Skyward Sword Six Reviews In: Averaging 96.3%
Posted on November 07 2011 by Mases Hagopian
With the most recent review of Skyward Sword coming from 4News.it, there are now 6 published reviews of Skyward Sword. While this is still a small sample of reviews, the game currently has an average score of 96.3%. It’s hard to really tell what this means as review scores are quite arbitrary, but it’s fun to use them to compare scores side by side. Websites such as Game Rankings do just this and these scores seem to resiginate with a certain audience. So how exactly does Skyward Sword rank up thus far with the rest of the Zelda series? Make the jump to dive into the numbers.
Thus far there have been six reviews from Skyward Sword and you can see their scores below. NOTE: These review sites all have their own score system and sometimes the numbers don’t really match. (An 82% on one magazine is not always equivalent to a 8.2 from an online website). Some websites only give numbers such as 9, 8.5, and 8… without going into tenths of a point. Heck, some sites only have a 5-point scale or a 4-star system. Thus, averaging these numbers all in one is not the best way to approach it, but putting a percentage on them is the only way to do a statistical analysis of all the data.
- Edge Magazine: 10/10
- Game Informer: 10/10
- Official Nintendo Magazine: 9.8/10
- 4news.it: 9.7/10
- Gamepro Germany: 9.3/10
- Games TM: 9/10
Averaging all these scores, we get a current percentage score of 96.3%. Now, to compare these numbers to some of the other top rated Zelda games in the series. All percentages that I’m using are based off numbers from Game Rankings. Note: Some of the older games have been left out as there is insufficient data.
- 97.48% – Ocarina of Time
- 94.74% – Twilight Princess
- 94.53% – The Wind Waker
- 91.92% – Majora’s Mask
- 91.89% – Oracle of Ages
- 91.50% – Oracle of Seasons
- 90.22% – The Minish Cap
- 88.91% – Phantom Hourglass
- 86.92% – Spirit Tracks
So currently, Skyward Sword fits in as the #2 game behind Ocarina of Time. It’s worth noting that these numbers don’t really mean anything other than… this is what the average critical scores are by journalists that review games. This doesn’t necessarily mean one game is better than another, or that Skyward Sword is the 2nd best Zelda game ever… It’s impossible to compare games of different time periods side by side, but doing so gives a broad view of the series. It’s arbitrary and open for interpretation, given the many variables, but it is nice to look at.
Review embargos are lifted this Friday, so we are going to get a flood of new reviews from various websites. We’ll have a much better idea as to where Skyward Sword will settle in once a larger sample size of reviews are in. However, with respectable magazines such as EDGE and Game Informer giving perfect 10 point scores, I like the direction the game is heading.
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