So I just finished Skyward Sword today. Most of you are probably working on hero mode or beyond right now, but I took my sweet time to soak in everything this game had to offer. 
This thread is kind of weird I guess, with all of my afterthoughts bundled into one section, but I think there’s one coherent point throughout the whole thing: How SS fits into the legacy of the Legend of Zelda, what I think it did to further it, and what I think it did to fundamentally change it.
So yeah, I’m one of the old members from way back, and I haven’t been on in a long time, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share the thoughts I had on completing the game and getting some good input/counter-opinions from you guys. It’s my biggest hope that this rant of mine will somehow lead to a good debate of sorts, something I really used to like about this place.
First and foremost, I’d like to start with what an actual “story” has meant for the series. Yeah, the NES didn’t have a story, no big surprise, but we started to see interesting ones starting as early as ALttP, and even LA (my personal 4th favorite of the series). Now, were these stories super deep and emotional? Not necessarily. ALttP had you on the edge of your seat for sure, but as far as any emotional or “epic” (I use the term INCREDIBLY loosely…) feeling, I don’t really think so. LA seemed to do the exact opposite, with a less thrilling plotline, but a rather bittersweet ending that might have had a tinge of emotion in it. So, can one assume that story and emotion played a huge part in even the earliest entries of the series? You know, I don’t really think so. I may catch a lot of grief for this, but I often compare the series to that of the Final Fantasy series. Just WHY I like to do that is a completely different subject, but bear with me. I think that when compared to the stories of FFIV(originally II) or FFVI(originally III), the plot of ALttP and LA doesn’t measure up. Does this mean the stories that ALttP and LA had were bad? Of course not. I don’t think ANY Zelda game left a plotline to drown. But in comparison to those two very heavily driven FF titles, I think it’s apparent that LoZ never found its massive success with a storyline, and never completely depended on one.
Fast forward to a more modern age, and I’ll use OoT, MM, WW, and TP, the big 3D titles. Some will greatly disagree, but I feel almost the same way about these 4 that I do in ALttP and LA. The stories were great. I think all 4 of them had an awesome plotline that made the game that much more fun to play. But then again, it wasn’t until WW that we all really started paying attention to the timeline and wondering about the possibilities. I think WW was the single game that really got everyone involved in loving the story aspect of the series, just because it was the first time we could see a TRUE connection between two games of the series. People started expecting a rather more thrilling story than was offered in say, ALttP or MM. But, I’m going to compare it to Final Fantasy again. Specifically FFX, which is my most favorite game of all time. The plot of any of those 4 titles doesn’t touch FFX in the story department, nor does it come remotely near. FFX propelled itself on a captivating story, LoZ had no reason to. Yet, people, including myself, began getting more engaged with the LoZ story around WW and TP. This is where I started to see the “evolution” of sorts you could say, not necessarily in the actual quality of the stories themselves, but of what the fanbase actually started to expect.
SS’s ending was……strange for me. No, the actual ENDING of the game wasn’t strange, but the feelings I got when I finished it. At the end of TP, I think the series made its first massive move towards starting to appeal towards emotion as far as story is concerned. MM did the same with the Anju and Kafei sidequest, so I’ll couple it with TP’s ending. These two moments of the series were the only two thus far that really had me feeling and thinking (the ending of LA was an extremely lesser version of what I’m talking about, so I don’t count it). But, SS left me the same way. I was surprised; SS’s ending isn’t really SAD, so how could I make the connection to TP’s ending or the Anju and Kafei sidequest, both of which were really sad and dramatic. This is actually where I would like some input from you guys, since I’m still kind of confused myself, but I have a theory. I think SS actually made the huge step towards making the story a significant part of playing the game. Yeah, WW and TP arguably did that but…. Could we all agree that the ending for SS and interaction between the main characters (Link, Zelda, Groose, Impa, Ghirahim, and Fi) pretty much trumped everything WW and TP had to offer story-wise? I really think so. I think Nintendo made the leap towards structuring their characters and story to where it isn’t so predictable, to where you can genuinely care about these pixels that have been coded into a disk.
I liked Demise. I think that if you’re going to give the origins of Ganon, this was the way to go. So, I’ll step outside the realm of emotion and characters and go to raw “epicness” as some would say. The dialogue that Demise had, the atmosphere you’re in just before the final battle, the design of the character….. it was something completely different to what I was used to. As Demise paced the water talking about his hate and rage towards Hylia, I felt a little overwhelmed. Ganondorf never did this. I think the closest it ever got was the final battle in TP, but even then, it didn’t come close to how the scenes leading up to the battle with Demise felt. I think this is another huge evolution coupled with legit character development and emotion; the ability to create the mood that the final scene and battle created, that this guy is the root of all evil and conflict, and that he really does want to “paint his sword with your blood”. It boggles my mind to think about if they were to create this mood with Ganon. Yeah, stabbing him in the face in the rain is cool, just like doing a jumpfilp into his glowing white chest is, but I don’t think any previous Ganon fight has been structured as masterfully and the Demise scene and fight.
It seemed that SS evolved a lot in that way, that if I look back on the series 20 years from now (assuming more games have been made by then), I can identify SS as the first one to take the big steps towards using storyline as an important reason to play the game. So, I think this is going to be SS’s main legacy in my humble opinion….. That it actually changed the way I felt about the role a story plays in a Zelda, from something rather unimportant to something that really does add a massive amount of enjoyment to the overall experience of the game.
I might have just rambled there, but it felt good to type it all out….. I wanted to give into every other aspect, like the controls and graphics, but it would be so long you people wouldn’t read it, lol. So I guess the main question is….. do you think SS fundamentally changed the way you evaluate and experience the story of a Zelda game? And do you think this style and evolution will continue into future titles?
This thread is kind of weird I guess, with all of my afterthoughts bundled into one section, but I think there’s one coherent point throughout the whole thing: How SS fits into the legacy of the Legend of Zelda, what I think it did to further it, and what I think it did to fundamentally change it.So yeah, I’m one of the old members from way back, and I haven’t been on in a long time, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share the thoughts I had on completing the game and getting some good input/counter-opinions from you guys. It’s my biggest hope that this rant of mine will somehow lead to a good debate of sorts, something I really used to like about this place.
First and foremost, I’d like to start with what an actual “story” has meant for the series. Yeah, the NES didn’t have a story, no big surprise, but we started to see interesting ones starting as early as ALttP, and even LA (my personal 4th favorite of the series). Now, were these stories super deep and emotional? Not necessarily. ALttP had you on the edge of your seat for sure, but as far as any emotional or “epic” (I use the term INCREDIBLY loosely…) feeling, I don’t really think so. LA seemed to do the exact opposite, with a less thrilling plotline, but a rather bittersweet ending that might have had a tinge of emotion in it. So, can one assume that story and emotion played a huge part in even the earliest entries of the series? You know, I don’t really think so. I may catch a lot of grief for this, but I often compare the series to that of the Final Fantasy series. Just WHY I like to do that is a completely different subject, but bear with me. I think that when compared to the stories of FFIV(originally II) or FFVI(originally III), the plot of ALttP and LA doesn’t measure up. Does this mean the stories that ALttP and LA had were bad? Of course not. I don’t think ANY Zelda game left a plotline to drown. But in comparison to those two very heavily driven FF titles, I think it’s apparent that LoZ never found its massive success with a storyline, and never completely depended on one.
Fast forward to a more modern age, and I’ll use OoT, MM, WW, and TP, the big 3D titles. Some will greatly disagree, but I feel almost the same way about these 4 that I do in ALttP and LA. The stories were great. I think all 4 of them had an awesome plotline that made the game that much more fun to play. But then again, it wasn’t until WW that we all really started paying attention to the timeline and wondering about the possibilities. I think WW was the single game that really got everyone involved in loving the story aspect of the series, just because it was the first time we could see a TRUE connection between two games of the series. People started expecting a rather more thrilling story than was offered in say, ALttP or MM. But, I’m going to compare it to Final Fantasy again. Specifically FFX, which is my most favorite game of all time. The plot of any of those 4 titles doesn’t touch FFX in the story department, nor does it come remotely near. FFX propelled itself on a captivating story, LoZ had no reason to. Yet, people, including myself, began getting more engaged with the LoZ story around WW and TP. This is where I started to see the “evolution” of sorts you could say, not necessarily in the actual quality of the stories themselves, but of what the fanbase actually started to expect.
SS’s ending was……strange for me. No, the actual ENDING of the game wasn’t strange, but the feelings I got when I finished it. At the end of TP, I think the series made its first massive move towards starting to appeal towards emotion as far as story is concerned. MM did the same with the Anju and Kafei sidequest, so I’ll couple it with TP’s ending. These two moments of the series were the only two thus far that really had me feeling and thinking (the ending of LA was an extremely lesser version of what I’m talking about, so I don’t count it). But, SS left me the same way. I was surprised; SS’s ending isn’t really SAD, so how could I make the connection to TP’s ending or the Anju and Kafei sidequest, both of which were really sad and dramatic. This is actually where I would like some input from you guys, since I’m still kind of confused myself, but I have a theory. I think SS actually made the huge step towards making the story a significant part of playing the game. Yeah, WW and TP arguably did that but…. Could we all agree that the ending for SS and interaction between the main characters (Link, Zelda, Groose, Impa, Ghirahim, and Fi) pretty much trumped everything WW and TP had to offer story-wise? I really think so. I think Nintendo made the leap towards structuring their characters and story to where it isn’t so predictable, to where you can genuinely care about these pixels that have been coded into a disk.
I liked Demise. I think that if you’re going to give the origins of Ganon, this was the way to go. So, I’ll step outside the realm of emotion and characters and go to raw “epicness” as some would say. The dialogue that Demise had, the atmosphere you’re in just before the final battle, the design of the character….. it was something completely different to what I was used to. As Demise paced the water talking about his hate and rage towards Hylia, I felt a little overwhelmed. Ganondorf never did this. I think the closest it ever got was the final battle in TP, but even then, it didn’t come close to how the scenes leading up to the battle with Demise felt. I think this is another huge evolution coupled with legit character development and emotion; the ability to create the mood that the final scene and battle created, that this guy is the root of all evil and conflict, and that he really does want to “paint his sword with your blood”. It boggles my mind to think about if they were to create this mood with Ganon. Yeah, stabbing him in the face in the rain is cool, just like doing a jumpfilp into his glowing white chest is, but I don’t think any previous Ganon fight has been structured as masterfully and the Demise scene and fight.
It seemed that SS evolved a lot in that way, that if I look back on the series 20 years from now (assuming more games have been made by then), I can identify SS as the first one to take the big steps towards using storyline as an important reason to play the game. So, I think this is going to be SS’s main legacy in my humble opinion….. That it actually changed the way I felt about the role a story plays in a Zelda, from something rather unimportant to something that really does add a massive amount of enjoyment to the overall experience of the game.
I might have just rambled there, but it felt good to type it all out….. I wanted to give into every other aspect, like the controls and graphics, but it would be so long you people wouldn’t read it, lol. So I guess the main question is….. do you think SS fundamentally changed the way you evaluate and experience the story of a Zelda game? And do you think this style and evolution will continue into future titles?
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