There's no Zelda game that I "hate." I'll quote Plain White T's here with "Hate is a strong word, but I really really really don't like you." and when I say this, I'm referencing Skyward Sword. Hell even saying "...I really really really don't like you" might be too strong. It probably only deserves one really. Don't get me wrong, it's a good game, but there were just so many little things that the game did wrong that kind of pissed me off. And with that,
LET THE MEGAPOST BEGIN! Oh and JJ, prepare to disagree with probably everything I have to say
Oh you fanboy you
First off let's discuss puzzles. For the most part, if you've played a Zelda game before, you can usually figure out most of the puzzles fairly easily. They aren't terribly new, but they can still give you some challenge and usually feel rewarding when you complete them. Most Zelda games have at least one puzzle that stumps me for at least a little bit. Maybe it's the fact that Skyward Sword is the latest Zelda game that I have played, but there was zero challenge when it came to both dungeons and puzzles. This was a major sadface moment for me, because I really really enjoy being stumped. Okay I hate being stumped, but I love the feeling of accomplishment that comes from figuring out a puzzle after a long time of thinking about it and trying random **** until something just clicks, or you get super damn lucky. I think the only somewhat puzzling part was the fire dungeon when I was like, hey why is there a wall here.....the minimap clearly goes this direction...WHY IS THERE A WALL!?! Oh wait it's a Zelda game, BLOW THAT **** UP! But yeah, nothing was truly challenging, but I guess that can be labeled as a personal complaint.
NOTE - Most of these will probably be personal complaints.
Next let's discuss enemies. Now I just spent about 24 hours this weekend playing The Wind Waker (It was at 20 when I started playing today) and throughout the game, I never felt like one enemy was overused. Every enemy felt like it belonged in it's location and didn't just feel like a little space holder or road block. This is all the Skyward Sword enemies were to me....road blocks. With the Wii Motion Plus, Nintendo wanted to make the enemies smarter....however apparently to them, smarter just equals blocking the **** out of everything without ever attempting to do any real damage. True the Lizalfos were good enemies that actually were agile enough to hurt you, but they were only one enemy. Most of the enemies in Skyward Sword were just Bokoblins. Bokoblins for the most part could be dispatched with waggeling the controller. Sure you could use "skill" to dispatch them, but that usually just ended with you getting blocked without ever being attacked. Hell even the Electric Bokoblins never attacked. The only reason they did any damage was because you stupidly swung at them while they
blocked. See that....
blocked.....damaged by blocking and not by offense. Seriously what the **** Nintendo? Is nothing in this game aggressive? But yeah the enemies just felt reused in every area. No place really felt special as all the enemies were pretty much the same thing.
Now for Fi. I'll say it right here. I wish Fi didn't exist. She is the single worst thing about the game. Yes she is analytical about enemies, which was a nice throw back to Navi, but the way it was executed was bad in my opinion. With Navi and Tatl, enemy analysis was gotten to by pressing the C-Up button. There were a couple lines of text and that was it. There weren't a bunch of menus to traverse with god awfully slow text. It was fast and informative. I remember not being able to defeat the Wolfos,because they kept blocking me and Navi was there to help me out. Nothing that felt like it took me out of the game, just simple information. As for Fi's voice....I find it atrocious and wanted to shoot myself whenever she talked. Seriously, I started playing my second playthrough of the game and stopped when I got to Fi, because I was like, "Oh **** No! Not this again." To be fair, I let one of my friends borrow it and now it's about three hours north of me and I haven't had a chance to get it back. But still, Fi is one of the main reasons that has kept me from wanting to replay the game. I didn't enjoy her as a character (because she had no personality...and don't give me that crap about robots not having personality....R2 ****ing D2 is a robot and he has infinite more character than Fi) and I certainly didn't enjoy her telling me stuff. All she says is that there is a 98% chance you should go straight.....No **** Sherlock. She even took the fun out of any of the puzzles by forcing her information on you. Fi had great potential to slowly gain emotion as the game went on, but didn't until the very end when Nintendo just tacked on character development for her. I was glad when she was sealed away.
Onto bosses. The bosses of Skyward Sword were excellent. Really my only complaint was that I didn't like that Ghirahim was overused. If he was used in his first fight and then in his final fight, I would have been perfectly happy. But giving him three fights just felt lazy. Yes, every fight was different, but it would have been nice to have a different boss used. Like I said, Ghirahim wasn't terrible. What was terrible was the Demise fight. That one really was basically the same just with mild tweaks. And no I wasn't a fan of the Groose part either, but maybe that's just because I never jumped on the whole Groose bandwagon thing. Maybe that'll change in later playthroughs though. Who knows? Honestly I think that bosses might be the single worst thing about modern Zelda games. They no longer really offer the challenge that they use to. I really think the whole boss idea needs to be changed and not in the way that Skyward Sword did it.
Swimming. I won't argue that Skyward Sword had some really good water controls. My complaint is why the hell weren't they actually used more often. You really only use them to get the musical notes....which was stupid as ****.....and served no purpose other than being a road block and a chore. There could have easily been a water dungeon instead of two fire dungeons....again felt lazy.
Goddess Cubes. Again realized that I have just come from doing a 100% run of Wind Waker and couldn't help but notice things that it looked like Skyward Sword tried to emulate, but failed. One of these was the Goddess Cubes. With the Wind Waker, it made sense to get treasure maps that lead to treasure with it being a piratey(is that a word?)/ocean game. It gives you the feeling of finding glorious rupees under the sea in order to buy other glorious treasure that's only useful in video games. With Skyward Sword it just felt stupid and obnoxious and tedious and boring and oh god why can't the cube just be a chest itself!? It was again a
ROAD BLOCK that Skyward Sword presented me. It's funny how that word keeps appearing in this rant. Scratch that, it's not funny...it's annoying as hell. Even though it probably took longer to sail to the treasure on the Great Sea, it felt right and not out of place. Skyward Sword's use just felt bad.
Oh joy Exploration time. Skyward Sword had no exploration. Zelda games have always felt like you were on an adventure exploring stuff. Skyward Sword was like, "Hey, you know what would be a good idea? Making the path a ****ing tunnel with nowhere to journey off and find hidden caves and ****. Seriously if there were any secrets in Skyward Sword, they weren't really secret to me. Hell even Twilight Princess, which is argued by some to be the most.. linear Zelda game yet, had more exploration. There were random caves with enemies everywhere. There were Poes hidden in every nook and cranny. And the areas actually felt like you were exploring something new....which brings me to my next point.
Areas. Skyward Sword didn't feel like a true world. It felt like the paintings from Super Mario 64, which while great for that game, was not great for Zelda. And to top it off there were only three paintings to choose from. I'm all for reusing areas....but to only use three....now that's just stupid. While each area was cool the first time you went there....coming back didn't feel like you were going anywhere new....it felt like
oh-hey-there's-also-this-little-part-of-an-area-you've-already-been-to-that-is-now-accessible kind of things. I love Zelda games because I can go to a firey place and stop by some place full of snow and maybe a forest and a desert....you know different areas. Skyward Sword's 3 just felt lacking.
While we're on the topic of bad exploration we might as well mention the floating islands in the sky. Again just played Wind Waker so can't help but make the connections, but why were there so many useless islands? Again felt like a
Hey-let's-copy-Wind-Waker-but-not-as-well type of things. I would have loved to have mini caves to go exploring for rupees or heart pieces or whatever....I just wanted something....is that too much to ask? I guess so, because the only use the served was to hold the treasure chests that I had already essentially found on the surface.
The Sidequests are next on the chopping block. Where to start....Oh I know! How about the fact that they were all fetch quests? Okay not all....but a large enough were that I noticed and it pissed me off. Fetch Quests aren't bad.....but they shouldn't be overused like the were in Skyward Sword. It just felt like someone told me to find something on the surface...I found it....and brought it back. Nothing more. Even in other games when you did a sidequest, at least it felt like you were doing something important and not just being an errand boy. I think most of Skyward Sword's problems came with subtle issues where it did something slightly off and it ruined the experience. I had no motivation to really do anything for anyone other than the fact that I might get a heart piece out of it.
Well it's 3:00 AM right now and I think I'm starting to run out of complaints about Skyward Sword. Again I don't truly hate it. There's just a lot of little things that add up and cause me to become frustrated with the game. That being said, there were some great parts. The Silent Realms were great and I loved Zelda's character in Skyward Sword. I thought that was done very nice. Overall it's a great game, just not what I would have wanted I guess.
So yeah that's the Zelda game that I hate the most in a (rather long) nutshell.
