The Perfect Skyward Sword

[:Zelda:Druggie:]

I was so anxious waiting for Skyward Sword. There was so much hype, so much excitement, but I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed when I unwrapped the final product on Christmas morning. I haven't even played it a 2nd time, yet.
I was wondering what else people did/didn't like about it. I'll share later on, but I'd like to know what would you have taken out/added in to make Skyward Sword absolutely perfect, in your opinion? I feel a lot of great elements were definitely included in the game, but not executed too strongly.
What characters would you add/take out? Regions? Dungeons? What back stories would you have liked more of? Did you think Skyward Sword was perfect the way it was?
I'm curious

 

[Ventus]

I would take out Zelda (believe me on this one, it'd work out just fine; didn't Majora's Mask succeed?) [EDIT] or if not that, remove Hylia from the game completely, within the lore and all that jazz. She's the cause of Zelda's uselessness in this game, really.
I would add in more regions, and remove those stupid barriers that make it so you're confined to that region then have to go back to the sky to get to a different zone. That's just ridiculous on Nintendo's part.
I would add in a few dungeons here and there, but make them especially difficult.
Add in more enemy types, increase the amount of difficulty enemies on screen and decrease the focus on "get past my guard lulz" within sword combat.
Erase Demise and Ghirahim -- Demise I just can't wrap my head around, and Ghirahim is more of a clown than a villain. He doesn't even do much throughout the course of the game, neither does Demise. Neither villain makes it seem like I *should* save the world, because there is no sense of urgency with either villain (besides the very end, and that incidentally is when we close up the real threat >_> ).

There's much more, but I can sense someone is going to dissect my post so I'll keep it short.

 

[A Link In Time]

I was actually having a discussion about this in a voice chat today with DARK MASTER and some random Bradley guy and my body is ready to answer.

Skyward Sword was a great Zelda game but it did not live up to my level of hype. One aspect of the game I found to be particularly disappointing was the lack of unique areas to visit. There was a forest, a fire mountain, a lake, and a desert. Personally, Nintendo should take a note from Majora's Mask. That game mirrored Ocarina of Time in terms of the places you could explore. Ocarina of Time boasted a forest, mountain, lake, and desert. Majora's Mask featured a swamp, snow mountain, lake, and canyon. This was a breath of fresh air for the franchise. By refusing to set Skyward Sword off from the pack, Nintendo did fans a great disservice from a package that was near flawless overall.

Continuing with the overworld, lack of variety in the land below was a relatively minor problem when compared to what the sky could have been. Numerous times I've complained that the sky is too barren and I continue to defend that notion. Most islands featured one or two chests with little challenge. Essentially you hop on and off in a matter of three minutes or less. Across all its islands, the Wind Waker offered a greater challenge as well as meaningful rewards and character interaction. This is what Skyward Sword should have been.

One redundancy which ground my gears was battling the Imprisoned multiple times. The first and second battles differentiated themselves enough but the third was useless repetition. The only salvation to be found was in the form of the Groosenator. The Ghirahim battles stood in stark juxtaposition to those of his master in beast form. Each fight spiced things up a bit and actually made excellent use of the motion controls with the jump form the second to third skirmishes being the largest.

Overall, Skyward Sword was a great game but you can't help but feel that it felt last generation when compared to other games on the market. Maybe it's the tried and true dungeon design, the Wii's lack of horsepower, or the text boxes which break up the action but Skyward Sword was not one of my favorite games. In it's excellent use of motion controls it is revolutionary, yes, but there was room for so much more potential. Skyward Sword was a jumble of disconnected ideas that appeared for a moment and then dissipated into oblivion. Although it helped connect the timeline and answered more question than it created, Skyward Sword failed to sow itself together into a coherent whole.

 

[Random Person]

I most certainly do not think SS was perfect.

I would've had it relate more to other Zelda games more. Making a Zelda game different is fine and dandy, but a prequel in any sense, be it story, movie or game, is supposed to play off of the elements of the stories that established it. SS revealed new races, new religious memes, and changes to the land that don't really make sense. And these things aren't necessarily bad, but the way SS did it made it feel separated from the entire Zelda series rather than setting up for it. To fix this, I would've put more stress on relevant races that we already know (ie zoras and gorons) while minor-ly (not a word) introducing new races. I would have made the land very similar to OoT's layout, but much different so that gamers feel like they aren't playing the same game.(Kinda like what TP did, but try to change it up) And I would've stuck to the three goddess history, or played on it more rather than introducing a completely new goddess and spirits that the players are completely unfamiliar with.

I don't really call SS a bad game, or even a bad Zelda game. I call it a bad prequel and as a fan of literature I was really looking forward to playing the game as a prequel. There were other flaws, but I feel that if the game had been made more with the mentality that it was a prequel to the rest of the series, it would've been perfect for me.

 

[Terminus]

My wish list:
TRUE 1:1 Swordplay
fewer Boundaries
Fewer/No Tutorials
Eliminate the description thingy for the bugs/treasure
Battle the Imprisoned ONCE and ONCE ONLY
Better, more involved Demise
Less whiny Girahim
More overworld areas
Have Fi stfu

 

[EternalNocturne]

I could go on and on about every little thing I didn't like about Skyward Sword; there's tons. But despite that -- I loved Skyward Sword. I was there ever since we still called it "Zelda Wii," but I was careful not to lose myself in the hype. I really wasn't expecting anything grand from the game, so I wasn't disappointed overeall. Sure, there are a lot of negative things about the game, and if I were to list them all out here, it'd sound like I hated it to death, but ultimately most of the cons went unnoticed until way after I had finished it.

Skyward Sword's story wasn't too impressive, but then again, I wouldn't think that any Zelda game's story has ever been strikingly grand or amazing. To me, it doesn't matter that much -- the story ties the game together, but it doesn't make up its whole. The characters, however, were the ones who really enchanted me. I'm not sure if I'm the only one who feels this way (and I might as well be), but throughout my playthrough, I felt I was Link, I felt that I had grown up on Skyloft with my majestic Crimson Loftwing, and I felt that Zelda was my best friend all my life. I'm really not sure what in the game made this happen, but I was so into it that I would literally forget I was me. All I cared about was saving my best friend.

I took it upon myself to memorize the names of everyone on Skyloft and the surrounding islands. I'd seriously play around and do things like complain to Henya about why she hasn't served me food in months even though I actually woke up bright and early for once in my own bed. I hadn't played pretend like this since I was three feet tall, but it was stuff like this that made me feel more into the game and really helped me enjoy it.

The music was great, but it's a really subjective topic, so there's really not much to discuss about it.

The controls were smooth and nearly flawless. Before I played Skyward Sword, I wasn't too much of a fan of motion controls. I, like many other people, preferred the traditional controls that we grew up with. Now that I've finished the game, I don't ever want to return to the traditional control scheme. Wii MotionPlus seriously made swordplay a whole lot better; the rare times any inaccuracies showed up weren't enough to discard my new opinion on motion controls.

There were only two major things I disliked about the game. First was the lack of exploration, which included the bland Sky overworld. Zelda is a series built on exploring new places and discovering new secrets; I was quite disappointed by the fact that there was basically nothing to find -- the game was below standard. Dowsing made finding the Goddess Cubes easier that flicking Keese out of the air, and it didn't help that the Goddess Chests in the Sky were marked on the map. The thing that irked me the most was that there were no hidden grottos like there were in games like Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess.

The second thing was the difficulty. It was too easy. Sure, you could always go shieldless on Hero Mode with 6 hearts -- but I'm not a fan of minimalist runs and the such; I'd rather have a game that has at least an acceptable difficulty rating on any regular playthrough.

All in all, it's a 10/10 for me.

(But in a direct response to your question: I'd take out the last two Imprisoned battles, dowsing, the limit on the Adventure Pouch, and the annoying screen that shows up every time you start the game and get a treasure/bug. I'd add in -- and yes, I'm being picky -- a left-handed mode, difficulty settings, an option to skip cutscenes during the first playthrough, more regions [preferably ones that connect the existing three], more islands in the Sky that are useful, more variations of enemies, more dungeons, and better minigames.)

 

[JuicieJ]

Keep the first half the same. That was just fine -- perfect, I'd even say. However, come the second half, make the Ancient Cistern and Sandship interchangeable in terms of which can be done first. Make the AC better designed and have Scervo be the boss of the Sandship instead of Tentalus. Make him an overworld boss at some point later in the game. Also have both Skyview and Earth Temples be returned to, only with a previously blocked off section with completely new puzzles (much like returning to the different provinces). That's what Nintendo made it sound like was going to happen, but what did was lame and pointless.

At the Fire Sanctuary, have Volvagia be the boss, and have her fly around the dungeon a lot, much like with Argorok in the City in the Sky. At the end of the fight, have a cutscene where Gorko kills Volvagia with the Megaton Hammer and become the Hero of the Gorons. After that, have a moment where someone spotted Ghirahim, which leads you to a snowy mountain, preferably Snowpeak, and have Ghirahim's hideout be the Snowpeak Ruins (just as a mini dungeon, or something), and have THIS where you fight Ghirahim for the second time. Also have the Fire Dragon make an appearance somehow.

After that, I guess it could stay pretty much the same (gameplay-wise). A few tweaks here and there, but I'm good with the basics of what was done. During all of this, however, have the backstory touched on more and more throughout the game, eventually making it clear that the Demon Tribe is the Dark Tribe/"dark interlopers" and that they were sealed in the Mirror of Twilight (save Ghirahim and Demise). That way when Demise comes in, his appearance is more climactic than it already is. Have Ghirahim be the Trident of Power, as well. It would make much more sense. Keep the ending the same. That was amazing. Glorious and well-written, possibly the best in the series.

That's my ideal Skyward Sword.

 

[Gooey Fame]

I have a lot of complaints that are similar to everyone else and obvious. Dowsing is mostly useless and not fun. Fighting the imprisoned so often gets super annoying. Also, the sky is pretty empty. These come up a lot and I'm in total agreement with, but if I could change one thing that would greatly improve upon the game for me is eliminating the song of the hero portion.

If the part where you have to go around and collect parts of the song of the hero was eliminated and one or two dungeons were added that would be perfect. I would have even been fine if there were no extra dungeons in its place. It is just that going back to those parts gets so tired and stale. I did not have a problem going back to them a second time in the game because we were able to go a bit further into the area (which I actually thought was cool) and a new dungeon was included. Imagine if the sky had dungeons you could explore? This could have increased the amount of time you spend in the sky, which I did very rarely. I would have settled for just eliminating that part all together though. It just dragged out for too long.

 

[Spirit]

I think I'll just do a list this time since some of my posts are becoming quite similar (since, y'know most of SS's threads are similar).

I'll start out by saying what is in Skyward Sword as it stands is really awesome, it just feels too bland and too primitive and too much like nintendo skipped the part where they go back to the game and refine and add and make a truly immersive video game... So aside from the dodgy plot, fanfiction narrative and prequel-less content in terms of mythology history here is my list of what I'd Add to Skyward Sword to make it worth a second play.


- More islands in the sky- particularly puzzle based islands like in Wind Waker and perhaps some elemental islands surrounding a province beam. (The Silent Realm runs could have been hosted there).

- A bigger sky- the sky was tiny and cramped despite having nothing at all in it, make it bigger give us warp points, let day turn to night, let the weather change and effect our flying. Let certain enemies be found in certain sectors. Every other 3D Zelda game has had a day cycle...

- Enhance the flying- the bird was too slow. and it only felt faster than the King of Red Lions because the sky was smaller and cramped and we had boost rocks. The Loftwing's three feather boosts were awful and did very little to close any kind of distance. Give it more than three, allow it to do barrel rolls and summersaults to spice things up.

- Enhance the flying (part two) - Let Link have some arial combat besides the bird having a tackle and later on, a spinning tackle. Use the nunchuck to steer the Loftwing, use the wiimote to use Link's sword, have him joust (TP Eldin bridge style) with friends and knights of Skyloft as part of minigames for heart pieces and materials etc. Let Link be able to fight other enemies in the sky with his sword too (TP Hyrule field horseback combat style)

- Enhance Link's combat - Motion controls were fine, i'm not against them but i would have liked to have had some hidden skills to be learnt like in TP, it would have brought a deeper sense of strategy to the combat instead of just waiting until an enemy eventually stopped blocking your attacks. the helm splitter and particularly mortal draw could have easily have been added to the combat gameplay that we have in SS already.

- A proper overworld - everyone's favourite complaint. A dungeon like overworld you say? More emphasis on exploration you say? Okay we'll take out the majority of the overworld and leave you with three themed provinces... If they wanted a dungeon style overworld then progressing from one province to the other could have had brilliant puzzles, there was no reason for nintendo to take out an overworld that linked the provinces, no reason at all, they essentially conned us out of more puzzles and more content overall by giving us no overworld linking the provinces.

- Better sidequests - The majority of sidequests in Skyward Sword were fetch quests, something that really bugged me whenever i decided to take one on. there were mini games like the pumpkin shooting minigame and the digging minigame in eldin but they're minigames not side quests, and the side quests themselves were pathetically easy, particularly the crystal ball and windmill quests where i landed essentially right next to them both times...

- More themed dungeons - we had sand, fire, water, forest and some of them twice... or more. Where was the spooky darker temple of say a shadow dungeon, why didnt we get a snow or ice region with a temple in it? A lot of the dungeons ranged from being too small to just right and then to just flat out disappointing. Most notably disappointing for me was the Sand Ship, it looked unlike many other dungeons in the franchise but it was the same puzzle throughout of figuring out which room to shoot the time crystal in... which really bugged me.

- More enemies - there weren't enough enemies in SS that had a range, we had Lizalfos and Bokoblins and keese, deku babas and Chu-chu type things but it wasn't enough and the majority were dealt with in much the same ways. Aside from dungeon only enemies SS really suffered from the lack of enemies that you came across, there could have been more, perhaps some darknuts or iron knuckles, enemies that would have thrived on long combat, yes we had some stalfos aswell but we had many different versions that just had more arms instead of being in anyway different to what we had seen before, same with the bokoblins, they had knives, or electric knives, or a horn and ran away.. again, had the provinces been linked, we would have seen more enemies with different themes but again, we didnt get it.

- A better upgrade system- I upgraded most of the weapons and items in SS before the game's end. The awful slingshot was turned into a scatter shot and became even more useless... i upgraded the bow as high as it would go and other than it looking different felt no change in gameplay or power (what does upgrading the bow do to it, it did nothing as far as i can tell?) and the only worthwhile upgrade was the pincers for the beetle which is done for you part way through your first run through Lanayru...


one thing i'd take out - Stop giving us the item collection screen whenever we get a new material. Particularly when you're in the middle of a battle...

I also didn't like any of the bosses, and i hated fighting the imprisoned three times in a row, the imprisoned, like most of the bosses in SS had an awful design and awful battle layout... Nintendo should go back to scratch with the bosses in SS and bring up some new ones. Even the bosses in Phantom Hourglass were better than those found in SS.

As for shields, they annoyed me so much that i didnt use them, i tried taking one though the first dungeon with me on my first play through and it got in my way, my first SS run through was indeed a shieldless run, i got the Hylian shield of course (after game's end....) and only wear it because its what Link should wear to make me believe its a Zelda game. I didn't like how basic the shield wielding was, i didnt like the controls of how it was implemented either,but i wouldnt take them out.

I could talk about the plot and narrative and say why that is flawed and what i'd change and what i'd take in and put out but there's a 3000 word post around here from detailing what i felt was wrong with it. So i won't say it here. Though i do blame Skyward Sword's plot for being and excuse or barrier as to why the game wasn't as good as it should have been.
For instance, with one change of a word, skyloft could have become a province all its own instead of a small little island. And there are a lot of other things i could mention as well but I'm thinking this post is already too big.

 

[nareky]

agree with pretty much everything other than shields. Slightly agree with the links combat part but i'm quite happy with the SS combat at the same time.

 

[MarkaenShoque92]

At the Fire Sanctuary, have Volvagia be the boss, and have her fly around the dungeon a lot, much like with Argorok in the City in the Sky. At the end of the fight, have a cutscene where Gorko kills Volvagia with the Megaton Hammer and become the Hero of the Gorons.

This is pretty much what I think should have happened. However, Link could still use the Megaton Hammer and still be considered the hero.

The three Imprisoned battles were too much. I am fine with Ghirahim being repeatable, but having multiple repeat battles is not good, in my opinion.

The sky should have used more towns and people rather than just Skyloft and the pumpkin place, and Fi is by far the most annoying helper in any Zelda game. She gave useless information unless you have the memory of a goldfish, and the constant reminders about your hearts and batteries was one of the worst Nintendo has ever done.

The Fire Dragon should have had a bigger portion in the game, very similar to the mechanical pirate.

Tentaculus seemed too out of place, and the more I think about it, the less logical his appearance as a boss becomes.

Otherwise, I greatly enjoyed SS, but it does has its problems like the other Zelda games.

 

[Butterfly4Life]

Yes we all understand that Zelda is used as a plot point in SS, but aren't all the other characters you mentioned just plot points? Without Ganondorf in OoT you wouldn't have a game and without Arel,Tetra/Zelda you wouldn't have WW. SS is all about saving/protecting a dear friend from Demise and Ghirahim so how exactly bad is that? Also Zelda isn't a worthless charater in this game. She goes on a journey to become Hylia reincarnated, she protected the harp, gave said harp to Link, traveled through time to better understand her role, willingly seals herself away 1,000 years(something like that can't remember) in the past to hopefully help bring and end to Demise when she woke up, What more do you want?

In OoT Zelda while she was playing a role during the 7 years that Link was sealed in the temple of time she was in hiding meaning she couldn't help as actively as Zelda from SS because she was hiding. In TP she basically surrendered the kingdom not doing anything really until the end of the game. In WW Zelda wasn't really around until yet again towards the end of the game. So really whats soo much better about those Zeldas than the one in SS?
Also with all of your supposed changes there wouldn't be a Skyward Sword game it would be called the LoZ OoT episode 1 the Prequel because apparently that's what you guys want. To me its just sad how every new game has to be compared to LoZ OoT than immediately thrown away by many fans because its too different or too similar to OoT come on make up your freaken minds please.

Now for what I would change in LoZ SS: Contains spoilers.
1. I was slightly disappointed that you don't get the bow until much later in the game like the 3rd or 2nd to last dungeon it should have been obtained earlier.
2. Make the Harp better because it was crap.
3. Make the bird/diving controls better.
4.Give the "new" races back story.
5. Expand on the idea of Skyloft.
These are just little things very minor overall. To me Skyward Sword is the best LoZ game to date but everyone has an opinion so whatever.

 

[Gooey Fame]

1. I was slightly disappointed that you don't get the bow until much later in the game like the 3rd or 2nd to last dungeon it should have been obtained earlier.
2. Make the Harp better because it was crap.

I actually liked how the bow was handled. It forced you to use the slingshot more. In Twilight Princess you get the bow right after you get the slingshot (In the next dungeon). This pretty much makes the slingshot useless for every portion after the second dungeon. Skyward Sword made it better in my opinion.

 

[JuicieJ]

Also Zelda isn't a worthless charater in this game. She goes on a journey to become Hylia reincarnated, she protected the harp, gave said harp to Link, traveled through time to better understand her role, willingly seals herself away 1,000 years(something like that can't remember) in the past to hopefully help bring and end to Demise when she woke up, What more do you want?

That's why he hates her. <_<

 

[Sydney]

Shorter Intro, more difficult bosses, and better harp mechanics.

Shorter Intro- The intro was disgustingly long. It took me about 45-90 minutes just to get down to the surface and start the adventure. The long intro was ABSOLUTELY not necessary! Meeting with Fi and getting the sword was fine, but having to get your bird back and do the obnoxious "Wing Ceremony" was a waste of precious time.

More difficult bosses-Am I the only person who notices how repetitive it is that bosses must be killed by their eyes? I mean, my goodness. Tentalus, Scaldera, Moldarach, Levias, Bilocyte, ect. Those bosses were ridiculously easy. The only bosses I had challenge with were Ghirahim, Koloktos, The Imprisoned, and Demise. SS had better MINI-bosses than some of the bosses featured at the end of dungeons. Which was a disappointment in my opinion.

Better Harp - I don't need to explain this one, Harp = crap in this game. You did nothing but let your arm sway back and forth. They missed big opportunities with this one. :/