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Skyward Sword What Do You Think of the Goddess Harp?

Ventus

Mad haters lmao
Joined
May 26, 2010
Location
Akkala
Gender
Hylian Champion
Seeing as this thread would eventually be made, and as a direct correlation with this one here, I figured I'd make it.

What do you think of the goddess harp in Skyward Sword? Is it easy to play? Does it sound nice? Are there anythings you would add to it?
 
What do I think about playing chromatic scales up and down to the tempo of Fi the Banshee singing? Um...need I say it? I think it is a desperate excuse for an
instrument added at the last second. I have no freedom as to what I can play except going up a note or down one. Like, when Sheik played his/her (whatever) lyre in Ocarina of Time, he/she (it) got to play freely, strumming notes as the melody, not the harmony.

Now, I understand the note variation is slightly different depending on the music playing in the background, but what kind of liberties do I have otherwise? The "harp" (it's not even a harp, hisssss) is pretty and all, but Link can't play it. I'm sorry, he just has no clue as to what he's doing and that made it a sucky experience regarding musical instruments in the series.
 
Joined
Jan 13, 2013
Location
Sweden
I remember being like: "Eh... how do I, you know, actually play? What buttons do I press to play the right notes? Oh, right, this game doesn't like to use buttons, so I guess I need to swing a certain way with the Wii Remote. OK, eh, that's it? I think I'll need to check online, just to make sure. LOL. It really is THAT stupid!".

Yeah... Worst "instrument" ever in a Zelda game.
 

DarkestLink

Darkest of all Dark Links
Joined
Oct 28, 2012
It's about on par with howling. It's not bad....it doesn't annoy me like the Wind Waker does. But it's not as convenient as the Ocarina of as fun as the Spirit Flute.
 

ihateghirahim

The Fierce Deity
Joined
Jan 16, 2013
Location
Inside the Moon
The design of the harp itself is good, and a connection to Sheik would have been cool.


As for the actual playing of the harp and it's music, I haven't felt so mad at a musical video game instrument in quite some time. It's pointless gimmick that takes no skill and has you plaiying a series of songs that all sound the same. It's terrible and inexcusable when coming the company that brought us the Ocarina of Time.
 

bunny

birb overlord
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Sep 16, 2011
Location
Indiana
Gender
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Overall, I think the harp was alright, but there were definitely a few things that could have been better. I would have liked it more if we were able to control the notes more ourselves. Like in with the ocarina how you actually able to play whatever note you wanted in whatever sequence you wanted. Something like that would have been nice. I won't gripe about it too much though; everything else was alright.
 

snakeoiltanker

Wake Up!
Joined
Nov 13, 2012
Location
Ohio
I think it was the stupidest thing in a game already pumped full of Dumb lil gimmicks that were already taking away the greatness that SS could have been, cuz its a good game just too pump full of gimmicks and "hey look what we can do" type motion control usage!

It in no way was controllable, you just wagged the controller till you eventually got Fi to sing along, it was just stupid. if they are gonna have a Musical Instrument keep it like the ocarina, it dont have to be the ocarina, just played like ocarina was in OoT. Instruments have been stupid and pointless since WW. Howling was dumb except for the fact it was the only way to learn your hidden skills, and you can only do it at the stones, if they allowed you to howl at any time so you could do things like turn night to day ect. howling would have been cool, not having the power to turn night to day made me not even wanna poe hunt! but i still did it.

On topic, the Harp was stupid, made no sense story wise and the way you played it was just.... un playable, you couldnt even play different notes, just swing and hope you timing is right. Terrible!
 

HylianHero

Gardener of Elysium
Joined
Jan 21, 2013
Location
Academia de Hyrule
The design of the harp is very cool, and the way Zelda plays it and the harp songs themselves were absolutely great. And the way the strumming harmonized with the background music was a great idea.

But when it comes to way the harp was executed in gameplay it missed so bad. Just strumming back and forth to a beat and having the song played automatically makes it the worst execution of an instrument in a 3D Zelda game. And the fact that it had such limited use made me disappointed. You only played a select few times to open silent realms and you just had to strum it randomly to activate goddess walls. If they had allowed you to play the songs anywhere and if they had more uses I would like the harp a lot more than I do now.
 

Keeseman

Smash is Life
Joined
Sep 23, 2012
Location
Beijing, China
I think everyone else has said it sufficiently. The Harp sucked. You couldn't do anything with it except go back and forth. Every single song was the same chromatic scale going up and back down again. It wasn't creative musically or as a part of gameplay. It may have sounded nice, but that was only in the cutscenes. And do get to those, you had to go back and forth at the same tempo, or else the flower petals couldn't be created. It really just sucked. So much.
 

Sydney

The Good Samaritan
Joined
Mar 20, 2012
Location
Canberra, Australia
Needs more button mashing...

In all seriousness, I think the harp could have worked more effectively if some buttons were involved alongside the strumming. It was waaaaay too easy to play, which was somewhat disappointing IMO. The harp sounded beautiful, but it had much more potential as an instrument. I had more fun playing the Ocarina than I did the harp, if that really means anything. Overall, though, the harp was a miss but could have been redesigned to be a major hit.
 

snakeoiltanker

Wake Up!
Joined
Nov 13, 2012
Location
Ohio
i just think that after the ocarina...... they are gonna have to put a system on "par" gameplay wise or we arent going to like any musical Instrument. the ocarina was so cool and had so many functions, Heck, people were playing popular songs in culture with the ocarina, and posting videos on youtube of them doing it. Longs story short.... we need an instrument we can use when and how we want and has plenty of function in the game or else we arent gonna like it all that much, the ocarina set the bar a lil too high for Nintendo to keep up with it with out repeating it. LOL thats why The actual Wind Waker was somewhat cool and had function....... but we were Conducting not playing LOL still was better than the Harp though!
 

videogamenerd10

Indigo Child
Joined
Mar 25, 2012
Location
Stuck in the material world
It was the only part of Skyward Sword that I didn't like. The harp's controls are confusing and whenever you messed up you had to start all over (rage!). And also, it just felt out of place, like it was put into the game at the last minute.
 

Yuki Cross

Attack on Titan~!!!
Joined
Mar 26, 2013
Location
The world of anime.
I don't think that the harp was that bad. It would've been easier to play if my remote hadn't kept going out of calibration, but that's got nothing to do with the harp itself. It wasn't so easy that you could do no problem, but it wasn't so difficult it was practically impossible. It felt like it was part of the game, and part of the sequence of going into the silent realms. It had a nice place in the story, and I think it was really pretty. It seemed magical, like The Spirit Flute, and I liked that about it. I don't get why everyone is complaining, about it. It really fit into the atmosphere of the game. Light-hearted, and fun in general, and not too much of a challenge. After all, it's just a harp, how hard do you want it to be, honestly?
 

Random Person

Just Some Random Person
Joined
Feb 6, 2010
Location
Wig-Or-Log
The goddess harp was a great idea on paper. The harp is a very beautiful instrument (both in appearance and sound), playing an instrument is a tradition in Zelda games, particularly the 3D ones, and players generally love doing this. But it came up short. For one, the player is not actually playing the instrument, they're just swinging back and forth. This creates a tedious sensation, especially if you're a veteran Zelda player and have had experience with OoT's ocarina, WW's wind waker, and ST's flute. Even TP's howling made the player feel like they were responsible for the noise that was coming out. The only time you were actually playing the harp was during the late night concert in the Lumpy Pumpkin. The next issue is the music itself. Yes it sounded nice, but a general complaint about SS is that it's music isn't very memorable. This complaint is included in the music you must play. A game does not have to have memorable music, but Zelda is known for this. Past Zelda games have gotten songs stuck in players' heads (in a good way) always making us appreciate it moreso than other series appreciate their music. And it doesn't help that you can only play actual songs in specific locations and that you only play them once.

The harp isn't the worst thing in SS and if you've never played a Zelda game you might not see any faults in it, but there are definitely ways it could've been better. Again, a great idea, just lack luster performance.
 

JuicieJ

SHOW ME YA MOVES!
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Location
On the midnight Spirit Train going anywhere
The next issue is the music itself. Yes it sounded nice, but a general complaint about SS is that it's music isn't very memorable. This complaint is included in the music you must play.

You're not actually even playing the songs on the harp, just accompanying them. Fi sings the melody, you strum up and down on the harp (wheeeeeeeee). So there's that. I find it ironic that you say these aren't memorable, though, because from what I've seen, many fans consider these songs to be some of the most memorable in the series. I disagree, I think the ones named after the goddesses are borderline ear-rape (especially Farore's Courage), but that actually makes it more ironic, given how I typically praise SS's soundtrack and label it as one of the best soundtracks in video game history.
 

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