Skyward Sword SS. Why So Much Hate?

[Ronin]

Nobody's mentioned the three-to-six Imprisoned battles yet? Or the Scervo/Deadfuse reiterations?

The biggest problem for this game was repetition; to me, it just went overboard with installing a number of duplicated incidents just for the sake of lengthening out the game. Now, while implementing these events is fine in most particular scenarios, they stymie my enjoyment for future playthroughs of Skyward Sword. For example, the second and third Imprisoned battles literally took place right after each other. Normally that wouldn't be a pet peeve of mine, but I think that there shouldn't even have been a third encounter. Right around that time Link has to go see Faron to learn her part of the Hero's Song; however, he can't even descend into that area because of some form of "interference" [aka, Imprisoned III]. How exactly does that stop Link from going to any other area? If anything, the third encounter should have been optional, or better yet Nintendo should have altered the situation so that Faron flooded the Sealed Grounds as well, to add in some extra suspense.

Another good example of needless repetition is the treasure notification...

Really? You think those are bigger problems than linearity? Wow, way to majorly nitpick at this game. Yes, some of those were both hindrances and annoyances, but they're not problem problems. This ^ is a perfect example where players take minor flaws and make them major flaws. It's completely ridiculous and unnecessary.

Actually, they can be viewed as problems. Those notifications caused a disconnect from the continual play of the game, and quite honestly felt nothing more than a waste of my time. Like Sroa Link said, they just come back when we shut off the game, and keep appearing over and over. Think back to TP's function that made Link stop and show the player the Rupee he attained; that's sort of the same situation here, except that the treasure notification won't go away after the first time. It just freezes the game and suspends playtime, which in itself is completely ridiculous and unnecessary.

 

[Ventus]

I'm playing SS atm (vanilla file) on Dolphin, and let me tell you, I'm loving the intro. Although the cutscenes are ridic long, what game DIDN'T have some sort of intrusive cutscene? But the thing that makes the intro so great is that it's world building. Zelda's personality, Groose's personality, Pipit, and even LINK. They all are distinct characters that weave and interweave despite living very different lives. It truly is like High School. :yes:

Man oh man. Lines like this:

And what exactly is THAT supposed to mean, you goof? If you think I look silly, just come out and say it.

That shiz is just gorgeous. :yes:

 

[JuicieJ]

Nobody's mentioned the three-to-six Imprisoned battles yet? Or the Scervo/Deadfuse reiterations?

The biggest problem for this game was repetition; to me, it just went overboard with installing a number of duplicated incidents just for the sake of lengthening out the game. Now, while implementing these events is fine in most particular scenarios, they stymie my enjoyment for future playthroughs of Skyward Sword. For example, the second and third Imprisoned battles literally took place right after each other. Normally that wouldn't be a pet peeve of mine, but I think that there shouldn't even have been a third encounter. Right around that time Link has to go see Faron to learn her part of the Hero's Song; however, he can't even descend into that area because of some form of "interference" [aka, Imprisoned III]. How exactly does that stop Link from going to any other area? If anything, the third encounter should have been optional, or better yet Nintendo should have altered the situation so that Faron flooded the Sealed Grounds as well, to add in some extra suspense.

Another good example of needless repetition is the treasure notification...

I can agree with the third Imprisoned fight, but I don't see anything wrong with callbacks so long as they're not exactly the same thing, which is what happened with Skyward Sword, even Dreadfuse. The only exception is the second Moldarach fight, but that's a special case because it was shorter (due to having a stronger sword) and was designed as a moment of world-building -- basically to say, "Remember how we said that one boss was a thousand-year-old version of a normal enemy? You probably thought you wouldn't see it again, didn't you? LOLNOPE! SURPRISE, MOTHA****A! Here, have a miniboss."

So... yeah.

 

[Vanessa28]

How is having a plethora of cutscenes bad on SS's part? From my stand point, I felt Skyward Sword had the perfect amount of cutscenes. All of them carried out the story very nicely.

I don't care how many cutscenes a game has but I do find it annoying you cannot skip them and have to watch them all the time. In the beginning yes it is interesting and add to a story but when you replay a game it would be a great option to skip them don't you think so?

I have no real complaints. The only thing is the Imprisoned battle as Thar stated and the whole flying thing. Other than that I am fine with the game ^^

 

[DarkestLink]

I can understand people feeling that the motion controls weren't done well, but what I don't get is the argument that they were intrusive. I mean hang on a second here...you don't want motion controls in your game...and yet you bought a Wii.

Think back to TP's function that made Link stop and show the player the Rupee he attained; that's sort of the same situation here, except that the treasure notification won't go away after the first time. It just freezes the game and suspends playtime, which in itself is completely ridiculous and unnecessary.

Well actually, it did stop after the first time...but with TP, you had...6 possible different rupees you'd get on each playthrough (greens don't count), you'd get them all pretty early, and if you found a chest with rupees, that counted as your cutscene. This was mildly annoying and one of the flaws in TP that sticks out to me.

In SS, though you have...16 treasures (and bugs). The cutscene for TP's rupees is 1-2 seconds. The cutscene for SS's treasure is 10-11 seconds.

 

[Ventus]

I can understand people feeling that the motion controls weren't done well, but what I don't get is the argument that they were intrusive. I mean hang on a second here...you don't want motion controls in your game...and yet you bought a Wii.

So? I bought a Wii and got Brawl out of it. It's fair to desire - not necessarily expect, though - the same out of SS. But I'm on the flipside; I can't understand people who say the motion controls were done poorly. Fact is, they were implemented pretty damn well. TOO well, in fact; it was shoehorned into every possible thing it could have been. I'm sure if it were possible, the crew would've made opening and closing menus totally motion controlled. Saying that, it's odd that the game wasn't on Kinect. You know that everything is Better with Kinect.

 

[Wolf Sage]

I don't like linearity, but for some weird reason I have always liked seeing a cave for example, and not being able to go there until I get a certain item(for example the hookshot).

(Going through a dungeon) "Oh, I got the hookshot, now I can finally visit that mysterious cave. WOHOOO!!!!".

I know right?

I dunno why, but I kind of like "unlocking" [at least some parts of] the overworld. It gets me really motivated when I know that there's something great to unlock after obtaining a certain item or visiting a certain place first. That feeling of "newness" upon reaching a previously "locked" locale is so invigorating; at least, that's how I felt when I unlocked a new section of Hyrule Field in Twilight Princess, for example. It enhances the adventurous aspect twofold when you've conquered an obstacle that once blocked the path to your ultimate goal. If the series ever "evolves" beyond Skyward Sword or whatever, I hope that it never removes all aspects of "unlocking" new places and such.

 

[Katana_Kito]

To me, it's the overworld that annoyed me. It was too 'bland', as you can say; too small, not much to discover. Okay, there are islands here and there, but a lot of them were just plain floating islands, while some actually had some things on them for you to explore and discover. Riding on the Loftwing seemed slow as well, although it was kind of fun for me. Overall, i don't hate SkywardSword, but I would enjoy it more if there were more islands to explore, and the ride on the Loftwing wasn't as long.

 

[Seth]

There were 39 Minutes of cutscenes before you get the sword. There was well over 2 hours worth of cutscenes in the game.

This was a BIG issue. I didn't feel there were too many cutscenes all in all, but the opening ones were so long and drawn out. I just wanted to play the damn game, not watch a movie.

 

[ihateghirahim]

It wasn't too bad. The opening established the world and the characters. 39 minutes was a but much,but it didn't ruin the experience.

If you think 39 minutes of cutscenes was bad, try Metal Gear Solid some time. They can pile them on by the hour.

 

[JuicieJ]

It wasn't too bad. The opening established the world and the characters. 39 minutes was a but much,but it didn't ruin the experience.

I think the problem isn't the cutscenes, but the length of the intro in general. I think they should have just taken out the "find Link's Loftwing" bit by having dat crimson bird not have been kidnapped, thereby coming to Link when he was pushed off the edge of Skyloft, in which case the ceremony happens, Groose is established as a bully/rival, and the ceremony gets underway with. Would have shaved off a good 10-15 minutes, or so, and would have made the intro pretty much perfect.

 

[Mangachick14]

I personally feel like people tear this game to shreds way more than it deserves--it's the same with what happened with WW and it's graphics. People see something that they don't like about it and decide "This game sucks" which is completely unfair. The argument that the game is too linear doesn't hold any weight to me, because I don't see anything in the game that makes it more linear than it's predecessors, namely TP (I can't really compare it to WW because I haven't played it yet). In TP you also have to do the dungeons in a certain order, and you also have to unlock places in the games through the twilight realms. The notifications also work the same way in SS and TP (though I believe it is unnecessary in both game tbh). There's just as many of these so called "problems" in TP, yet it receives a free pass?

Yeah, Fi can get irritating but it hardly makes the game unplayable. The cutscenes work just fine and compared to some other newer games out there, take up a very small amount of playing time. The sky could've been done better, but for what it was, it was okay. The motion controls worked exceptionally and showcased what WM+ is capable of very well. The stamina gauge and the climbing abilities are the best additions to the series I've seen in a while. Everyone seems to belittle the things SS did right and makes mountains out of molehills with what it did wrong.

What I'm basically saying is, all of the common faults people tend to find with SS were already in the series. Maybe Nintendo should've fixed them, but you can't say it was considerably worse that what we've had in recent years. SS had it's flaws, but you can't single it out and say that it's the only one with problems. SS was linear, but so were previous installments.

Lately, I've noticed a pattern with modern Zelda, and that's that as soon as a new game comes out, everyone rips it to pieces and nitpicks on every little thing. It was like that for WW, TP, and the 3D DS games. SS had it the worst and I'm willing to bet the same will happen when Zelda WiiU comes out.

 

[JuicieJ]

Lately, I've noticed a pattern with modern Zelda, and that's that as soon as a new game comes out, everyone rips it to pieces and nitpicks on every little thing. It was like that for WW, TP, and the 3D DS games. SS had it the worst and I'm willing to bet the same will happen when Zelda WiiU comes out.

Phantom Hourglass had it WAY worse.

 

[Erebus]

The game was really good for storyline, and characters. It had me emotionally invested with both. I cared about the individual characters and even when as far getting into the additional dialogue in the game and it had me laughing a lot with the funny things that lay into the small characters dialogue. It had a story of very much interest. I am not going to go the extremes and say Fi was that annoying. For characters the only drawback for me was the dragons. That game made Ghirahim my all time favorite character in the zelda series.

 

[Random Person]

I liked playing SS, but definitely feel it didn't live up to the Zelda standard. What's been said has been said many times so I'll keep it quick.

Too linear? Yes
Annoying Fi? Yes
Sucky Motion Controls? No
Too Much Motion Controls? Yes
Fanfic-ish story? Yes
Horrible graphics? No
Too easy? Yes
Horribly done origin stories? Yes
Minimum exploration? Yes
Non-memorable music? Yes

But when you boil down to it, I simply feel SS lacked innovation. That's not to say I don't think it didn't do anything good. I simply don't feel it improved on the Zelda series in the unique way Zelda has always done for me in the past. Yes it was a good game, but as a Zelda game, I expected more... and Zelda always gives me more than I expect.