Breaking News: New Skyward Sword Story & Gameplay Details from the Show Floor

I just met up with Jason, Big Boss of our sister site, Zelda Universe, to talk about stuff we gathered from reps on the show floor regarding Skyward Sword. Now, bear in mind that these details come from show floor demonstrators and as such may not be 100% accurate (remember when a Twilight Princess rep said Link would mature from child to adult over the course of the game?), but they line up pretty well with everything we’ve seen so far. Spoilers ahead, including story details.

The basic plot structure of Skyward Sword goes as follows: Link and Zelda live in the land of Skyloft, high above the surface world below. One day Link participates in a birdriding competition as part of a festival celebration. The winner of the competition gets a prize from Zelda. After winning the prize, Link takes Zelda out on a date and flies her over the clouds on his bird (okay, so the game’s probably less ‘high school’ about it, but I figure this gets the point across). That’s when disaster strikes.

A giant tornado appears, sucking Zelda down to the surface world. Link gets charged with rescuing her and receives his traditional green garb as well as the titular Skyward Sword. It’s at this point that we meet the sword’s spirit companion, Phi – she’ll guide Link as he journeys across the surface to rescue Zelda.

From there, Link travels down to the surface and enters the Sky Temple (the demo dungeon), where he suspects Zelda is hidden. After fighting through the traps, he encounters Ghirahim, the Demon Lord who rules the surface realm, who states that he and his tribe – yes, he’s not alone – are after Zelda. You duel him, he escapes, and the adventure continues from there…

Other details we picked up, in short list form:

• The bird demo is not the very, very beginning of the game; you’ll be meeting the people of Skyloft and going through some story sequences first
• You can press Down on the D-pad at any time the pointer is engaged to recalibrate the controller
• Phi is actually voice-acted, and speaks in Midna-like gibberish
• Dungeons are heavily non-linear, and there are significant portions of even just the part of the Sky Temple we experience on the show floor that can be skipped (including the Beetle upgrade)
• You can actually stun Ghirahim during the first phase of the fight by moving your sword in a circle to confuse him, similar to the eyeball obstacles; wait for an opening, and strike! You don’t actually need to do this to defeat him, though, so it looks as though bosses as well as dungeons can be tackled in multiple ways and don’t have one set solution
• Ghirahim may actually not be the final boss

We’ll be posting up another video collab later in the day discussing all the revelations in more detail, and I’ll be tossing up an article summing up my thoughts along with it. Check back in a few hours for more updates.