• Welcome to ZD Forums! You must create an account and log in to see and participate in the Shoutbox chat on this main index page.

How Did You Like the Loftwings and the Sky?

zeldahero3

Zelda Forever!
Joined
Nov 26, 2012
Location
The Stock Pot Inn (East Clock Town)
I personally loved the Loftwings, and thought they were the best mode of transportation yet in zelda! It was more interesting and fun then riding Epona, and much better the boringly riding in your train, or sailing across an ocean. However, I thought the sky wasn't great but it wasnt terrible. I liked having to find the goddes cubes on the small islands, but there was very little to explore in the sky, and was very bland. It would have been better if there were more islands to explore in my opinion. Tell me what you guys think!!!
 

Ghirahimiscool

Cucco Butt
Joined
Jun 5, 2012
My opinion is much the same. The loftwings were fun to ride on and I enjoyed them. I also argee with you on the Sky. There wasn't much to it and it could've had more.
 

Sydney

The Good Samaritan
Joined
Mar 20, 2012
Location
Canberra, Australia
I liked the Loftwings to some degree, but I overall disliked the Sky. The Sky was very barren, and I frequently found myself just soaring through the clouds than landing on various outlying islands. This was a major drawback to me; there wasn't that much to explore. They could have done a lot more by putting more islands in the game. This would've opened up room for more side quests, and they could have added more islands without making the Sky seem cluttered. The Loftwings were very interesting, but they were meh imo. Definitely not my favorite method of travel, but it wasn't terribly bad.
 

Random Person

Just Some Random Person
Joined
Feb 6, 2010
Location
Wig-Or-Log
Flying on the loftwing was okay, though not my favorite method of transportation. There's nothing too wrong with it other than there's not much to it. I honestly felt more engaged sailing in WW or driving in ST, but that's just me. I think this difference stems in what you want to do while transporting. If you want to be engaged in your transportation, the loftwing method works well. If you want to be engaged in your environment, well then you won't find as much satisfaction, but that's really the sky's fault. Speaking of the sky, my feelings for it differ greatly. While I felt the loftwings were okay, I agree with you in that there wasn't much to the sky. Not many things to explore and the islands that actually held something worth exploring, you generally found them on the way to get a treasure, so it felt like they were meant to be found. It was lacking a great deal of enemies (which is understandable if you look at it from a story point of view) And because of how tedious traveling becomes in SS, the sky loses more points. How? I don't know, but it does. The music was grand for the first half of the game, but then got old and didn't feel like it fit anymore. And last, there is a lack of scenery to the sky, something other Zelda games have had in abundance. My main concerns with a 3D hub/overworld are secrets and scenery, both of which SS lacked moreso, imo, than any past Zelda game.

Thus, I was fine with the loftwings, nothing wrong. However, the sky was not my cup of tea and could've used serious improvement.
 

Ventus

Mad haters lmao
Joined
May 26, 2010
Location
Akkala
Gender
Hylian Champion
I disliked both the Sky and the Loftwing.

The Sky
Great concept, great hype surrounding this thing, but loads of disappointment. Hearing about the Sky, I figured it would practically be a separate world sprawling with adventure in every corner. What did I get? Oh, barren "hub" that doesn't even have the breadth of the barren Hyrule Field (either OoT or TP). I didn't enjoy it for what it was, and would much rather Skyloft be connected to the ground the whole time with the appropriate story changes than what we got in the package. I didn't enjoy coming back for the chests either; why should I find a prize then stalk the chest it lies in once more?

Loftwing
I only have one problem with the Loftwing and that is that it is a major step back as far as transportation is. Epona was super advanced, then Loftwing regressed into limited controls, limited fun once more. :(
 

JuicieJ

SHOW ME YA MOVES!
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Location
On the midnight Spirit Train going anywhere
It's a mixed bag. The Loftwing is great. It's fast and actually gets you involved in the travel, unlike the sailing in the Great Sea. The Sky itself, though, is rather poor. There's not much happening in it. So, as a whole, the Sky travel is mediocre, despite being the best transportation overworld in the series so far. The flying itself is good, but everything else isn't.
 

Castle

Ch!ld0fV!si0n
Joined
Oct 24, 2012
Location
Crisis? What Crisis?
Gender
Pan-decepticon-transdeliberate-selfidentifying-sodiumbased-extraexistential-temporal anomaly
Best mode of transportation in Zelda yet. Not as long and boring as the train or boat, nor as clumsy as a horse. Too bad N didn't capitalize on it though. There wasn't anything to do with them other than fly... which was fun. No combat. No way to search for treasure or something, although skydiving was fun as all get out. The sky wasn't big enough. IKR? No need to be as big as the Great Sea, for certain, but there wasn't enough islands to find, much less explore. There was nothing to them. There wasn't much to actually find anyway, other than a few timeblocks and chests here and there. Only a few Skyloft quests even had you visiting islands as part of the objective.

The story also never capitalized on the character of Links bird. It had no personality and no connection to the plot. For a sentient being, that's pretty lackluster. Heck, the King of Red Lions had a major reveal. I was expecting Link's Loftbird to turn out to be something special, but it wasn't. The birds themselves had little to do with anything after the intro stage in Skyloft at all.
 
Last edited:

DarkestLink

Darkest of all Dark Links
Joined
Oct 28, 2012
If I'm doing it for long periods of time, then not really. TP's Horseback blows it out of the water. But Skyward Sword was smart in this sense like TP was. You could get out of the overworld and to your destination quickly, so if you didn't like it, it wasn't an issue. This was the case for me. I didn't like the Loftwings, but I didn't exactly fault the game on it either because getting to your destination was so quick if you knew where the boosts were.
 
Joined
Nov 28, 2012
The loftwings are probably my favorite form of transportation. It was the most enjoyable to me, it had this very romantic feel of adventure and excitement, the music was also my favorite in the game. To bad the sky failed. One of the reasons why skyward sword isn't high on my list of favorite Zelda games, it had so much potential too.

I was expecting multiple towns, and hundreds of things to discover. A bit like Wind Waker, except not nearly as big. But all it had was a few mini-games and a few other things to do. It was one of one of the biggest disappointments in the game to me.
 
Last edited:

Zleda

Toon Deity
Joined
May 16, 2011
Location
Seattle WA
I think personally that the sky was extremely boring... Although it looked great, and was fun at first it turned into the same as WW's ocean to me.
 

SpiritGerudo

Flamey-o, Hotman!
Joined
Aug 29, 2011
Location
Halfway There
I thoroughly enjoyed just flying, and going to the Goddess Chest locations, I thought it was awesome and fun and could've done so much more. There was only one battle in the sky, the Levias battle which I really really looked forward to . . . and then half of it wasn't even spent flying. The Sky itself was barren and real islands were rare. Nintendo gave us this beautiful flying mechanic, then gave us nowhere to fly to.

Meanwhile . . . they were just getting around to developing those awesome horseback battles in Twilight Princess, in addition to the several times that you had to use Epona outside of the required battles, just for instance-like events, which I thought was great. Epona was really used, and I loved that. Then they took a step in the wrong direction when they gave us functional, fun controls, and neglected to use them in battles, instances, or frankly anything besides moving around in the Sky, which was fairly boring.

They also limited the amazing flying by not letting you go out at night. Night in Skyward Sword was really only used in sidequests, it didn't change anything so it is worth exploring except for the stuff you use it sidequests, which there weren't a lot of at night. Nintendo could've made up slightly for the barren, boring Sky by at least providing unique challenges and changes to explore at night, such as different more dangerous and engaging enemy battles in the sky (how about Poe battles or some type of evil bird) or making parts of islands only accessible at nights (such as the graves from Ocarina of Time). Far from doing this, they didn't even let you leave whatever island you're on at the time!
 
Joined
Nov 25, 2012
Location
Monkey Island
The Sky had soooooooo much more potential. There should've been more island-towns; I hated how Skyloft was the only place with a considerable amount of human civilization...just made the game feel so depressing for some reason. And the loftwing flying could've had more potential...I was so surprised they didn't include some kind of environment that really tested your flying skills (for example, flying through a narrow, treacherous trench-type thing in the sky, dodging incoming rocks, etc, kind of like the levels in Super Mario Galaxy 2 when you fly with Fluzzard). Really, the only thing you did with your loftwing was traverse an extremely small and un-adventuresome area from skyloft to the cloud-holes... basically, I think the idea of a Zelda game in the FRIGGIN SKY was wonderful, and using a fantastical bird as transportation was also such a great concept (completely new for Zelda, yet so fitting!) but they didn't do enough with it. And it's not like they can make another Zelda game in the sky, flying a bird...so I feel like they almost wasted a great idea.

Of course, I don't have much of a right to critize the game so harshly; Nintendo spent 5 years trying to make it awesome. I loved the below-world and the cutscenes, I just think SS in general had more potential.
 

Azure Sage

March onward forever...
Staff member
ZD Legend
Comm. Coordinator
I deeply enjoy riding the Loftwing. I have to say it's the best transportation in the series, more so than the King of Red Lions and the Spirit Train, both of which I adore greatly. The Loftwing served as an important partner for Link; it wasn't simply a means of transportation. It was a lot like Epona, except more advanced. The controls for flight were extremely smooth and very easy to get the hang of. I really liked it.

As far as the Sky is concerned, I think it was greatly lacking. The atmosphere and the visuals of the Sky were simply stunning. But that's about all it has going for it. There's hardly anything to do in the Sky aside from minigames and searching for Goddess Chests. I get that Nintendo probably wanted to use the Sky solely for transportation and leave all of the exploration to the Surface, but personally I think that was a bad idea. The Great Sea had lots of islands and pirate platforms and submarines to explore, as well as sunken treasure and a plethora of enemies to entertain you. Some people may say that all of this is too spread out, but I disagree. I think the placing of these was just fine. In fact, The Great Sea is one of my favorite overworlds in the Zelda series. If the Sky was more like The Great Sea, I think it would have been a lot more enjoyable of a place. Just imagine flying through the Sky, visiting a bunch of islands filled with all sorts of neat things to discover and fun things to do. A "Great Sea-like" Sky would have been much better, if you ask me.

Loftwing
I only have one problem with the Loftwing and that is that it is a major step back as far as transportation is. Epona was super advanced, then Loftwing regressed into limited controls, limited fun once more. :(

No offense, but that makes absolutely no sense. The Loftwing is far more advanced than Epona ever was. In fact, Epona's controls are far more limited than the Loftwing's. In all the games Epona has appeared in, she could merely move and speed up. Link could also shoot arrows while riding her. That's basically it. The Loftwing, on the other hand, is capable of moving in virtually all directions, even up and down, and is even capable of attacking with the Charge (and the Spiral Charge). Charging even doubles as a speed boost, making it all the more useful. The Loftwing is also much faster than Epona. No matter how you look at it, the Loftwing is more advanced than Epona. I don't quite understand what you're getting at.
 

JuicieJ

SHOW ME YA MOVES!
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Location
On the midnight Spirit Train going anywhere
If the Sky was more like The Great Sea, I think it would have been a lot more enjoyable of a place. Just imagine flying through the Sky, visiting a bunch of islands filled with all sorts of neat things to discover and fun things to do. A "Great Sea-like" Sky would have been much better, if you ask me.

In terms of the islands and things to do while on them, yes. In terms of the travel gameplay... nooooooo.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top Bottom