Skyward Sword Skyward Sword is the Best Zelda Game of All Time: Agree or Disagree

[Musicfan]

No not Relly I like wind waked better. The over world was more interesting and there was more to explore.

 

[Random Person]

I disagree.

SS is a good game, but I think it's the weakest 3D Zelda. Of the ones I've played, its my second least favorite, beaten only by AoL. But this isn't about like, this is about quality (atleast I hope it is). SS for all it brought, I feel, took more steps backwards than it did forward. Exploration was taken out for basic dungeon feel, which is something we had with... the dungeons. Real time was eliminated, something we've had since OoT. Many significant parts of the series had been retconned and many fans weren't, and still aren't, happy with the changes. The music, for the most part, isn't memorable. And rather than feeling like a Zelda game meant for WM+ it just felt like the wrapped a WM+ game with a Zelda title. And the story... man its just seems very beneath Zelda's standards. As most upset fans have stated "it feels like fanfic" which if you had told me this story before SS came out, I would have not only thought it was fanfic, but really bad fanfic.

Now all these qualities aren't necessarily bad, but as a fan, its not something I expect. What makes it worse is that there isn't much to cater for these differences. TP atleast tried to balance the lack of difficulty with sensation.

If you're new to the series, or came during WW or after, you may highly enjoy this game as all Zelda games are meant to cater to the current generations.

Honestly, (and this is just my opinion) I think most of the hype behind SS comes from its position as a Zelda title. If it didn't have the "Legend of Zelda" title backing it up, most fans would probably just see it as another decent game and would be more seeing more of the existing flaws. (Some of which wouldn't be flaws because it wouldn't be a Zelda game)

 

[Hylianhero91]

^ i just cant take the criticisms of this game seriously.. The story sucked compared to other zelda titles???? What stories are you talking about. This game has been one of the only ones to actually have a story where the characters actually reacted to the things happening in the game. The music sucked and was unmemorable? The music in the ancient cistern, sandship, lanayru sandsea, and skykeep was breathtaking! Im disappointed in you guys

Oh and to address your comment about Zelda games appealing to the current generations. I started out with ocarina of time way back in the day. Then I played Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess,and then played the first nes zelda. Ocarina of Time was my favorite until I played Skyward Sword. IMO skyward sword absolutely blew ocarina of time out of the water. In fact I replayed ocarina of time after i finished skyward sword and i could see how much the game had aged. Ocarina of Time is an awesome game to be sure but most fans only love it so much because it was the first 3D zelda.

 

[Doc]

While Skyward Sword is a good game, it is actually one of my least favorite of the 3D titles. As many have said, it ignored the successful components of the past 3D games. It removed the wide open overworld, making them feel more like a chore. And Skyloft was a small area, and I was highly disappointed to find that to be the only town/city of the entire game. The races weren't very well integrated into the game, as I felt there was so much interesting stuff these races could have contributed to. I was certainly disappointed to find that these races served no other purpose than basically to progress the story by explaining the area or something of the sort. It widely lacked sidequests. The only one was the gratitude crystals, and that was a rather basic one that only lasted forever to accomplish.

The linearity of this game was just awful. I am not a fan of straight nonlinearity, but when the game literally makes a path for me to follow, then I have issues. In WW and TP we couldn't fully explore, but having wide open areas helped removed the feeling of being trapped in this little area. And then it brought us back to the areas we had already been to instead of making something truly unique.

The story, as others have said, did feel a lot like a fan fic. The connection between Link and Zelda was strong, but it basically just did the same thing as WW or TP, but replacing the kidnapped person with Zelda. Not to mention, she was never really in danger. Ghirahim never got to Zelda (until he hid behind a pillar, how clever!). And Ghirahim wasn't threatening at all. He was nothing but empty threats. We fight him three times, starting in the very beginning of the game. And he wasn't a hard fight any of those times. The fear factor was immediately nonexistant by this point.

I mean, I enjoyed this game, I just didn't love it.

 

[Mangachick14]

I've heard people complain about the intro being too 'high schoolish' but... I dunno, I actually really enjoy it. I mean, Link and Zelda are teenagers and they are in a school which is essentially a (fantasy) high school. So, I've no issue there. Besides, we saw a lot of the same themes in the intro of Oot with Mido and Saria. Minus the school backdrop, yes, but it was still the idea of the lazy kid who gets picked by a bully who likes his best friend. And besides the intro, I found the combat fun and satisfying (LOVE being able to move quickly by running instead of rolling around like a weirdo), and the story pretty good by Zelda standards. I thought the villain was...different. Certainly, I found Ghirahim to be very interesting. His flamboyancy mixed in with borderline insanity was incredibly entertaining to me. And despite it being a seemingly unpopular opinion, I'm also a fan of the sidequests. Much like Majora's Mask, they had me thinking "What can I do to help this person?" instead of "What can I get from doing this?". Sure, I didn't find them as good as MM, but do I still find them very enjoyable. I also liked most of the cast of characters; Groose was cool; Impa was a tad harsh, but those kinds of characters are pretty rare in Zelda so I didn't mind; I really loved Zelda's portrayal; and Link was more expressive than I think he's ever been before. Skyloft was wonderfully detailed, even if the rest of the sky wasn't really. I find the music lovely, especially Fi's goodbye and it's rendition of Zelda's lullaby. Even the whole 'linear' thing doesn't bother me. No matter what anyone says to convince me otherwise; to me, it was just as linear as Twilight Princess but actually had the slightest bit of difficulty, which TP was very sorely lacking. Also, linearity as a whole doesn't bother me at all. Never understood why people practically salivate at the word 'non-linear'.

I mean, that's not to say I don't have my problems with it. The constant notifications were totally unnecessary and Fi's obvious observations could get a little annoying, even though I did like the concept of Fi. But for the most part, the good vastly outweighed the bad for me.

So do I think SS is the best game? No, because what is the 'best' is entirely subjective to each person. Is it the best to me? You bet.

 

[Random Person]

^ i just cant take the criticisms of this game seriously.. The story sucked compared to other zelda titles???? What stories are you talking about. This game has been one of the only ones to actually have a story where the characters actually reacted to the things happening in the game. The music sucked and was unmemorable? The music in the ancient cistern, sandship, lanayru sandsea, and skykeep was breathtaking! Im disappointed in you guys

Oh and to address your comment about Zelda games appealing to the current generations. I started out with ocarina of time way back in the day. Then I played Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess,and then played the first nes zelda. Ocarina of Time was my favorite until I played Skyward Sword. IMO skyward sword absolutely blew ocarina of time out of the water. In fact I replayed ocarina of time after i finished skyward sword and i could see how much the game had aged. Ocarina of Time is an awesome game to be sure but most fans only love it so much because it was the first 3D zelda.

So... I'm assuming this was aimed at me?

Hey, you're entitled to your opinion. As to your first paragraph, I can't say much because you're basically saying "I disagree with you" which is fine. As to your second, I said that newer generations would enjoy it, not that older generations will hate it.
I can not speak for all OoT fans, but I can say that while it isn't my favorite, I do think its technically the best (along with ALttP) if you put the "for its time" factor. If not, than I would have to side with MM. It's not because OoT's the first 3D, but because of how well it implemented itself as the first 3D Zelda. SS, being the first WM+ Zelda, delivered... as expected, which for Zelda standards is lower than what we're used to as the games usually blow us out of the water. OoT was THE game to look for on the shelf if you had a 64, (along with SSB and MM) while SS is just another game that came out of the Wii. Its much more difficult for this generation of gamers to appreciate SS like the 64 gen did OoT.

 

[Heroine of Time]

Best? I'd have to say no. JuicieJ said it quite well for me. I LOVE Skyward Sword -- it's definitely one of my favorite in the series -- but "best" is a very broad claim. ESPECIALLY best game of all time. There are several flaws and many arguments people have against it are really solid. It has far too many problems. For example, the music, I have to agree, wasn't fantastic, although I have a TON of SS songs on my playlist. And dungeons were... meh. Returning to areas wasn't particularly fun. I especially thought the Earth Temple and Fire Sanctuary were incredibly boring and repetitive. (But hey, the Earth Temple had one of the best songs in the game, so there! XD) And the sky... was one of the biggest disappointments ever. Its map look so much like TWW's overworld, and I was so excited to explore it... but then it was so empty!

But that's not to say that it's not worthy of praise. SS's greatest strength is its storytelling. Note that it's not necessarily its STORY, which had so many plot holes and inconsistencies it was rather ridiculous, but, my gosh, its ability to create emotion was somewhere the series hasn't really been since Majora's Mask. Its cutscenes were cinematic, exciting, and realistic. The villain may have been a flat character, but his appearances were so well implemented into the game's story that it felt like such a huge improvement from previous adversaries. Link, Zelda, and many of the supporting characters felt more alive and relatable than before. Groose's characterization was impressive for a Zelda game.

Most people seem to use linearity like an insult these days. And, first of all, it's absolutely ridiculous to say SS is more linear than Twilight Princess -- since, you know, it actually had choices toward the end of the game on where you wanted to go to get the Song of the Hero parts, and different lines of dialogue depending on your responses to certain questions. ...But yeah. I saw nothing wrong with the linearity it presented. It gave me a good story.

The problem lies in the fact that many Zelda fans don't like that. And if you don't care for cutscenes, story, characterization, or anything like that... you're probably not going to like SS.

Or if you hate motion controls. You might as well not even try the game in that case. XD

Speaking of which, I never had any problems with the motion controls and I LOVED them. That's why I enjoyed the game so much; I felt it was the most immersive Zelda game ever thanks to its storytelling and control scheme. Like I think the OP said, combat in that game actually felt like a skill you had to master. I think they probably could have progressed the difficulty of the enemies a bit better, but... eh. I still enjoyed it. Shielding took me forever to finally get the hang of, as well as using backflipping and sidestepping effectively. Demise's fight was SO amazingly fun. I had to find the perfect strategy and time my shielding JUST right, and then make sure I sidestepped his beam attacks and backflipped the charge attacks... Man, it was great. XD

So I think I've gotten completely off-topic right now and quite honestly I have no idea where I was going with this post so, uh... SS is awesome. But certainly not the best game of all time. There are too many things that could have been done to make it better.

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

hahahahaha no
my nostalgia for wind waker and twilight princess make it very hard to rank any zelda above them,but i did myself enjoyed skyward sword and it's totally fine if you like it the most,but the best on the other hand.....

 

[Random Person]

Most people seem to use linearity like an insult these days. And, first of all, it's absolutely ridiculous to say SS is more linear than Twilight Princess -- since, you know, it actually had choices toward the end of the game on where you wanted to go to get the Song of the Hero parts, and different lines of dialogue depending on your responses to certain questions. ...But yeah. I saw nothing wrong with the linearity it presented. It gave me a good story.

I actually started a response to a thread comparing SS and TP in hopes of showing how TP was the most linear in the series and it backfired. While SS does allow you to choose a "separate path", the thing is... all those paths must be taken and they all lead to the same place with little to no variance. It isn't like MegaMan where fighting bosses in different order gives you a different experience. It doesn't take that much away from SS's linearity, it just adds a small detail of choice. If that were the only concept, then SS would still win, but taking in the concept that everywhere on the surface isn't really a region to explore, but a dungeon-like concept, you've added more linearity than we've seen in Zelda for a while. So yes, SS does give you choices which takes a smidgen from its linearity, but it took alot more from from its exploration than TP did, which in turn added alot more linearity than TP did.

 

[RedLink]

I can not speak for all OoT fans, but I can say that while it isn't my favorite, I do think its technically the best (along with ALttP) if you put the "for its time" factor. If not, than I would have to side with MM. It's not because OoT's the first 3D, but because of how well it implemented itself as the first 3D Zelda. SS, being the first WM+ Zelda, delivered... as expected, which for Zelda standards is lower than what we're used to as the games usually blow us out of the water.

Blow us out of the water? The only game that did that was OoT, and that's simply b/c it was the first major 3D Zelda. You cannot factor nostalgia out of the equation here. You need to review each game for how fun it is, not for revolutionary gameplay.

OoT was THE game to look for on the shelf if you had a 64, (along with SSB and MM)

Actually, I believe that was Super Mario 64

while SS is just another game that came out of the Wii. Its much more difficult for this generation of gamers to appreciate SS like the 64 gen did OoT.

Again, you're using nostalgia as a justification for your claims. And I'd hardly call the Wii's swan song "just another game that came out of the Wii". Plus all the perfect scores disagree.

So yes, SS does give you choices which takes a smidgen from its linearity, but it took alot more from from its exploration than TP did, which in turn added alot more linearity than TP did.

I still do not understand what the problem with linearity is. It seems to me that it's just an offshoot of nostalgia from fans of the earlier games. If adopting linearity is a way for the LOZ series to advance towards the future, why hamper it? And do not try and bring up an argument that non-linearity is a root of the game. I'd say it's exploration, and I agree that's a fault that SS did, but everything else was magnificent.

 

[JuicieJ]

But that's not to say that it's not worthy of praise. SS's greatest strength is its storytelling.

Absolutely not, as that would be the gameplay. The way the plot was presented was very heartfelt, definitely, and all the characters are relatively fleshed-out and highly memorable -- I agree with what you had to say about that -- but all that pales in comparison to the expertly-crafted and thoroughly-polished core gameplay mechanics.

You know... like any other great Zelda game.

 

[Salem]

What I liked about SS is the motion controls, ever since the Wii was announced, I wanted to play a Zelda game with proper 1:1 sword movement, the Wii version of TP didn't have that, so I was happy with SS.

This game also had good dungeon designs, some of the surface area were great as well, specially the desert.

However, everything else about it just terrible, I think we've beaten this topic to death but here goes;

• Fi, she states the obvious, she says something that other characters already said, explains things AGAIN.
• too long of an intro,
• long annoying cutscenes that you can only skip in Hero Mode,
• you can't do certain side quests until you do specific main quests thing first
• Too many times where the game just gets interrupted by camera panning, somehow it feels that it happens more often that other games?

 

[Random Person]

Blow us out of the water? The only game that did that was OoT, and that's simply b/c it was the first major 3D Zelda. You cannot factor nostalgia out of the equation here. You need to review each game for how fun it is, not for revolutionary gameplay.

One must incorporate gameplay, story and presentation. All of this goes into, as you put it "how fun the game is." And I wasn't just factoring Revolutionary gameplay. It's the entire package, including how OoT implemented ALttP's music, how beautiful it appeared, how it surprised people with its story, how other games (including those in the Zelda series) based their aspects off of what it has to offer, etc.

Actually, I believe that was Super Mario 64

Again, opinions differ. But whenever I see a top 64 games list, the ones near the top are OoT, MM, Conker's Bad Fur Day (I HATE that game so much) and SSB. Mario 64 is on the list, but not usually at the top.

Again, you're using nostalgia as a justification for your claims. And I'd hardly call the Wii's swan song "just another game that came out of the Wii". Plus all the perfect scores disagree.

Perfect scores do not a revolutionary game make. They're just explaining how good the game is from a professional point of view, which, as time has proven, can be completely different from what the fans feel. SS is similar to TP in that manner, in that many gave them extremely high scores, but only half the fans liked what the game brought.

And you keep saying that I'm using nostalgia as a justification, but I'm confused as to your definition of what that means. Using nostalgia as justification means I like the game more because its a part of my childhood, not because it was better in its time than what we have today. The latter is simple comparison.

I still do not understand what the problem with linearity is. It seems to me that it's just an offshoot of nostalgia from fans of the earlier games. If adopting linearity is a way for the LOZ series to advance towards the future, why hamper it? And do not try and bring up an argument that non-linearity is a root of the game. I'd say it's exploration, and I agree that's a fault that SS did, but everything else was magnificent.

There is nothing wrong with linearity in a video game so long as the game is fun. I Personally think TP did linearity right for the Zelda series, despite many's claim that they didn't enjoy it. The reason it is frequently brought up is because exploration is expected in a Zelda game which many consider to be the opposite of linearity. Its similar going to play a CoD game, and it turns out to have a lot of JRPG elements. There might still be plenty of shooting involved, but CoD gamers do not put in CoD to play a JRPG, they expect an FPS and ONLY an FPS. Zelda gamers do not expect linearity, they expect exploration. Its why a good portion play the games. So when you add something that makes the fanbase feel the reason they are playing is getting diminished, they will complain about it.

As far as my Personal feelings go with SS, it was the lack of exploration COMBINED with the linearity that I complain about (along with many other things). As previously mentioned, I have no problem with TP's linearity. But it aloud me to explore what I thought were fairly well hid secrets. SS made me walk down paths and put most of its secrets right in front of me, and the ones that weren't in front were located with dowsing. Combining that with a setting that doesn't let me finish the game in the way I want (save one section where I can go one of three ways that don't really differ my experience) makes for a "non-Zelda-like" experience.

 

[CraptainFalcon]

Okay look. If it makes you feel any better, the only thing I liked about this garbage game was Koloktos and the main theme for the game. Other than that, ****** gameplay, story, graphics and music. This is probably the worst game I have ever played in my life. I'll just go back to playing an actual Zelda game like WW, TP, OoT, MM and stuff instead of the garbage I got with SS. I rest my case.

 

[ZeldafreakCJM]

It's one of my favorites, I wouldn't call it the best Zelda game but that's because there is no such thing. They all have good aspects and bad aspects.