Rating of
4/5
I calculate a 99% probability this annoys you.
Jonzor - wrote on 12/22/11
It seems like every semi-recent console Zelda game has had a reputation to live up to, or some defining attribute that colors how we anticipate the game.
- Ocarina of Time was the first Zelda game in three dimensions. How would it play? Will it still feel like Zelda?
- Majora’s Mask... I dunno... it was a sequel, we’ll act like that was a big deal. Plus it REQUIRED the Expansion Pack.
- Wind Waker was the game that challenged our notions of what Zelda “should” look like. How will the art style handle the material? Can we still take this game seriously?
- Four Swords was the first Zelda multiplayer. Does this even count? How is THIS going to feel like a Zelda game?
- Twilight Princess was looking like just a game to make up for Wind Waker’s graphics... until it was also announced for the Wii. How much more immersive are the new controls going to make it?
Every one has had us holding our breath for... something.
After Twilight Princess, and numerous other games, the secret had gotten out: the hype for motion controls had been writing checks the Wii couldn’t cash. Some games had made serviceable use of them in the context of bigger games (No More Heroes, Mario Party 8, Metroid Prime 3). Some had made gimmicks out of them (the entire bargain bin at Best Buy). Some stuck to just the pointer and did okay (Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Link’s Crossbow Training). And some had tried to just ignore it whenever possible (Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros. Brawl).
For some reason, every other company decided that the lukewarm critical response to motion controls was too good to pass up, and jumped into the pool as well. Nintendo now knew it was only a matter of time before potentially SOMEone actually made the game Nintendo promised we’d be drowning in before the Wii launched.
So Nintendo made an add-on that did what they should have done with the launch of the Wii, which was make a respectably sensitive controller. Shockingly, no one developed for it. Nintendo was left to do what Nintendo does best: use their own hardware better than anyone else does.
Enter The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. The question now is “Okay, can they ACTUALLY do motion controls like we’d hoped for with Twilight Princess?”
I want to make one thing very clear before I talk about this game...
THIS IS NOT A SWORD FIGHTING SIMULATOR. IT WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE. IF YOU THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE AND ARE NOW DISAPPOINTED, YOU ARE A JACKASS.
Remember that sword-fighting game with Wii Sports Resort? Yeah, this isn’t that folded into a Zelda game. Link essentially slashes in eight different directions (I’ll let you guess which) plus a stab.
We’re just not there as a civilization. That new Star Wars Kinect game probably isn’t going to be as sweet as you want it to be either, so I’m gonna put that thought out of your head as a freebie for reading my review.
But more importantly, Zelda doesn’t need to be a sword fighting simulator. Zelda’s combat has never been that technical or deep, so why should it be this time?
What this game DOES do is finally allow a game to compensate for the lack of buttons on the Wiimote with motion controls in ways that doesn’t look like you're shaking up a can of spray paint or flicking off a bug that just landed on the controller. My favorite was easily the bombs, which now can be thrown (hold the Wiimote pointing up and flick it) or rolled (point the Wiimote down and act like you’re bowling). Even without the motion controls, I thought the option to now roll bombs was a great idea. This is the most useful bombs have ever been.
As an added bonus, the increased sensitivity in the sword controls that means there’s no such thing as a free lunch anymore. Anything more complex than a keese or a chuchu is going to make you stop and actually think. For the first time in a LOOONG time, I spent a sizable amount of time in danger playing this game. I burned through more bottles of health restoration than probably the last two Zelda games combined. Eventually, any seasoned gamer is going to find the cracks, and before long you’ll be blowing through most deku babas and bokoblins as quickly as you used to, but this time it’ll be because you’ve gotten better at something and not because they’re tissue-paper-tough.
Before leaving the subject of the controls, I’ll register two complaints, ‘cause the controls are always the thing people will want to know the most about for this game. Firstly, I didn’t like the shield usage in the game. You put up your shield by flicking the nunchuk, and Link will hold it until you perform another action, at which point you have to ready your shield again. That’s not my complaint. You’ll find some enemies have an emphasis on “shield bashing” or putting up your shield at just the right moment to stun them, and sometimes the nunchuk just didn’t get the job done for me. Maybe for the Wii U Nintendo will release a Nunchuk Plus.
I would have probably learned to get better with the shield, but the game doesn’t give you a reliable shield until you’ve learned to function without one. See, shields in Skyward Sword have a durability meter that decreases as they take damage, and the starting shields must be made of balsa wood, because they’re so fragile I was afraid to even use them. You can carry around a potion to revitalize your shield, but at some point it’s just not worth it. You’ll slowly gather more durable shields and eventually one that heals itself before FINALLY getting a (familiar) shield you don’t have to worry about near the end of the game. But by then I’d learned to fight without needing one most of the time. I see what they’re doing with the different grades of shields in the game... but I just don’t think padding the game’s inventory was worth actively discouraging shield use.
My second complaint is the over-use of the Wii Motion Plus.
No no no! Wait, come back. I didn’t say overuse of MOTION CONTROLS, I said overuse of Wii Motion Plus.
See, EVERYTHING in the game is handled by the Wii Motion Plus. Even things the Wii was already doing well, like using the sensor bar to aim the bow and arrow. This just... confuses me. The sensor bar does a fantastic job of handling this, and there’s no reason to route that function to the Motion Plus just because it’s there.
It’s not... that bad. It’s just confusing. The Motion Plus does a fair job of dealing with its expanded duties, but it never quite feels right. Sometimes it’s too sensitive, sometimes it’s too sluggish, and it requires a fair amount of recalibration in the middle of the action (done by pressing down on the d-pad to re-zero the controls). All of these issues could have been avoided by copy-pasting the aiming controls from Twilight Princess, the game they were trying to improve the controls over. They just... none of them needed to happen, and I don’t understand the decision.
The most unforgivable issue this creates is lag. There was only one time in the game it mattered at all to me, and it was just a stupid mini-game, but it still never needed to exist. I had to shoot pumpkins tossed in the air and since the tosses are unpredictable I had to aim and shoot on the fly. Moving the Wiimote quickly, I finally looked at the crosshairs as I was playing and realize that there was visual difference between when I moved and when the crosshairs moved.
Okay, so other than the controls, what have we got to talk about? Well, you may or may not have heard the story is the best in the series. Well... that might be. But I was expecting a story an obvious head and shoulders over the others when it may still be a judgement call for your favorite Zelda story. It’s not bad, and it may in fact be the best in the series, but it just wasn’t the obvious King of Story Mountain I’d heard about. I do like some of the extra characters, and Link and Zelda’s established friendship comes off quite well in the beginning of the game.
I did feel like the game needed to pick up the pace in some areas. I think I was like two hours into the game before entering the first temple, which is just too much of an intro. And every so often you get the feeling they’re just putting obstacles in front of you to make the game longer.
But maybe that’s just me. If you go check out my review of the SNES masterpiece A Link to the Past, you’ll note how I raved about the game’s pace. If you’re anything like me, you cut your teeth on the NES or SNES games. The intro to the original game was as follows:
1. Walk into cave.
2. Here’s a free sword, get to work.
Zelda games just don’t have the pace those games used to. And it seems like every Zelda game that comes out drifts farther away from that. But if you didn’t grow up on those games... maybe that doesn’t bug you? Maybe that wouldn’t bother me if the first Zelda game I played was Wind Waker (the first one I would dub as taking TOO long to start).
The game’s graphics are something of a mystery. They do a good job of mixing what people liked about Ocarina of of Time’s and Twilight Princess’s visuals with what Nintendo TOLD us we would eat and like because that’s what we’re having for dinner dammit from Wind Waker. Expressive, emotional characters and vibrant colors without a hero that looks like a happy meal toy.
Up close, that is. I’m going to go ahead and proclaim the Wii officially lacks the horsepower it needed, because even NINTENDO is officially cutting corners just to make they game they want. As objects move farther and farther away from the camera, you’ll notice the colors blurring together, saving the console from having to render those graphics until you move up close and they become pertinent to the gameplay. It’s kind of a neat effect, and doesn’t break immersion the same way the fog in Turok limited draw distance, but it’s not the same as actually SEEING everything. For most of the game you’ll never think about it, but every once in a while you’ll pick it up (though rarely being consequential, it’s always present) and in that space you can faintly hear the developer meeting when Nintendo had to admit to themselves that the Wii is actually underpowered.
You’ll see the fewest recycled puzzles in the history of the series, along with a slew of brand new puzzles. This will truly test your understanding of Zelda and not just how well you’ve memorized the previous materials. Let’s put it this way, I don’t recall unlocking a single door by lighting a torch.
Some of this comes from the new controls and the items they’ve inspired. I really thought I was going to hate that flying bug item, but not only did I end up really enjoying what they did with it, I probably OVERused it as a scout to try and decide what to do next, because I’m lazy.
Other new challenges come from the new stamina meter. As you perform some actions like running or climbing on vines, a little dial will appear and start to tick down. This creates some new obstacles and challenges that were pretty well used, I felt.
The bosses are great, and again, unique. With the exception of one boss, who is not only bland, but also gets recycled and shows up AGAIN in a later temple, I really enjoyed them.
The music is standard fair for Zelda, which is to say exceptional. Forest tunes, volcano tunes, desert tunes, a jaunty little melody while you’re in town... all very appropriate and feel very “Zelda”.
Lastly, I may remember this as the game when some Zelda staples finally started to get on my nerves. Nintendo, if you insist on ONLY text speech in the game, which is fine with me, you have GOT to give us a way to speed it up. I know holding down A speeds the rate at which the text scrolls, but THAT’S HOW FAST IT SHOULD BE SCROLLING TO BEGIN WITH. I don’t need to read 4 boxes of text every time I buy a potion. Give me the speech once, and then for the love of God streamline the process by the time I buy my 10th bottle. A “skip all text and go straight to the point” button is sorely needed.
And how much harder are you going to try to point things out to us? It used to be a hint from a character or stone wall or something. Then it was a hint from a character or stone wall with colored text to give me a hint as to what the hint meant. Now in Skyward Sword, we get a hint, with colored text, then Fi (your helper for the majority of the game) usually pops up to remind you that the conversation that ended 3 seconds ago was a hint, with colored text to highlight the important terms.
Oh, and then there’s the Gossip Stone in town that has video hints, essentially the last step before the game calls your older brother to come do it for you. If you’re going to put an out like that in the game, can you not bog down us Mensa-level players with condescending and unneeded dialog?
I know you want your games to be accessible, but these hints are already pretty easy, and we’ve all got the internet. Maybe if someone can’t figure out what to do at this point you shouldn’t be giving them more hints, you should be giving them a phone number for some sort of assited-living service.
As a whole, this is a truly unique Zelda game. Fresh visuals, fresh characters, fresh bosses and puzzles... you get the point. It drags at times due to some padding of the game length, but even the padding is going to feel like stuff you haven’t really done in Zelda games before. Some old problems you’ve no doubt dealt with before remain, but Nintendo has done far more than just slap a new coat of paint on and wedge some motion controls in for this game. This was an impressive effort on Nintendo’s part as Zelda hopefully begins to take its next steps as a series.
