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Skyward Sword- Why Do People Hate It So?

Iridescence

Emancipated Wind Fish
Joined
May 11, 2014
Location
United States
I love Skyward Sword personally, and it's in my top 5-6 Zelda games.

But I'm going to play devil's advocate and list reasons why some people don't like it.
  • Linear level design
  • Sky overworld is mostly empty
  • Fi (and other dialogue) constantly interrupting you
  • Not a wide array of items
  • Motion controls sometimes don't work
  • Repeated boss fights
  • Lack of warping
  • Story felt lacking compared to other 2011 titles
  • Dungeons are less complex than in TP and OOT
  • Fetch quests slow down the pacing.
 

MW7

Joined
Jun 22, 2011
Location
United States
I think it was one of the better games in the series. Some of the things that bug me include the wasted potential of the sky (huge with not a lot of content), unnecessary linearity (story can force you in a certain order sometimes, but there were several missed instances of potential branching paths), an excessive amount of required inter-dungeon content (you have to put up with a lot of stuff, not always fun, to get from one dungeon to the next), and the most glaring problem, although small, is the incredibly stupid notifications whenever you pick up a treasure or bug.

The first three points pertain to design preferences that disappointed me. In my opinion overworlds should not expansive for the sake of being expansive. For example having things far apart like in WW or SS is dumb because water and sky are almost impossible to diversify and the game would actually be better if the world was shrunk. A game like ALttP is preferable because there is very little space for the sake of space so there's no idiotic situations you're put in like having to sail from Windfall to Outset before you can warp. In terms of linearity, the second half of the game really has no essential story order, but the game forces you in a certain order for no reason. This is the same pointless design choice that TP had that adds nothing to the game but takes away potential replay value through added choice. Interdungeon content was much better in SS than TP, but it's still excessive. I would much, much rather see optional content or an extra dungeon than content like the tears of light collections in TP.

The treasure and bug notifications are beyond rationale though. People complained nonstop about the stupidity of the rupee notifications in TP, and Nintendo took that criticism and made it even worse by giving notifications for tons of different items. I have no idea what they were thinking on that one. Telling you what something is once is enough, but then every time the game is turned on and off is extremely annoying. This is especially true of the treasure because they are dropped by enemies and combat is frozen in the middle of fighting. Still these aren't huge complaints, and it's a great game.
 
Joined
Sep 21, 2014
Location
Michigan
I love Skyward Sword personally, and it's in my top 5-6 Zelda games.

But I'm going to play devil's advocate and list reasons why some people don't like it.
  • Linear level design
  • Sky overworld is mostly empty
  • Fi (and other dialogue) constantly interrupting you
  • Not a wide array of items
  • Motion controls sometimes don't work
  • Repeated boss fights
  • Lack of warping
  • Story felt lacking compared to other 2011 titles
  • Dungeons are less complex than in TP and OOT
  • Fetch quests slow down the pacing.
can we add "penalizes thinking for yourself" to that list?
 

CrimsonCavalier

Fuzzy Pickles
Joined
Mar 27, 2015
Location
United States
Gender
XY
I won't sugar-coat it. Skyward Sword is not only the worst Zelda game ever made, it's one of the worst games I've played, period.

There are hints and glimmers of wasted potential all throughout the game, but they're overrun and overshadowed by the glaring atrocity that is the motion controls, Fi, and how boring the game is in general.

Let's get one things straight, the motion controls DO NOT WORK. You can get by, you can beat the game despite them, but they do not work. And worse, they're overused. Why are we forced to use them in moments that would really be better if we used the analog stick? If Nintendo wanted a tech demo, they already had Wii Sports, they didn't need to make a Zelda Wii Motion+ Tech Demo. It absolutely ruined the game. Yes, like I said, you can get by, you can beat enemies, etc.. But it isn't fun. How many times did you get hit by an enemy or miss an attack despite the fact that you did the correct motions? Don't tell me it didn't happen to you. You're a liar if you say that.

Fi is the worst character in Zelda. She is not only annoying in that she interrupts, but her dialogue is completely stupid and out of place. She sounds like a robot. That's not funny or clever. And her animation when she sang just pissed me off. Who sings like that, with their stupid mouth open and their head vibrating like that? And why did she have to do ballet when she talked to you? If anyone says Navi is annoying now, I'll just direct them to Fi. We didn't know how good we had it with "Hey! Listen!"

Finally, the game itself is just not interesting. It didn't make me want to keep going. I never wanted to learn more or explore the world. It was exactly what I said: boring. The characters were boring and underdeveloped, the world was boring and underdeveloped. The Sky was desolate and boring and underdeveloped. The quests were tedious and boring.

And the worst part is like I said, there were glimmers of some huge wasted potential. There was clever dungeon design (in parts) and I kind of liked how the entrances to the dungeons were sort of dungeons themselves (pre-dungeons, if you will). The music was great, and the art-style was gorgeous, but the game overall was awful. It's an awful game. It's an awful game that deserves all of the hate it gets.
 

snakeoiltanker

Wake Up!
Joined
Nov 13, 2012
Location
Ohio
A lot of the things I have to complain about have already been noted in this thread. I'll start with dialog and info boxes. Fi was a dry terrible character which I felt really had nothing to do with the story of the game. Midna was probably the most interesting companion in the series. I was hoping they would stick with that when making new games, was Midna an asshole... yes she was. But at least she developed character as the come went on. Going from someone just using you to reach her goals, to someone who is on the adventure WITH you. Fi on the other hand is nothing but a tutorial guide that really had no use after about 30 minutes of playing the game. She constantly inturrupts your game to tell you meaningless BS that you already know or could have went without knowing. When Midna did this at least when she was talking too you she had character, sometime joking or being a smartass. With Fi, if she has something to say, you must listen, even if it is in the middle of combat. This is also something the game itself is guilty of as well. You could be in the middle of combat and upon defeating a foe, you will pick up a collectible, and literally in the middle of a swing of your sword, it has to stop and tell you that you have a bug, and its story and background. I mean really, its an effing bug, who give a flying *&#! about a bug and its background. But as if it wasnt bad enough that they stopped the game to tell you about it the first time, I tells you every time you pick up a bug (granted its a different bug, or you had saved the game and played later). This is present in other instances of the game, but I'm sure I made my point.

This will be a short sweet explanation, while the motion controls seemed like an interesting Idea, it was used in a stupid way. Zelda is meant to be a core game in the Nintendo library of said system. Normally put out as the pinnacle of what that system has to offer. But as Crimson mention, Skyward Sword was used as a Tech Demo to show off what you could do with the Motion+. And as if that was not bad enough, they didnt even work. The most evident instance I notice was when the Lizard enemies would taunt you and you have to swing diagonally, but it never works. So that is very annoying. The only enjoyable thing about the Motion controls was the fact that you could roll bombs, I actually think that was the coolest part of the game.

Story wise, I feel the game failed as well. It was hyped as the game that started it all. The origin of the Master Sword. When really it didnt tell anything about it. Maybe I missed something. The only link I seen was that the Goddess Sword started to look like the Master Sword, and I can see how it was named, as Fi always called you "Master" hints the "Master Sword". The story itself lacked any lore or recognizable info relating to the series. Ghirahim was a good character, very interesting, as well as being more threatening not cuz of his size or strength, but because of his extremely disturbed personality. Then to find out that the completely absurd stuffed animal (The Imprisoned) was actually Akuma and the main villain of the game in the last 10 or so minutes of the game almost seemed like a slap in the game to the player. I enjoyed the relationship between Link and Zelda, but that was still very minor. Impas stern attitude towards Link was cool, with her thinking that you were no where near worthy for the quest that you were on. But seriously that was very little in the way of story telling.

But most of all I hated the over world. Having a hub connecting the world is just out of place in the Zelda series. There was no real sense of exploration as the provinces of the world were completely disconnected. Zelda is a game where exploration was at the forefront of adventure. Being able to traverse the entire world seamlessly from one area theme to the next. Instead you had 3 different areas almost set up as levels instead of being another part of an expansive world. If you want to explore a different area of the map you had to return to the sky, soar through the empty sky and descend into another section of the world. There is the key word, "sections". The sky had all but nothing. little floating island that served little to no purpose outside of holding a chest that was unlocked by a cube on the surface. Even worse upon finding the cube, it was marked on you map. Not to sound cliche but the game held your hand throughout the entire game. All but giving you the solution to every puzzle in the game. The overworld is the utmost worse aspect of the game. Completely breaking the best feature of the entire Zelda series, as if it wasnt bad enough that Twilight Princess was an open world that consisted of a series of lanes and paths instead of an open world of choice with numerous ways to reach said destination. The only thing I liked about it was that entering a dungeon was a puzzle in itself.

While SS is not a terrible game, it is by far the weakest entry of the series. The entire game was nothing but a gimmick. Gimmicks are okay if they are just part of the overall experience. But when the game is based around the use of the motion controls, it is then just a glorified Tech Demo, lacking story, and reason to continue the quest. There was no sense of impending doom, like say Majoras Mask was a champion of. The Hype Nintendo pushed on us for the game was completely unjustified in the end. Maybe Nintendo was guilty of their own demise when it came to Skyward Sword. The game just lacked a lot of things that makes Zelda so great. In the end completely causing the game too fall flat of anything amazing considering its unacceptable development time. So heres to hoping Nintendo will learn for the travesty that was Skyward Sword.
 

Dio

~ It's me, Dio!~
Joined
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Location
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Absolute unit
Can't we all just like Zelda? Even the Wind Waker, my least favorite 3D Zelda game has plenty of redeeming factors. Even though I do really like Skyward Sword, I fail to see how anyone can utterly hate any game in a franchise as great as Zelda.

The franchise itself is pretty mediocre when you look at it. There are a few great games but most could really do with not existing, many don't better the franchise or even meet expectations set by their predecessors.

Liking games because of the franchise they are in is not a good way of going about things. Acceptance of mediocrity breeds more mediocrity and if something is not going in the direction you like you should make a stand about it. Voicing the dislike of aspects of any game, in this case Skyward Sword, is a good thing. Especially to those who actually make the games. This lets then know where they went wrong and then they can come back with the next game and try to fix the problems. Staying silent only gives them the idea they don't need to improve or make changes when they actually do.
 

Spiritual Mask Salesman

CHIMer Dragonborn
Site Staff
The franchise itself is pretty mediocre when you look at it. There are a few great games but most could really do with not existing, many don't better the franchise or even meet expectations set by their predecessors.

Liking games because of the franchise they are in is not a good way of going about things. Acceptance of mediocrity breeds more mediocrity and if something is not going in the direction you like you should make a stand about it. Voicing the dislike of aspects of any game, in this case Skyward Sword, is a good thing. Especially to those who actually make the games. This lets then know where they went wrong and then they can come back with the next game and try to fix the problems. Staying silent only gives them the idea they don't need to improve or make changes when they actually do.
Well if you think about it after Ocarina of Time things shifted from expanding from the series' predeccessors to just keeping the same basic elements but changing graphic styles to make games feel somewhat different (rather than being different by expanding upon core elements).
 

Dio

~ It's me, Dio!~
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Well if you think about it after Ocarina of Time things shifted from expanding from the series' predeccessors to just keeping the same basic elements but changing graphic styles to make games feel somewhat different (rather than being different by expanding upon core elements).

Well I'd say MM was a big shift with the surreal tone and time mechanic but the atmosphere and character development were a big improvement over previous games. Later on there was TP which actually expanded on what OOT did and in many ways became a better version.

In a lot of the others though it seems there are big differences and with no real reason behind them, and other times there are improvements which get ditched in the next installment. E.g hidden skills.

A good series takes what is good and progressively improves on these areas and ditches that which makes the games less fun. There seems to be no logo behind the direction Zelda goes in a lot of the time with both good and bad getting ditched in favour of new goods and new bads in each installment.
 
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Spiritual Mask Salesman

CHIMer Dragonborn
Site Staff
Well I'd say MM was a big shift with the surreal tone and time mechanic and TP actually expanded on what OOT did and in many ways became a better version.

In a lot of the others it seems there are big differences and with no real reason behind them and other times there are improvements which get ditched in the next installment. E.g hidden skills.
True, but still, overall the series hasn't expanded all that much over the last 15 years - in fact it's behind in a lot of ways.I mean my goodness it took 8 years to finally expand off Twilight Princess to make a true non-linear overworld for a three dimensional Zelda game? It's already been successfully nailed by games over the last 6 years so it's not even anything new. The fact that Skyward Sword had no overworld was something I found to be so stupid! I thought for sure SS was going to expand off of Twilight Princess in that sense. It didn't. Skyward Sword did have some decent stuff, but I really do feel like in ways it was a set back for the series.
 
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Dio

~ It's me, Dio!~
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True, but still, overall the series hasn't expanded all that much over the last 15 years - in fact it's behind in a lot of ways.I mean my goodness it took 8 years to finally expand off Twilight Princess to make a true non-linear overworld for a three dimensional Zelda game? It's already been successfully nailed by games over the last 6 years so it's not even anything new. The fact that Skyward Sword had no overworld was something I found to be so stupid! I thought for sure SS was going to expand off of Twilight Princess in that sense. It didn't. Skyward Sword did have some decent stuff, but I really do feel like in ways it was a set back for the series.

I feel Zelda U or NX if it ever comes out will be the Zelda SS should have been but again it is a bit late, it seems to be doing the same things that are already in other games. The series needed this open world game years ago.
 
Joined
Aug 12, 2015
To those complaining about the motion controls, what system did you play with? The original Wii or the Wii U? Because I played on the Wii U, and while the graphics look ass on my TV, the motion controls worked perfectly fine - no trouble at all.
 
Joined
Aug 12, 2015
Thought so. Can't blame them either if they don't like it. I was just asking because I was wondering wether it was the Wii U that just does Motion Control better, because having only played the game with that system, I can't understand the complaints.
 

Spiritual Mask Salesman

CHIMer Dragonborn
Site Staff
Thought so. Can't blame them either if they don't like it. I was just asking because I was wondering wether it was the Wii U that just does Motion Control better, because having only played the game with that system, I can't understand the complaints.
The motion controls on the Wii version weren't really that bad or much different, just in general the motion controls didn't appeal to some people.
 

Dio

~ It's me, Dio!~
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To those complaining about the motion controls, what system did you play with? The original Wii or the Wii U? Because I played on the Wii U, and while the graphics look ass on my TV, the motion controls worked perfectly fine - no trouble at all.

I think it is more that people didn't like the motion controls and therefore did not take to them well. I never had any trouble with them myself and found them to be pretty fun.
 

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