Skyward Sword's Controls Are NOT Perfect

[Koosholts]

This thread was inspired by Axle The Beast's article on the front page and the countless times I've seen JuiceJ say the controls are perfect.

First off, let me state that I loved the motion controls in Skyward Sword. They made combat more fun, they made the game more challenging, it allowed Nintendo to introduce fun and creative puzzles, and they lived up to my expectations of how it would cooperate with my movements and then some. The motion controls for Skyward Sword are the best we've seen in a video game yet, and I'd argue the best we'll see in a game for the whole of 2012. However, just because it was a revolutionary control scheme doesn't dispute the fact that it came with its own set of problems. Yes, the controls are not perfect. If anything, they came with more difficulties than just your average joy-stick controler. Let's anazlyze this.

The biggest problems with these controls were the fact that they were inaccurate and unresponsive. Now, standing alone in Skyloft, the sword perfectly imitated what you were doing with the motion controler. Whether it be a stab, horizontal slash, vertical slash, diagnol slash, it imitated it all the same. Now, that may seem great, but the true problems lay when you actually put the motion control mechanic into practice.

If you vigorously slash at your opponent, lets say, the final battle of Girahim, the motion controls will get confused. It will misinterpret your horizontal slash for a stab, thus making an innacurate decision. I mentioned the final Girahim battle because I've just recently finished a playthough of Skyward Sword and it's fresh in my mind. In the battle, when he pulls out his huge fat sword, you have to break it using a vertical or horizontal slash depending on which way he's holding it. It takes a few slashes with your sword, so naturally people are going to swing back and forth (or up and down) vigorously trying to break it so they can put a beatin' on Girahim. Numerous times the motion controls got confused on what I was doing. And not only did it get confused, it sometimes refused to respong to what I was doing. I had to run away from Girahim and make broad sword slashes with my controler to get my sword to correctly correspong with my motion controler. In one battle, the motion controls demonstrated on how it could be inaccurate and irresponsive.

Now people (JuiceJ) can argue that it was human error that caused to motion controls to be irresponsive and innacurate. That could be true, but lets not forget the fact that a controlers purpose is to allow the player (a human) play the game in the most efficient way possible. If a controler makes a mistake based on human error, that is the controlers fault because it had a faulty design.

Also, to further prove my point, here are two videos of a person playing Skyward Sword where the motion controls mininterpreted what he was doing. You can visually see how this was not human error. I urge you to look at both.

Puzzles and Pirates! - Skyward Sword is AWESOME! - Part 197 - YouTube - 15:10 - Onwards

Evil Fi! - Skyward Sword is AWESOME! - Part 203 - YouTube - 13:20 - To the end of the Girahim fight

Please try to argue my points after watching both of those videos.

 

[JuicieJ]

A Look at Skyward Sword's Inaccurate Controls (Gamespot Review Rebuttal) - YouTube
Control Demonstration - The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword - YouTube

I think these two videos will counteract this post quite nicely.

By the way, the videos you posted have the guy using wrist movements. That's a huge problem. Using only the wrist in this game creates immensely inaccurate swings. The Wii MotionPlus requires full arm movements to perform properly because it's designed around them. These videos don't provide a proper argument.

 

[Geaux Zelda]

no controls are perfect!@ but these were as close to it as ive ever seen

 

[winterbbytumblr]

Actually, my wii remote never got confused once, the controls were perfect in my opinion! So maybe you had a faulty remote or something, i adored the controls and there was not a single thing wrong with them for me- and that is a fact, not opinion.

 

[The Joker]

Meh. They weren't perfect but they were good enough for me to love this game immensly

 

[Krazy4Krash]

People need to know you can't just slightly bend your wrist and expect a perfect response. You need to swing your arm, like a SWORD! It's 1:1 for a reason. They are perfect. People are either lazy in their arm movements, play lying down as opposed to sitting or standing or have broken controllers. Swing your arm properly, sit down on a chair, calibrate the remote correctly and then tell me the controls aren't perfect.

 

[MW7]

Now people (JuiceJ) can argue that it was human error that caused to motion controls to be irresponsive and innacurate. That could be true

The problem I have with this argument is that it borders on a hasty generalization. Human error was definitely a source of many people's complaints about the controls; however, there is no way anyone could know for certain that every problem someone had with the controls was human error. It's an assumption so it possibly could be true but we can't say for certain. My point is that an argument of this manner cannot 100% prove that the controls worked for everyone they way they were supposed to work without extensive research. Also some of the complaints I've heard don't immediately sound like human error to me so that's why I'm so skeptical that the controls worked for everyone the way they were supposed to. Maybe there's some rare glitch out there that messes with the controls, or there might have been defective WiiMotion Plus controllers shipped.

Personally I didn't have many issues with the controls, and I'm fairly certain that any issues I had were my own fault. Still I would like to say that I believe that the word perfect does not apply to Skyward Sword's controls. They weren't ideal, and Nintendo will almost certainly improve upon them. So maybe JuicieJ just means that Skyward Sword's controls work, and I'm using a different definition for perfect- attaining an ideal standard- which doesn't apply to Skyward Sword's controls very well IMO. So in summary, I say Skyward Sword's controls work, but there might be some people out there experiencing true issues with the controls and from my perspective the word perfect doesn't apply to the controls.

 

[Honorable Hero]

They aren't perfect, no. However, they caused me so little problems that I find no reason to complain about them. Most of the times that I had difficulty with the controls, I found out that it was because I was just doing something wrong. Not every single time, but mostly.

 

[r2d93]

I agree that they were not perfect. Unless I was standing up and holding the wiimote in the same exact spot to not mess up the centering, I would have to constantly press start and re center my aim. plus the wiimote cant determine exactly what the player intended to do with their swing or stab

 

[EternalNocturne]

Sure, they weren't perfect in the most literal sense. But I had barely any problems with them, so they might as well be. Nothing is perfect really, but Skyward Sword's controls were nearly flawless, so people still understand what others mean when they say "perfect."

I never dealt with inaccuracy during gameplay except when I played the game while I was stressed. So that's human error.

I'm not sure why some people complain about inaccuracies; I can't relate because I experienced none.

 

[JuicieJ]

The problem I have with this argument is that it borders on a hasty generalization. Human error was definitely a source of many people's complaints about the controls; however, there is no way anyone could know for certain that every problem someone had with the controls was human error. ...

When many people are able to play the game with no issues with the controls, that shows that any problems don't lie with the controls, but with the players. If the controls had issues, everyone would report problems.

For anyone who still doesn't believe the controls are not perfect, go play the harp in game. Then return here and let me know what you think.

Pretty sure the harp worked just fine.

 

[JuicieJ]

This is very shaky logic. You could apply this to just about anything.

No, it's not shaky by any means. We're talking about motion controls, here. Motion contorls are either on or off. Period. There's no middle ground. The fact that many people had no issues with them shows that it's not the controls fault for others having trouble. I can't understand how you can't see that.

Really? I recall countless threads complaining about it.

I also recall seeing threads complaining about the motion controls. But look at the crap logic they have. Same with the harp. The harp wasn't exactly stellar as in how it was executed, but its controls were as perfect as all the other items in SS.

 

[Joshz0rs]

I've personally experienced problems with the Motion Plus. Sometimes (although not very often), the controls become inaccurate from swinging the remote around so much and controls will become inverted. It was quite annoying, but all it took to fix it was re-calibrating the controls.

 

[jorden1506]

no never a control is perfect -_- we are used to that aspect of the wii

 

[unknown]

Not perfect. Nothing is. They were functional, fun, and worked all the time. The only problem I had was when my remote's batteries were completely gone. Then the controls wouldn't work. They were as close to perfect as I have seen with motion, or with controls in general for that matter.