Jirohnagi
Braava Braava
This is the short version too...
Dear god
This is the short version too...
When you make a thread like this there are a few members here that you should hope to see reply. Some of those have already posted and I know that the rest soon will, another of those members is me.
Skyward Sword, for me, is one of the most disappointing Zelda games and is by far the worst 3D Zelda game to date. A bad 3D Zelda game had to happen eventually, i'm just glad it happened during the Wii period.
Firstly, Skyward Sword is very much like Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks; games butchered by the hardware they appeared on due to Nintendo always wanting to push an (often once only) 'immersive' gimmick.
The Wii hardware never sat well with me and i didnt enjoy the majority of the games released for it, so it was a shame (but no surprise) that Skyward Sword ended up sucking in so many ways.
Skyward Sword was flawed on a conceptual level due to introducing and integrating the Wii's motion controls into every facet of the game's design. An egregious example would be the Beamos (and other enemies within the Lanayru Mining Facility) that have glowing cut-here-to-defeat lines across their bodies, which is just patronising, but then again so is the rest of the game.
The motion controls for me were a major barrier preventing me from becoming immersed within SS's world from a gameplay perspective; the constant recalibration for first person items like the bow and abilities such as dowsing, the constant flapping of the Loftwing's wings to fly, the lack of manual camera control, the irritation of swinging on vines, pulling switches, throwing and rolling bombs, guiding the beetle, swimming and every aspect of combat felt clunky, limited, inconvenient and not as responsive or intuitive as i'd have liked at all.
I was constantly being reminded that I was playing a game and it wasnt one I was enjoying; 'slash here' 'turn this' 'recalibrate' and 'tilt this way' were dull (and often frustrating) actions that did nothing but detract from the overall experience.
Would enemies have had glowing slash-here-to-defeat lines like a child's first DIY book? Probably not. Would those swinging vines have been there? Probably not. Would those infernal rotating boss key sections have been there? Definitely not.
At this point it sounds like all my frustrations were born of the motion controls and while the game's design is largely the victim of them being included there are many other things Skyward Sword got so completely wrong that the motion controls were the least irritating aspect of my experience...
The art style sucks. Plain and simple. It sounds good on paper that Nintendo chose to use an expressionist style to mask the limitations of the Wii's power but its still horrible. Not because the draw distance is a horrible blur of colour (the blur is the point) but because it is ugly in design. The character designs look terrible, human characters have distractingly ugly facial features, their eyes are dead and some of their expressions are straight up terrifying.
Other characters such as the Mogmas are some of the worst designed characters i've seen in any game ever, they're hideous. The bosses are trash too; Tentalus, Moldarach, Scaldera, Ghirahim, The Imprisoned and Akuma-sorry-Demise. They all have terrible designs and terribly gimmicky motion control based battles, more so than standard enemies and the overworld, none of them are fun save for Koloktos (and even he is overrated in both looks and battle).
While we're on the topic of character design, the design team were given complete freedom for the design of The Imprisoned. Complete freedom and they make a pinecone with toes. Let that sink in.
That's enough for the way things look, now let's talk about the way they interact with each other and the narrative.
Terrible. Just terrible.
The opening hour reads like a fanfiction. A day in the life of Link and Zelda as they flirt and go about their lives with a sugary carefree nature in a place where nobody else is important.
Zelda comes off like a fangirl self-insert and is just as irritating, she hits most of the cliche anime tropes early on and continues to do so until the credits roll.
The way Groose is handled is so ham-fisted that his whole arc is an insultingly blunt affair.
He starts out as a jerk and ends as less of a jerk. A character reversal arc can be a wonderful thing but all it takes for Groose is three very short, very on-the-nose cutscenes (that'd even make Sakamoto blush) to completely 180 his character. It isn't big, it isn't clever but he still manages to be the most interesting character in the game by default because the rest of the cast are just so terribly written.
Ghirahim... well, he doesn't really have anything going on. He wants to defeat Link and sacrifice Zelda to Demise. He starts out wanting to kill Link and dies wanting to kill Link... or does he?
I ask because in the scene following the Lanayru Mining Facility dungeon where Ghirahim attacks Impa and Zelda, Ghirahim basically says to Link 'I should have beat you last time, I could beat you this time, but I'll beat you next time', then he disappears. So... why didn't he fight Link? Did he just not care? Whatever.
Impa keeps her mysterious identity thing going between the young and old versions of herself even though its obvious.
Her younger self has a coldness about her while her older self has a guiding warmth. Good stuff Nintendo, very clever. See what you did there. Nice. Moving on.
Zelda, Groose, Ghirahim and Impa all make for a dull supporting cast alongside the ever-blank Link. Anyone else who appears in the game really isn't worth talking about as far as characterisation goes because there isn't any to be had (especially Fi, her final moments annoy me so much that I'm not going to waste time talking about them).
So what of the narrative?
Well, as i mentioned, the opening hour is a very tropey anime fanfiction while the following hours are something of a chase with Link catching up to a kidnapped Zelda over the course of three dungeons.
After these dungeons Link has to 'prove himself' for the three sacred flames to temper the Goddess Sword into the Master Sword (via some retconning of course) then prove himself again for the Song of the Hero and then prove himself again via (horrific) stealth missions in the Sacred Realm before finally locating the three pieces of the Triforce.
Standard Zelda stuff but the idea of Link constantly 'proving himself' gets old fast, especially when you're tempering the Goddess Sword into the Master Sword. You know how the sword is gonna end up, you're basically going through the motions until the sword looks like what you know. Its dull and tedious.
The final hours are a chore too and the final boss is laughable.
It is pretty difficult to feel intimidated by an end-game boss when you've spent the last thirty hours clipping its toenails (The Imprisoned, the fail whale that it is) before dropping half an island on its head.
Proto-Ganon (Demise) should have been threatening. To see the pure untamed evil that is Ganon-before-Ganon should have been an epic and important moment for the franchise as a whole... but it was just funny. Dude looks like a bargain Akuma.
So, the controls suck, the character designs and art style suck, the characters themselves suck and the narrative sucks... what else is there? Oh yeah!
The overworld sucks too.
What happened here? The whole thing is a mess.
Firstly, the sky; its empty. It really is empty.
Wind Waker has an island in every quadrant of its map, big or small there was something to do on every island you found. There's none of that in Skyward Sword's sky.
You have Skyloft which acts as a fine hub, budget Lon Lon Ranch in the form of the Lumpy Pumpkin which doesnt offer much outside of a few dull sidequests. Then there are three minigame islands and the rest is filler.
The Thunderhead serves as a place to progress the narrative once Link has proven himself for something, the scene of a single boss battle and minigame. That still isn't much to write home about.
Flying in the sky is a chore with all of the flapping (no camera control either despite the nunchuck not being used at all) and it feels so damn slow, mostly because there isn't anything around to give the sense of speed unless you're flying over Skyloft or through a boost-rock.
Combat is pointless as you can only tackle enemies with your Loftwing and not slash at anything with your sword like in TP because the motion controls only allow for control of your bird while flying, not Link (and none of his items either).
You also cant fly at night because SS doesn't have a day/night cycle (what?!) You can make it night by resting in a bed but you still wont be allowed to fly at night. Man, a day/night cycle could have made this game look so damn pretty.
All in all the sky in Skyward Sword is nothing more than an elaborate level select menu.
The world beneath the clouds sucks too.
Three unconnected provinces that open up little by little killing any sense of free progression (Zelda games have always gated you in the past but never to this extent).
These three provinces of forest, fire and desert will be the same ones you'll be seeing for the entire game. Yes, new sections are revealed, but a desert is still a desert and a forest is still a forest (even if you flood it and pretend its a water level).
These provinces are unlike other Zelda deserts and forests as they act like mini dungeons in and of themselves. Theyre filled with non-organic puzzles which lessens the feel of exploration even more since youre always moving something somewhere or rolling a bomb somewhere else. The sense of wonder of exploring a strange new place is entirely lost since you're literally constantly 'working' through it rather than exploring. All three provinces suffer from this design choice to crowbar in more motion control gimmicks.
Apparantly the overworld was originally going to be connected but they decided to separate it so that the player had reason to go back into the sky... Okay, then why not put something worthwhile in the sky to give them a reason?
The dungeons weren't anything to write home about either. Lanayru Mining Facility was probably my favourite but it was still dull as hell. The Ancient Cistern had a nice idea but didn't do it justice and the Sand Ship stands out for being very un-Zelda-like but it was disappointing too.
I'd like to talk about how the horde battle was a mess, how being pulled into the collection screen for ten seconds after each time you load the game, I'd like to talk about the enemies and how the gameplay sacrificed a lot of their potential but I've gone on for a while now. Let's just say I have more issues than I have mentioned but these are a particular miscellaneous set that need mentioning
I should probably talk about something I liked about SS.... well I liked the main theme (backwards Zelda's Lullaby), i like the tracks Fi's Farewell and Island in the Sky. They're some of the best tracks Zelda has to offer as a series.
Hmmm... well... that's why I think Skyward Sword sucked and why i dislike it. I could write another essay on how i would improve Skyward Sword but here isn't the place.
tl;dr, Yeah, I could do with Zelda triangle lip in the beginning just being a little more nicer. I mean, look at Link, he may be a little mischievous but he doesn't tease people approximately half as much as Zelda. But then, when Zelda triangle lip matured in the middle of the game, she still came off as sickeningly sweet, even in her relationship with Link. And I just can't cut the girl some slack even after she realized she was a goddess, she still acted like a damsel-in-distress and still acted like an obnoxious character in the beginning of the game.
The game was a little too short, I think there should've been a bit more worldbuilding because Zelda games like TP tend to have bigger world-building and SS was a bit lazy on the worldbuilding and the ending was a bit abrupt, Zelda and Link plan to stay on the surface but why? I think that post-credits ending should've went on a little bit longer, talking about why Link and Zelda want to stay on the surface.
The game had too much emotion, the worst part being Zelda triangle lip crying tears of joy like a 13 year old at the ending and Link not doing anything. WTH, Link? Can't you say "Don't cry" or something?
I notice no matter the thread you always hate on Princess Zelda. why is that? I mean she's the reason the games exist.
Because she's sickeningly sweet, too whiny, and in some games like SS and BOTW, a brat. And I don't like her relationship with Link because the two differ too much.
Ok.Your turn @Cfrock
This is why so many people hate SS. It's not a game. It's a sales pitch. It's a tech demo, a showcase of what Wii Motion Plus was capable of. Every decision was made with the Motion Plus in mind, how they could use it, how it would fit in. Enemy design was built entirely around Motion Plus. Item design was built entirely around it. The game's pale excuse for exploration was built around it.Skyward Sword was flawed on a conceptual level due to introducing and integrating the Wii's motion controls into every facet of the game's design.
His arc was that he started off as a cocky guy who was very formal. Each time he got more and more aggravated, and in a figurative and literal way "shed his skin" to unleash the true monster of a character, with no more formalities.Ghirahim has no arc. He never changes. The first time he shows up he is cocky and flamboyant. This never changes at any point in the game, up to and including him turning into Demise's sword. Ghirahim says a few times that he'll deal with Link, but he never does, always deliberately "going easy" on him for no discernable reason. He just spouts cliché dialogue, because that's what defines him as a villain. The writers need a character to fill that role so they have Ghirahim.