Skyward Sword: First Several Hours

Many Zelda fans cringe at the lengthy introductory area that made up Twilight Princess. They hated herding goats… multiple times… finding baby cradles, fishing for the first time, or chasing kids into the woods. It was slow, somewhat boring, and just way too long. Then when the action finally got going, it seemed there was a subsequent introductory area, this time for Link’s Wolf Form in Hyrule Castle. Argh. Just the thought of playing the intro area has caused me not to start a new playthrough of Twilight Princess on multiple occasions.

Skyward Sword certainly has its own intro area of sorts and the folks over at IGN have gotten a chance to play through it and have some mixed things to say. Right off the bat they basically say that it’s better than Twilight Princess and you can tell by the sub-title of their article, No More Goats. IGN goes into some great detail, discussing the introductory area of game, taking you step by step through the sequence of events. Clearly it has a lot of the tutorial type goodies, but it mixes in some story elements as well. Check out the article over at IGN to find out some more information but I forewarn you, there are some minor spoilers.

Early in the game we find out that Link’s classic tunic is conveniently the uniform of the Skyloft knights. Though each year it is of a different color with this year obviously being… green. Link immediately finds himself doing one of those typical introductory tasks of bringing a barrel of food to the kitchen. Nothing spectacular, but it serves as a reason to introduce us all to the various Wii Motion Plus techniques. During the early steps of Skyward Sword, the game will teach you to utilize the save system and the stamina meter. We have not seen the stamina meter in action too much yet, but all signs point to it being very cleverly implemented. We do know about the save system… you have to save at set bird statue locations that are fixated all throughout the land.

The game seems to do a clever job of mixing in story with more tutorials at this point forward. Link apparently meets up with Zelda and after a series of events, they find themselves riding on top of a bird with Zelda explaining to Link how to fly, in traditional Zelda-tutorial fashion. After Groose, the resident bully of Skyward Sword steals your bird, Link must learn various sword techniques to get it back. Again, mixing a basic story early on with the tutorial of using a sword… classic.

The series of events that occur next really take Link into his quest. He travels through a cave fighting basic enemies and retrieving his bird. Afterwards he participates in the flying ceremony, wins the competition, and then disaster strikes as Zelda is sucked to the land below. After Link awakens he soon meets up with Fi and aquires the classic green tunic from Gaepora. Bringing this all together, this introductory area lasted several hours and this is what IGN had to say about it.

All told, Skyward Sword’s introductory moments took a couple hours, though a focused player could likely push this timeframe down considerably. The game’s designers seemed to focus on making sure the plot continuously moved, and avoided getting tied down in lengthy tasks that have little bearing on the story. Those interested in exploring the island of Skyloft could no doubt spend far more time checking out every corner of the Bazaar, Graveyard, Lake and Knight Academy. (It has a toilet!) But that’s the beauty of this game’s design. It seems more aware that some players will know what they’re doing, and seems interested in allowing players to play a bit more to their style rather than to the game’s specific demands.

Zelda games are known for following some very basic principles, even though each entry finds its own way of innovating for the franchise. Skyward Sword is similar, but it does things differently enough to keep this entry from feeling like it’s wasting your time. The game wants Link to be on his grand adventure as much as you do.

Several hours might seem like a long time for an introductory area, but it seems absolutely loaded with content, so I don’t think this is a huge worry. Skyward Sword is truly shaping up to be one of the great Zelda titles to date and with every new piece of information, my level of interest and hype soars through the roof. Skyward Sword is set for release on November 18th in Europe, November 20th in North American, November 23rd in Japan, and November 24th in Australia. Be sure to stay tuned here at Zelda Dungeon for all the latest Skyward Sword news and media.

Source: IGN
Related: Skyward Sword Walkthrough

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