Well, let’s get this over with. I hope now that the immense hype has died down after a few years, we can look back on this as on the whole a pretty mediocre Zelda game. That’s what I feel anyway. I mentioned in my long-ago Twilight Princess review that I chose the older game over the new hotness, and having now played both I think I made the right decision. I like Twilight Princess more.
That’s not to say that Skyward Sword wasn’t fun, nice to look at, and had inventive ideas to bring to the Zelda formula. But the flaws and niggles stack up, and the plot wasn’t very engaging to me.
First, let’s talk about the “level design”. There’s not really an overworld, just mini-areas that bring some dungeon-like puzzle solving to themed locations. But then there’s dungeons as well, so I ended up just feeling like an aspect of the Zelda experience was missing without large areas to explore. They were memorable, but partially because of all the backtracking you have to do. I even had to go through an already-completed dungeon a second time as part of the plot, which I resented. You also end up with less overall variety in locations with only three or four themes.
Another aspect that lacked variety in a significant way was the enemies. You end up with essentially palette swaps of bats, blobs, and bokoblins in the three major zones, which got seriously boring. Not that Zelda hasn’t done that before, but it seemed to lack very much beyond them.
I also dreaded fights, and here’s a big sticking point of the game in general: the motion controls made it hard to enjoy. The game relies heavily on the gimmick of the Motion Plus, which is fine I guess, but what they were demanding of the player I don’t feel the hardware was capable of pulling off, or at least how I was using it. Having to point in menus and dialogue was annoying but passable, and aiming things worked pretty well, but any time a precision flick was required the whole thing fell down. Which is a huge problem because so much combat, and certain puzzles, demand you swing the sword in a specific direction at the right time. The precision required was often difficult to do, which caused frustration to me, the player.
This principle extends to other things too: you cannot reliably do maneuvers you intended to, such as doing a vertical spin attack instead of horizeontal, or the awful swimming. But the swimming is modelled after the flying, so let’s talk about that. I hate the flying. They’re going for a Wind Waker thing with a large sky/sea, with islands. Except the islands in SS are inconsequential but for a handful, it’s totally disconnected from the land portions, and controlling the flying is not relaxing or fun like sailing, it’s painful to the wrist and causes anxiety. And for that matter, why is there an impenetrable cloud layer under Skyloft but everywhere on the ground has BLUE SKIES?
There’s a few of these aspects that they’ve taken from past games. The Silent Realms are also pretty shamelessly ripped from Twilight Princess’s bug hunt sections, but I don’t mind so much since they expanded the concept into a stealth-type mode and it’s quite fun. It is yet more backtracking over the same areas though, but it works because you use the knowledge of the layout but they change some things around.
New things include the stamina meter, which I’m conflicted on. On one hand, running is cool, but on the other it depletes from normal activities like climbing and depletes too quickly, with no possibility of upgrade. So you feel constantly forced to travel below the “optimal” speed, all the while with a big green thing on screen and an irritating alarm sound.
Speaking of irritating things that get in the way, let’s talk about Fi. Lots of people complain about all the companions, but I liked Navi ok and loved Midna. This time, things don’t turn out well. Her text is too slow and unspeedable. She pops up way too often to point out very obvious things. She could have been interesting as the spirit of the Master Sword, but her fakey “robotic” demeanour is extremely obnoxious to read. And would my criticism be invalid if I had an adverse reaction to a robotic, subservient, young girl wearing stockings who refers to you as “Master”?
This brings me to my next niggle. There’s just a few elements that seem too distinctly Japanese for Zelda, which I’ve always felt inhabited its own distinct fantasy world, like the dragons’ attire or the vocalisations. I’m trying not to seem racist, but it just took me out a little. As I alluded to with Fi, I also struggled to accept the anime-style cliches that are rife (I always hated starting in a “high school” environment. The characterisation of most of the main characters left me cold and bored, and many of the side characters were too “stock”-feeling—I especially had no feeling for Link or Zelda, and hence lacked some motivation, especially as you find out more about their roles. On the other hand, like many people I warmed up to Groose quickly and enjoyed his scenes immensely.
The other races in the game were also lackluster. There’s, what, two Gorons? They were fine, but the moles were just off, the jellyfish were bad and too few. The Kikwi were ok though, and the robots were fine. And I like how they made humans a rare occurrence, but you don’t get a whole lot of meaningful interaction with any minor characters. Thinking back on it the areas were cohesive enough, but maybe I just miss towns.
As a synthesis of Zelda elements, it’s quite good, with recent advancements such as bug collecting and treasure improved on. It also has some nice new things, such as equipment upgrading and managing your inventory. The dungeons are also pretty good, with interesting themes. The bosses though sucked, partly because of the sword difficulties I mentioned, and partly because of the repeated boring Ghirahim fights that take the place of real bosses. I may have still been having counter-reactions to the hype though, seeing the whole thing as a bit up itself (they even mention the 25th anniversary in the text of the game). Also too much tutorials.
I hope I made myself clear about the anime thing. I’m just tired of the tropes and cliches, and I thought Zelda was a little more, well, its own thing. You know? Eh, sometimes I’m glad I don’t have too many followers, who could get super mad about my super controversial opinions. I don’t want to cause an Internet Scene™ after all. Anyway I’m glad that this was another case of borrowing a game from a friend that I was hesitant to splurge money on for myself. Because it’s fine, it’s even pretty good, but I’ll just say it’s not near the top of my “Zelda favs” list. I just want to think that I hadn’t decided that place before playing it—I think I gave it a fair chance. And why are Link and Zelda’s eyes so big? Ahem. Thanks for reading.
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