Spoiler Were the Silent Realms Actually Challenging?

[Spirit]

This thread is on behalf of Krazy4Krash who came up with the idea.

The second jaunt through each of the three provinces in Skyward Sword tasks you with completing 'Goddess Trials' in the Silent Realms. These realms force you to give up all of your items in exchange for a vessel that you must fill up with tears scattered around an aesthetically transformed version of your current location. The goal here is to not wake up the guardians, one hit and you'll have to do it all over again despite how many tears you will have already collected.

So, were the Silent Realms scary and challenging?
Or were they tedious and boring?

Did you find yourself, while progressing through the game, dreading the next Silent Realm? If you were then why? Tedium? Boredom? Too scary to cope with or did you just find them so challenging and such a chore that you didn't want to tackle another one knowing that it could take you numerous goes of doing something you didnt like in order to progress?

 

[Krazy4Krash]

Thanks, Spirit. Really didn't know how to word the thread (and I couldn't be stuffed either ).

I found the silent realms to be extremely exciting, and actually looked forward to them. This is coming from someone who generally hates stealth in video games. I didn't find them scary at all, and never got the supposed adrenaline rush others have. I didn't have any troubles really either, asides from a couple brain farts. It happens to all of us. :bleh:

Spoiler

[video=youtube;K4UO5DlHNDQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4UO5DlHNDQ[/video]
Freaking love that sound.

 

[JuicieJ]

Yeah, they were. They required me to seek out the tears with my own wits in set time limits with very little (optional) help, all while avoiding the Watchers. It was pretty fun stuff, and when the Guardians woke up, it was pretty intense and adrenaline-inducing. The Silent Realms are one of the most fun things I've ever done in a Zelda game. Love 'em to death.

 

[willsfairysword]

of course they were Challenging I was shivering when I saw my flower was almost gone plus all the obstacles it took more than 3 day to finnish them

 

[Random Person]

They weren't ridiculously hard for me, nor were they super easy. I'd say their difficulty was just right. These things took some thought process and planning, and the thought process you went through was rather unique in the Zelda experience. I found myself calculating which tear to get first and last because if I got a tear that was far away from the goal last, I still had to run across the terrain hoping I would make it on time. Now granted, most of the challenge didn't come from the first run through, but rather the Thunder Dragon's challenge because in there time was a bigger factor. Playing through the challenge, I actually realized that there's a "best" route to go about on each course which was fun to determine. The tasks of doing these silent realms were also well separated by temples (even though the temples themselves felt unnecessary to alot) so I never felt like the challenge was getting old. However, a bit more content could've help but if done wrong, the content would feel like unecessary filler which many say SS is filled with anyway so... And the game does a good job of scaring people in these realms. They seem so beautiful and peaceful and then OH EM GOODNESS EVERYTHING IS ORANGE A STATUE IS COMING TO ONE HIT KO ME! Imo, time limits make fetch quests and/or collect-a-thons (not a word) feel less tedious. You now feel that your task holds some value and challenge rather than you're just doing something for someone else. The music? Excellent. The peaceful tone really makes me feel alone and invisible in what is usually a peaceful place. The tense music really make me feel like I really need to get a tear or I'm going to die! Basically the situation is Link is trespassing on peaceful grounds, and I feel the music really brought out the tone.

This was an idea that could've felt tacky because of its relation to TP, but it was actually done well. The silent realms of SS took a concept in TP that a lot of people disliked and improved on it greatly by still keeping the core concept, but adding challenge and thought while improving their atmospheric tone. Perhaps they were too close together, but imo that's a minor complaint.

 

[Mudora]

I loved the Silent Realms! I thought they had the right amount of difficulty, as they were not extremely hard, or incredibly easy. It was pure adrenaline for me.

 

[PhantomTriforce]

The Silent Realms were on the easier side for me. Nothing about the Silent Realms made then too difficult. That being said, I still enjoyed them a lot and they have great replayability. My main issue is how when the Reaplings get to you, they just stand around and don't attack you for a while. The Phantoms did this too a little, but not that much.

 

[Ventus]

The Silent Realms were tedius and challenging.

My opinion of the Siren Realms changes depending on what viewpoint I am looking at them from. Am I looking at them from a speedrunner's point of view, or am I looking at them from a regular runner's point of view? If the former, honestly I found beating my time to be pretty challenging. You have to get the right route down and execute everything just perfectly. However, the WM+ likes to bork out and sometimes you won't execute that roll for whatever reason, or it'll detect the roll motion late and you will end up running out of stamina T_T I never found them to be scary, though.

If I never cared about speedrunning or beating my time, I would find the siren realms to be really, REALLY boring and tedious. Why should I have to go through the same area TWICE, sometimes even three times throughout the game for some useless padding? That's a little whack to me, personally. Silent Realms don't add any spice to the Tears of Light of Twilight Princess, if we're talking normal runs, so it is to me just useless padding.

 

[Azure Sage]

However, the WM+ likes to bork out and sometimes you won't execute that roll for whatever reason, or it'll detect the roll motion late and you will end up running out of stamina T_T

Wow, that's quite unfortunate. I've never experienced trouble with the WM+.

I loved the Silent Realms. I really enjoyed the experiences. They really got my heartbeat racing. They weren't too hard, but they weren't too difficult either. They were a nice challenge. I actually looked forward to them throughout the game. They were a nice change of pace from the rest of the game.

 

[Vanessa28]

Oh I liked it! I found them funny. I'm still surprised I made it UNSEEN through the phantoms in Lanayru Province. In the last one (Skyloft) I only had to search for one more tear and time was running out. So I was like forget it. I didn't care about the guardians anymore and started to search for this damn tear. I was chased by all guardians but it was fun. I didn't liek the music though. That was a bit too loud for my ears

 

[Cfrock]

I didn't find the Silent Realms particularly challenging but neither were they a walk in the park. I found I had to plan my way around to make sure I had enough time to get to the next tear before the guardians woke up. When they would wake up I found evading them to be quite exciting.

While I never particularly looked forward to the Silent Realms I did enjoy beating them when they came up.

 

[JuicieJ]

I found myself calculating which tear to get first and last because if I got a tear that was far away from the goal last, I still had to run across the terrain hoping I would make it on time.

Actually, there's no time limit after you get the last tear. Your only worry is getting caught by a Watcher at that point. Just thought I'd let you know.

However, the WM+ likes to bork out and sometimes you won't execute that roll for whatever reason, or it'll detect the roll motion late and you will end up running out of stamina T_T I never found them to be scary, though.

The Wii MotionPlus never borks out. If the roll command didn't respond, then you didn't shake the Nunchuk hard enough. Thing is, though, I never even needed to roll except that one time to knock a tear out of a tree, so I don't see why this would even matter.

If I never cared about speedrunning or beating my time, I would find the siren realms to be really, REALLY boring and tedious. Why should I have to go through the same area TWICE, sometimes even three times throughout the game for some useless padding? That's a little whack to me, personally. Silent Realms don't add any spice to the Tears of Light of Twilight Princess, if we're talking normal runs, so it is to me just useless padding.

It's a transitional point in the game -- kinda like mini-dungeons -- that takes a familiar place and makes it creepy, allowing it to not FEEL like the same area. The time limit also did more than add spice to the Tears of Light concept.

Skyward Sword is also not the first game to have us return to areas. We've been doing that since pretty much the very beginning, so...

 

[Ventus]

The Wii MotionPlus never borks out. If the roll command didn't respond, then you didn't shake the Nunchuk hard enough. Thing is, though, I never even needed to roll except that one time to knock a tear out of a tree, so I don't see why this would even matter.

The WM+ does bork out. I can assure you this...or were you there and you know what happened? And you never need to roll because you aren't playing for optimum time; this is all in relation to speedrunning.

 

[XskywardX]

YES!!! they were extremely difficult, scary, and somehow...stimulating!! they gave me such a rush! after each silent realm, my legs were tingling, i couldnt even stand up! haha, they felt like jell-o, if ya know what i mean

 

[A Link In Time]

SS's Silent Realms are hands down the best stealth sequences in the series. They aren't so much tedious as adrenaline prompting wherein one moment of carelessness can prompt a Silent Realm Guardian to awaken. SS certainly added a plethora of its own interesting features to the mix but its greatest accomplishment was refining those elements already in place. The Silent Realms were a natural evolution of the Tears of Light sequences in TP as well as central dungeons in the DS games, much like dowsing was a more fluid take on observing objects hidden to the naked eye much like the Lens of Truth and wolf senses did before it.