- Joined
- Mar 14, 2010
- Location
- Brazil/USA
It's a long read. These are my opinions. A lot of you will disagree, some will agree. I hope you guys comment on some of my thoughts to spark a conversation and maybe give me a bit more hope. 
It was obvious ever since Zelda Wii was first announced that it was going to rely heavily on Wii motion plus. I personally, have never been a fan of such "trendy" technology. I much prefer an A and B button. Don't get me wrong, I think it would be awesome to have a sword and shield in my hands and play with motion capture. That being said, I have been extremely worried about motion capture ruining Zelda, but placed a lot of hope in Nintendo that they would improve the technology to the point where it would benefit the game tremendously. Unfortunately, with mixed reviews, I don't think we are in the green yet.
I don't know about you guys, but the E3 demonstration was uncomfortable to watch. It was embarrassing for Miyamoto and it made the presentation feel awkward. I feel bad for the guy because I know Zelda is really personal for him and that he does work very hard on it. To have such "difficulties" is truly sad. Please, don't give me the "didn't you hear him say interference?" When I am playing Zelda, I press the B button and know with 100% confidence that Link will swing his sword in the way I have in mind. With motion control, you will not have that certainty when flinging around your controller. When you try a vertical strike, you could end up doing a spin attack or not swinging at all. Just watch Miyamoto play. His movements were completely unsynchronized with what was happening on screen for 95% of the time. The technology is primitive and should not have been tried on a game as important as Zelda. To be fair, several reports by people who tried the game at the booth, claim the motion capture was flawless (links at bottom of post).
Like I mentioned above, I was opposed to motion capture from the beginning, but open to it as long as it was done well and complemented the game. Unfortunately, Nintendo flipped that around. It seemed like they made Zelda to complement Wii motion. I felt like I was watching a demonstration on Wii motion instead of a Zelda game. It is obvious they asked themselves "How can we design this game to incorporate a lot of cool Wii motion?" instead of what they should have asked, "How can Wii motion benefit this Zelda game?" Take for example the eyeball door. What does that have to do with anything? What does it add to the game? Nothing, they just wanted you to swing the controller around in a circle as a feature of motion capture. The entire demonstration was on the motion capture aspect of the game. If the focus of development was on this inconsistent piece of technology, it is safe to assume that less attention was payed to gameplay, storyline, music, characters...things that matter.
Moving on past the catastrophe of Wii motion. When people ask me what my favorite Zelda game is, I am very happy to say that the first three console versions (Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker) are equally ranked in my mind. It is incredibly difficult for a sequel to live up the original so it is quite amazing how Nintendo managed to make these three games equally epic, for me at least. However, for reasons I won't get into here, I was completely crushed by Twilight Princess and said to myself "Zelda is over, it is all going to be downhill from here." What does that say? It says that Skyward Sword is a crucial game for the series. It can either sink Zelda further down or redeem the series in glory. I hope for the latter. Let's talk about the positives.
I loved the graphic style! I despised Twilight Princess graphics. The game looked like it was trying to conform to "hardcore" Japanese games and it destroyed the mood of Zelda in my opinion. Last week I was thinking "it would be amazing if they made a mix of Twilight Princess and Wind Waker graphics, that would look and feel fantastic." Behold, that is what they did and I was very pleased. The game looks very good and has a great Zelda feel to it. I'm very excited about the art style. Also, if my eyes didn't deceive me, I think I spotted a couple of Goriyas. I think it is great that they are bringing back some classic Zelda enemies that never made an appearance on console versions.
Next, items. I absolutely loved the whip. I can't believe I never thought of it for a possible Zelda item, so simple but so effective. Very good idea. The beetle seems like a stretch of the imagination but it does look cool and interesting. However, did you notice there are only 8 item slots? Seriously? Eight usable items in the whole game? To make matters worse, two of these items are the slingshot and bow. They serve the same exact function and are used in the same way..thus being basically the same item. Let me also comment on Link's movement. It seems like they made some improvements which look very good, for example the hold A to dash. There is also a brief one second move that can be easily ignored in the demo video. This is when Link is running and climbs over a ledge. Notice how smoothly he climbs and how it does not interrupt movement. In all previous console versions any little climb would require you to stop, climb, continue on. This new system looks a lot smoother and better.
One last thing I would like to comment on is the music, and I know we barely got anything to make a legitimate comment on it but I did get an impression of it that I would like to share. When I say that music is one of the most important aspects of Zelda people call me crazy and say it doesn't matter if the game is good in all other aspects. I could not disagree more. Music, if good, will take the game from good to gloriously epic, or if it is bad, from excellent to decent. Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker...I could make a list of songs from those games that I keep on my iPod. Some of the tracks still give me chills. They completely make the feel of the game. Twilight Princess' soundtrack was deplorable. I cannot think of a single track I'd want to listen to outside of the game. I don't know what they did but it was completely different from the three previous titles in terms of quality. A lot of the tracks were actually really tedious and made the game feel like a bit of a chore. Go listen to "Ordon." It is typical "video game music" with no feeling to it and makes you feel really sluggish. From the little music that could be heard in the demo, it seems to fit the style of what they did with Twilight Princess, which is truly disappointing. Music plays a huge role in Zelda and more emphasis and feeling should be put into it.
Overall I am skeptical with what I saw, and although I am keeping an open mind as more information comes out, I really am concerned that this might continue what Twilight Princess started in sinking Zelda to an average and mundane series that is more focused on being "hip" and keeping up with modern times rather than providing mesmerizing and emotional gameplay, exploration, and mind blowing plot like it had for years before.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/109/1097965p1.html
It was obvious ever since Zelda Wii was first announced that it was going to rely heavily on Wii motion plus. I personally, have never been a fan of such "trendy" technology. I much prefer an A and B button. Don't get me wrong, I think it would be awesome to have a sword and shield in my hands and play with motion capture. That being said, I have been extremely worried about motion capture ruining Zelda, but placed a lot of hope in Nintendo that they would improve the technology to the point where it would benefit the game tremendously. Unfortunately, with mixed reviews, I don't think we are in the green yet.
I don't know about you guys, but the E3 demonstration was uncomfortable to watch. It was embarrassing for Miyamoto and it made the presentation feel awkward. I feel bad for the guy because I know Zelda is really personal for him and that he does work very hard on it. To have such "difficulties" is truly sad. Please, don't give me the "didn't you hear him say interference?" When I am playing Zelda, I press the B button and know with 100% confidence that Link will swing his sword in the way I have in mind. With motion control, you will not have that certainty when flinging around your controller. When you try a vertical strike, you could end up doing a spin attack or not swinging at all. Just watch Miyamoto play. His movements were completely unsynchronized with what was happening on screen for 95% of the time. The technology is primitive and should not have been tried on a game as important as Zelda. To be fair, several reports by people who tried the game at the booth, claim the motion capture was flawless (links at bottom of post).
Like I mentioned above, I was opposed to motion capture from the beginning, but open to it as long as it was done well and complemented the game. Unfortunately, Nintendo flipped that around. It seemed like they made Zelda to complement Wii motion. I felt like I was watching a demonstration on Wii motion instead of a Zelda game. It is obvious they asked themselves "How can we design this game to incorporate a lot of cool Wii motion?" instead of what they should have asked, "How can Wii motion benefit this Zelda game?" Take for example the eyeball door. What does that have to do with anything? What does it add to the game? Nothing, they just wanted you to swing the controller around in a circle as a feature of motion capture. The entire demonstration was on the motion capture aspect of the game. If the focus of development was on this inconsistent piece of technology, it is safe to assume that less attention was payed to gameplay, storyline, music, characters...things that matter.
Moving on past the catastrophe of Wii motion. When people ask me what my favorite Zelda game is, I am very happy to say that the first three console versions (Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker) are equally ranked in my mind. It is incredibly difficult for a sequel to live up the original so it is quite amazing how Nintendo managed to make these three games equally epic, for me at least. However, for reasons I won't get into here, I was completely crushed by Twilight Princess and said to myself "Zelda is over, it is all going to be downhill from here." What does that say? It says that Skyward Sword is a crucial game for the series. It can either sink Zelda further down or redeem the series in glory. I hope for the latter. Let's talk about the positives.
I loved the graphic style! I despised Twilight Princess graphics. The game looked like it was trying to conform to "hardcore" Japanese games and it destroyed the mood of Zelda in my opinion. Last week I was thinking "it would be amazing if they made a mix of Twilight Princess and Wind Waker graphics, that would look and feel fantastic." Behold, that is what they did and I was very pleased. The game looks very good and has a great Zelda feel to it. I'm very excited about the art style. Also, if my eyes didn't deceive me, I think I spotted a couple of Goriyas. I think it is great that they are bringing back some classic Zelda enemies that never made an appearance on console versions.
Next, items. I absolutely loved the whip. I can't believe I never thought of it for a possible Zelda item, so simple but so effective. Very good idea. The beetle seems like a stretch of the imagination but it does look cool and interesting. However, did you notice there are only 8 item slots? Seriously? Eight usable items in the whole game? To make matters worse, two of these items are the slingshot and bow. They serve the same exact function and are used in the same way..thus being basically the same item. Let me also comment on Link's movement. It seems like they made some improvements which look very good, for example the hold A to dash. There is also a brief one second move that can be easily ignored in the demo video. This is when Link is running and climbs over a ledge. Notice how smoothly he climbs and how it does not interrupt movement. In all previous console versions any little climb would require you to stop, climb, continue on. This new system looks a lot smoother and better.
One last thing I would like to comment on is the music, and I know we barely got anything to make a legitimate comment on it but I did get an impression of it that I would like to share. When I say that music is one of the most important aspects of Zelda people call me crazy and say it doesn't matter if the game is good in all other aspects. I could not disagree more. Music, if good, will take the game from good to gloriously epic, or if it is bad, from excellent to decent. Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker...I could make a list of songs from those games that I keep on my iPod. Some of the tracks still give me chills. They completely make the feel of the game. Twilight Princess' soundtrack was deplorable. I cannot think of a single track I'd want to listen to outside of the game. I don't know what they did but it was completely different from the three previous titles in terms of quality. A lot of the tracks were actually really tedious and made the game feel like a bit of a chore. Go listen to "Ordon." It is typical "video game music" with no feeling to it and makes you feel really sluggish. From the little music that could be heard in the demo, it seems to fit the style of what they did with Twilight Princess, which is truly disappointing. Music plays a huge role in Zelda and more emphasis and feeling should be put into it.
Overall I am skeptical with what I saw, and although I am keeping an open mind as more information comes out, I really am concerned that this might continue what Twilight Princess started in sinking Zelda to an average and mundane series that is more focused on being "hip" and keeping up with modern times rather than providing mesmerizing and emotional gameplay, exploration, and mind blowing plot like it had for years before.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/109/1097965p1.html
Last edited:
