscenes.
These are Mogma folks. Brand new Race!
Developer Quotes
“Some of the fun we had back then was lost in the creation of later games. The problem is that when you do something once in a game like Ocarina of Time, when you make the next game it becomes expected that all of that is there. You end up spending a lot of time creating all these elements of the game just to meet expectations. (My goal with Skyward Sword is to) take the franchise into new places.” – Eiji Aonuma
“A number of people working on Zelda now are people that grew up playing Zelda. From their perspective, they’re looking at it as, ‘What are some of the things that failed to be helpful in getting through the game?’ They’re stripping that out and streamlining.”
“I went to university at essentially an art school, but I wasn’t studying art per se. I was really doing more sort of craftwork, particularly creating wooden puppets. As I was wrapping up school, I realized that really wasn’t something that would be easy to get a job with. Mr. Miyamoto was in on my interview (at Nintendo) and saw the puppets that I made, and he thought they were pretty interesting. I think I won him over with my puppets.”
“He has a fairly young team that hasn’t been involved in a lot of Zelda games before. One of their objectives from the beginning was that they wanted to do thing in Zelda that haven’t been done before. They spent a lot of time coming up with ideas for new interactions in the Zelda series.”
“We’ve made so many games now that we can’t help but think about how those games connect to one another. However, that consideration comes late in the development process. When we create a new game, we don’t start with a preset notion of what the story is going to be or how it’s going to flow. We start by focusing in on what the core gameplay element is going to be and then develop from that.
There is a document on my computer that has a stamp on it that says ‘Top Secret.’ I actually haven’t even shown it to many of the staff members. One of the special privileges of being the producer of the series is that I have the right as we’re finalizing the game’s story to then decide what fits in.
People start to focus in on the storyline and gapes in the timeline. This is a backward way of creating a game.”
“Sound director Hajime Wakai actually created that. He did it secretly and didn’t let me know. It wasn’t just a matter of them being silly or playing around but really looking at what they can do with the music that would draw on the rich musical history of the series but still offer something new. The main theme is called ‘The Goddess’ Song.’ There is an intentional connection between the Goddess and Zelda, so we wanted those two songs to relate to one another.”
“Mr. Kondo did something interesting with the arrangement. He requested that when we record it with the orchestra, there must be a bugle that sounds as if it’s coming from off in the distance. When you hear that sound in the prologue, what sounds almost like a military bugle, it adds this great feeling to it.” – Wakai.”
“We’ve been talking a lot about how we’re trying to make this Zelda game feel new and different, but there will come a point in the game where you’ll still get that final feeling that this is still a Zelda game.”
