Skyward Sword Review

hello ladies and gentlemen this is the last in a series of five reviews that I've done on The Legend of Zelda if you haven't watched any of these videos before then I'd have to recommend you start my Ocarina of Time video instead in this video I'll be talking about Skyward Sword in depth so spoilers for the entire game will follow The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword was released in 2011 for the Wii the game released five years after Twilight Princess and was designed from the ground up to make use of the Wii MotionPlus add-on for swordplay granting a greater degree of control over links lashes than before it was quite a milestone for the Zelda series as well because a recorder of a decade had passed between the release of the original Zelda and the release of Skyward Sword the game starts with a nightmare sequence intercut with some visuals of Skyloft introduced in this setting this initially started out well one of the funniest moments I've ever seen in a Zala game it's all downhill after that though just like Twilight Princess it takes about half an hour before the player gets access to a sword instead of letting the player start the game and instead takes an age to introduce Elda and deal up some high school level drama the introduction described Resort is equally bad if not worse than the one in Twilight Princess in the first hour or so of gameplay leading up to Lync meeting fie and grabbing the sword there are 38 minutes of cutscenes and that's not including any time when the player optionally talks to an NPC there's absolutely no way that skyward sword needs 38 minutes to get its story up and running it's an error before link leaves the island the opening does at least effectively set up the bond between zelda and Link it's also the first time there's been an overtly romantic tone to their relationship which is something the series had to do eventually I suppose ultimately this is also the player will want to rescue Zelda which is the catalyst for the whole game and I'd like to say it's effective I mean Zelda is very sympathetic and likeable but considering it takes half an hour of cutscenes to get this across it's not anywhere near as cost-efficient as it should be the drama at the start also sets up crews as an adversary to link mostly so he can be made likable later on it works it's not amazing but it works and he gets more character development than the majority of Zelda characters once again I'd be tempted to praise his inclusion if not for how much time is spent accomplishing it Phi is introduced as well she acts as Link's companion for this game and speaks as though she's some kind of computer the setting of Skyloft as the starting place for link is a very interesting one although you could argue it forces the game to allow the flight to happen too early on flying is actually the first major gameplay element introduced in the game and it feels like it would have benefit from a little build up rather than allowing the player to do it immediately one thing thankfully introduced early honor to games combat mechanics which work totally differently to how they did in any previous Ella game the targeting mechanics are still in place but links sword is now mapped to the Wii in a one-to-one fashion meaning as the player moves the remote around they should see link moving it in the exact same way it's one of the defining features of Skyward Sword but it's not without its problems I played through the entire game in two entirely separate rooms with different setups when it came to the seating and position of the TV neither one allowed the kind of accuracy from the Wii Remote that I would have wanted I wouldn't say that the sword in Skyward Sword doesn't work because it does mostly design the problem is that most of the time simply isn't good enough imagine you are a programmer working on a game and you're placed in charge of the game's controls and movement the game you're making just uses buttons for inputs for all the actions there's no motion controls now imagine someone on the team comes up to you and says the button the player presses to attack works 98% of the time that figure is completely unacceptable and if the game were to ship in that state your career as a programmer would be in serious jeopardy at the most generous I could say to soar controls and Skyward Sword work 98% of the time and that's being generous it probably means more towards the 90 to 95 percent range assuming it's 95 percent then one in every 20 attacks will fail due to no fault of the player before I go any further let me exonerate the programmers behind Skyward Sword because this really isn't their fault and to be honest it's actually pretty impressive it works as well as it does this is just an inherent problem with the motion control so the fault here lies with the decision to even use them in the first place that said ever since the we launched I think everyone has wanted to see swordplay done well on the system see you can't really fault the designers from wanting to pull it off either if Skyward Sword had elected not to use motion results people probably would have been disappointed too it sounds like a really good idea to use the Wii Remote as a sword I know I was on board with it but that was before I played the game for me at least the trade-off and reliability for the visceral feel of the motion controls just isn't worth it it might not be as interactive but I like knowing that when I press a button an attack animation will happen a split second later too much frustration is introduced by missing attacks because the console misinterpreted an action losing jutsu no fault of your own is one of the worst things that can happen in a game and I think Nintendo were well aware of this problem in Skyward Sword when I started the game I was struck by the fact that link starts with six hearts at first I thought this was just another way for them to make Zelda games easier for newer players I like a challenge but I'm not as insulted by how easy the newer Zelda games have been as some people are so I shrugged it off after I became accustomed to the unreliable nature of the motion controls however I formulated a new theory on why Lync starts with six hearts I don't think this is so much about new Zelda players as Elizabeth Zelda veterans inevitably players are going to lose her ex due to the controls so I think this was a way of masking it for people who have played at her Zelda games Nintendo wanted enemies at the start to deal a full heart of damage to get the illusion of difficulty but if the player had three hearts they'd be more likely to die thanks to the controller which would be incredibly frustrating and would shine a spotlight on just how broken the controls can be sometimes this does at least make the enemies scale better throughout the game even though at the start this only equates to half a heart of damage in other Zelda games by the end of the game this will equate to a full heart of damage because the maximum number of Hearts is still 20 the sealed grounds at the start of the game introduces the old lady who will play a major role and Link sets off into the woods to find Zelda it's here that dowsing sees its first major use and it's one of my least favorite elements of Skyward Sword largely because it's used far too much of the course of the game and feels quite clunky it also goes to highlight just how much the objectives in the game are about finding objects I have two particular annoyances about it beyond this firstly when you want to just look around the view will default to whatever dowsing setting you had last which means you get an ugly purple border on the screen I need to swap it out if you don't want it cluttering your view secondly when you obtain a new dowsing target even though the game clearly tells you that you can douse for something it won't stop beeping until you actually do it Skyward Sword is a game too eager to tell the player exactly what to do and nowhere is this more apparent than would fight she interrupts the game constantly to talk and her bland personality means the interruptions are never entertaining at first it seemed like an interesting idea to give her such a robotic form of speech and maybe this could have been executed well but ultimately it just makes her boring her inclusion didn't bother me at all until the first dungeon where a major transgression takes place when link acquires the beetle there's a usual blurb of text explaining it to use it not content with this alone though five pops out of the sword and explains the exact same information again this is something she does a lot over the course of the game explaining things which have been told to the player visually or by other means it's like whoever wrote her never even played the game it butters me in particular here though because the rooms where you acquire new items and one of the things the Zelda series has gotten almost universally right after picking up the item some short text explains how to equip and use it the player is then usually locked in a room with it and given the most simple puzzle that item can solve once the player learns by themselves how to solve the extremely simple puzzle the game can move on confident that the player understands how to use the item game design does not get more simple or elegant than this and yet fight Reds all over it the frequency of our interruptions never seems to ease off and basically anytime control is taken away from the player to highlight something fire will chime in before the player can resume playing this is an extreme example but the worst case that comes to mind is when after 20 hours of play which included opening most of the goddess chests in the game fire decided to explain to me what a goddess chest was at this point Zelda games really need some kind of expert mode to allow people to skip all the hand-holding players have more ways to seek advice than ever there's the chicest owns the fortune teller and fie yet experienced players are constantly being hammered with interruptions this isn't a minor issue in the slightest it's all for the benefit of newer players incapable of making it through the game without help and it comes at the expense of experienced players who just want to play the game without constantly having the pacing destroyed fire alone is enough to ruin Skyward Sword for a lot of people and I don't blame them the first dungeon in the game does an especially good job of feeling like a rundown ancient temple there's debris all over the place and a dusty look about everything the fungi on the ground and the spores floating through the air complete the atmosphere it's clear a lot of work went into the visual design of the dungeons in this game and I think it really paid off the beetle is a great item as well on the dungeon accomodates it well in both the enemy designs and in the layout of the rooms where little holes in the walls can lead to a few rewards for players who master piloting it this place sees the introduction of JIRA him the primary antagonist for most of the game instead of using any items this is just a straight-up sword fight since the beetle doesn't have much combat capability most of the items in Skyward Sword are clunky to use on enemies winning battles so the game resource to swordplay pretty often the second area link arrives in is Elden volcano in all five of the Zelda games I've looked at in these videos a mountain is the second region in every one the only attempt to make this feel unique was majora's mask which is snowy and lacks any lava this has become way too standardized and feels like going through the motions at this point it also doesn't help that Eldon has simultaneously the worst layer in the game and the most reuse of level but I'll get to that later here link obtains the digging myths which are never equipped and are just a context-sensitive action when link stands near a hole I like that this game gives Linc a few different items which simply become a permanent part of his character never needing to be equipped the sailcloth the fire earrings in the water dragon scale all work the same way the next dungeon takes place inside the volcano and grants link the bomb bag in addition to throwing bombs link can also roll them along the ground which is utilized pretty well the lava effects in the dungeon are one of my favorite aspects of the new art on the game and I also like the ball that link has to roll around in order to make it to the end I'm always pleased when any Zelda dungeon contained some sort of element that theaters don't this is the first real boss sweat in the game and while it's very easy it feel dynamic and fast-paced at this point link has a short run-in with Zelda it's nice that Zelda is on her own quest in this game although constantly searching for her as link gets tired and predictable early on by now most people have probably found a handful of goddess cubes so I think I should talk about the exploration in the sky for a long time humanity has been envious of the ability of birds to soar through the skies with ease it's amazing then the Skyward Sword manages to make this boring the entire flying section of the am offers very little to the whole experience while I was somewhat suspicious that the wolf in Twilight Princess was conceived as a story point first and again play concept second I'm almost ardently convinced this was the case with the flight in Skyward Sword flying itself is a hassle because once again the game elects to use motion controls the player needs to stupidly flap their arm up and down to flap the bird's wings but my real problem is when one thing to fly at a downwards angle I don't know how it is for everyone else but I don't find it easy or comfortable to angle my wrists downwards for more than a few seconds at a time this is why I don't mind the controls on the beetle whereas they drive me crazy on the board nothing about this setup is comfortable and even if this is a case that this was only a problem for me there's no reason every player shouldn't have been given the chance to use the analog stick instead the stick is never in use when on the board so both control schemes could have been in place at the same time options and Zelda games have been absurdly lacking in every installment of the series it's shocking that Skyward Sword allows the player to turn after terrible default interface at all I'm not left-handed but I can only imagine it would have been a benefit to a low Lynx model to be swapped for left-handed players the Wii Remote easily allows this as well since it's broken into parts but no such option exists in the game allowing the player to customize controls can result in a much better experience which is something the Zelda series just doesn't seem to understand for me the ideal scenario for most games when it comes to controls is that they should be an invisible part of the experience after I've played a game for an hour or two I don't want to remember that I have a controller in my hand Skyward Sword never allows the controls to become invisible however because it's shoehorns in the Wii Remote at every opportunity it gets even inserting the boss key into the door involves twirling the Wii Remote around the sky in Skyward Sword is similar to the ocean of the Wind Waker burn on a much smaller scale apart from the soar controls this new hub is probably the largest change when compared to others Ellis as such it's only fair to give it the same treatment I gave the ocean in my Wind Waker review I'll start by removing islands within significant amounts of content on them yep there's nothing to the sky in Skyward Sword the islands are all tiny were barely anything on them the only exceptions are the ones which house minigames and in which could have easily been a part of the main island there's some enemies on flying rocks the odd tornado and a handful of flying enemies inside the Thunder head that is the summary of all the content in Skyward Sword sky apart from the main island it makes the wind wakers ocean look like it was bursting with content to be fair to Skyward Sword there is a significant amount of content below the clouds but the sky itself feels rather pointless the third and final province of the game is the desert which introduces the timeshift stones these are one of the best elements of the game on every level it starts out with some stationary wants to introduce the concept which works well enough when they were first introduced I thought this would be as far as the concept would go since every time the stones were activated a short cutscene played I assumed this was just some sort of restriction they needed to place on the stones because they couldn't manage to make them more dynamic thankfully I was wrong in the dungeon moving stones are introduced as well which expands on the concept significantly the stones also lend the desert some wonderful visuals it's great to see a little localised oasis wherever the stones are activated the contrast between the two environments is wonderful and the icing on the cake is the way the music dynamically changes as link walks in or out of the radius of the stones on top of having more time shift stone puzzles this section of the game introduces the ghost bellows which is a fairly shallow item but satisfying enough to use the best usage it has in the game is moving platforms around remotely thanks to the timeshift stones this is one of the best dungeons in the game although the boss fight is sorely lacking I think this fight highlights just how much the combat and Skyward Sword has turned into a series of incredibly simple puzzles rather than focusing on any sense of action or strategy every enemy has a clearly indicated way they need to be struck in order to be destroyed this doesn't have much flow to it and after a while it becomes pretty boring initially link isn't punished for hitting an enemy while blocking but eventually the enemies will counter-attack our link will end up getting shot this is where the inaccuracies of the Wii Remote become a huge problem it's very frustrating to see Lincoln electrocuted because the console made a mistake the way the enemies move also make the fighting a chore often they'll instantly block an attack even though it seemed they were vulnerable from the angle the sword came in on they just keep shifting the guard too often to reliably hit them until they open themselves up completely waiting for this to happen defeats the entire purpose of allowing link to attack from different angles a skilled player should be able to circumvent an opponent's guard using the new controls but the enemy designs often make this impossible or reduce it to chance it's worth noting as well that link can't move while slashing the sword which was one of my favorite little touches from Twilight Princess another little touch from that game where link wouldn't you zap a fairy if he was on full health is also gone through Skyward Sword Skyward Sword introduces one of its own the ability to put bombs into the bomb bag which is a great feature and one I'm amazed wasn't thought of before now the fact that the other two are missing whoever worries me I really think Nintendo needs some kind of design document just containing all the tiny improvements they've made to the series over the years so they're not permanently lost after the mining facility link arrives at the temple of time where Jerry him shows up again sell the villains have always been pretty stupid in allowing link to get away with half the stuff he does but here Jerry him wins the title of most idiotic Zelda villain when he basically says I should have got you last time and I'd love to get you this time but I'll get you next time then he vanishes I guess he had a hair appointment or something what's the point of setting this guy up to be the antagonist if he's just going to be a vain idiot the whole time anyway link gets the heart from Zelda and the gate of time is destroyed after this it's time for the first fight with the imprisoned the toes on this thing alone are enough to ruin its design and make it look incredibly goofy since they also seem to be easily shattered weak points you'd think that this would be the last thing anybody would want to walk around on the imprisoned suffers from the same problem the rest of the game does it's repeated twice link has obtained the three tablets necessary to access the various areas of the world in a Link to the Past after obtaining tree medals the dark world opened up in ocarina of time obtaining tree stones opened up the time travel in Twilight Princess after obtaining three parts of the few shadow and grabbing the Master Sword link can change from wolf to human at will Zelda players expect something to happen at this point in the game which is why this sequence is a huge slap in the face instead of anything new the three areas from before are recycled again this really really wouldn't have been so bad but they shouldn't have introduced the gate of time like this if it wasn't going to play a major role in order to reveal the gate of time in the first place link has to play The Ballad of the goddess on the goddess herb the number of references to the goddess in the game is staggering there's the Ballad of the goddess the goddess harp goddess cubes goddess chests goddess wall and got a shield and he's just the items link is constantly told that this is all part of the goddesses plan which makes the whole thing feel like he's accomplishing nothing himself the harp itself I mean the goddess harp itself is probably the worst instrument ever included in a Zelda game there's nothing to be done with it other than moving the Wii Remote I mean the goddess Wii Remote from side to side and playing every song is identical for the player it's mainly used to open up the silent rounds which are a great addition to the game I think these realms are one of the main reasons why Skyward Sword repeats its locations since it allows players to become familiar with the space on their first go through and then asks them to make their way around it much more quickly there's nothing superfluous here no items and no motion controls it's here that links improved mobility really shines I've always been more in favor of link being a child rather than an adult but Skyward Sword makes a great case for them continuing to be an adult in future games thanks to his fluid new movement this is in large part thanks to the stamina meter which is overall a good inclusion it would have been nice if the meter had its own place up the corner of the screen rather than mid stuck on the link and I think it drains too quickly but it's much better than rolling around which was the quickest form of movement for some of the other links constantly rolling or side hopping to move quickly looks awful so it's good that Skyward Sword solves this problem the silent realms also have a surprisingly large amount of tension to them it's one of the few instances of link being truly defenseless in any of the games and the harsh changing color as well as the pulse-pounding music lead to some of the greatest panic moments in any game in recent memory I absolutely love the design of the guardians here which managed to look intimidating without making them look like bad guys this silent realm grants Linc the ability to swim and spin underwater Lake Floria which utilize this stuff has very little to it and it's basically just a corridor leading up to the water dragon the next dungeon is the ancient cistern which looks fantastic and grants Linc the whip the whip largely acts in the same manner as the grappling hooks from the Wind Waker but thankfully feels a lot more fluid in general this is one of the biggest Selda issues which Skyward Sword tackles well having a dungeon with both swimming sections and grappling hooks would have been a nightmare in any of the previous installments but it rarely takes Linc more than a second or two to complete any given action and movement is faster than ever similar to the flight however I have to complain about the use of motion controls for swimming it suffers from the exact same problem that the flying does the analog stick could have been used as an option here but it's not while in water Linc is moving through a fully three-dimensional environment back in the n64 days Nintendo championed a new method of control for 3d games the analog stick the main advantage this has over motion controls aside from never forcing the player to contort our wrists in an awkward way for extended periods of time is that it has a default position analog sticks resist being moved in any direction and this resistance alone is enough to give a player a great idea about which way their character is moving if you're swimming around and you need link to swim forward you let go of the analog stick and the default position resumes itself motion controls lack the kind of physical feedback which makes analog sticks a great benefit in many ways basically what this means is that when the player is moving around they have no idea where the default position is or how far they need to turn to remote in order to make link turn around as quickly as possible rather than getting the constant feedback of the resistance from the controller instead movements need to be made then the player needs to watch links on screen movements and react to them it's taken me a long enough time to get this point across so I'll just say swimming as Ozora and Majora's Mask controls much better than the swimming in Skyward Sword even though Skyward Sword released 10 years later at the end of this dungeon link moves the central section of the dungeon downwards to get lower but in so doing blocks off the chest containing the boss key this would have made for a nice little puzzle where the player has to revert to statue to its previous position and head back down to grab the key but right before the player is given the chance to figure this out for themselves there's a tablet which says exactly what needs to be done the satisfaction of completing this puzzle is totally destroyed as a result once again in Tendo we're showing here that they're willing to go to stupid lengths to make the game accessible for new players at the expense of everyone else thankfully the boss fight here is amazing not just the highlight of Skyward Sword it's a highlight of the entire Zelda series it really feels like link is tearing distinguished Reds first ripping off the arms and even cutting the legs out from underneath it the fact that the bosses own weapons can be used against it completes the package it's really one of the best fights the series has ever produced after learning another song Lincoln head back to the desert to complete another trial the movement between each of the three provinces is very separated there's no way to just walk from one to the other even though you could technically argue that the world of Skyward Sword is just as connected as in any other Zelda since there's a clear transition from the sky to the ground this doesn't stop the sky from feeling like a joint level slack menu this is one of the main ways that Skyward Sword doesn't feel like of Rosella games in every Zelda game apart from Four Swords Adventures the world has always felt very connected together in fact this was one of the major things Ocarina of Time had going for it that other games at the time didn't there's a reduced emphasis on exploration in Skyward Sword there are some little hidden places to be found scattered around the world but that sense of being able to roam freely and find things at your own discretion is mostly garnished the sky is the one area of the game which could have really offered this but it's totally barren the worst thing about all this is I think islands actually represent a really good solution to crafting the world in Zelda games it allows the game to be built and easily delineated chunks but still provides the player with a sense of satisfaction and exploration and a massive world to explore the Wind Waker nearly got this rifle fell short and Skyward Sword botched the concept entirely the concept has a lot of potential but since they failed to utilize its potential twice they probably won't attempt it again for quite a long time the layout of the world and Skyward Sword is interesting in itself though the sections leading into the dungeons are significantly lengthy far more so than previous games where this stuff often felt like filler backtracking isn't inherently a bad thing but the way Skyward Sword frames all this is truly awful the game tasks the player with heating them up with three tablets to begin with instead of anything major happening link has to find three sacred flames then once again the objective is changed to collect three different parts of a song there's seven dungeons in Skyward Sword and plenty of stuff to do between Morden enough to satisfy Moselle des fans however since the game kept constantly changing the objective with no payoff introduced the gate of time it barely used and recycled the same tree areas over and over I spent the entire thing waiting for the game to start Skyward Sword works on a downwards trajectory where the game gets worse the longer it goes on the multitude of imprisoned fights the constant interruptions of fly the insane amount of level Reeves and the way everything is framed as some mundane fetch quests predetermined by the goddess drag everything down more and more thankfully the next area is the one exception to that the sand sea land Ryu desert in general is the best area of the game it's so good compared to the others that it made me wonder if each one had a different development team it's also the only area of the game which apart from its Silent Realm section constantly introduces new areas for the player to explore the sand sea itself is one of the most creative and memorable concepts in any game I've ever played taking the time stone ID in pushing it even further it sees Link cruising around on a desert which used to be a sea when they think of Skyward Sword this is the section of the game I think about it could have lasted longer and ideally there would have been some places to explore here but the very notion of it all and how well it's executed is enough to make it a highlight it's also in these outer open areas that the art style of the game really shines the game is set up to mimic impressionist art styles the shader effect blurs objects in the distance and makes the scenery look like brushstrokes the textures in the game also conform to this style and allow the blurring effect to really work at first it felt like a spineless compromise between the visuals of the Wind Waker and Twilight Princess but over the course of the game I came to really enjoy them unfortunately the linear closed structure of the environments doesn't give the style much room to stand out it usually works best when looking at objects in the fire distance but there's not enough cases of this happening in Skyward Sword using an impressionist style allowed painter is a greater opportunity to capture the way light interacts with objects at various times of the day this is one aspect of the style of Skyward Sword which doesn't match up and its dissonance between the and the actual impressionist paintings serves to highlight just how flat the lighting is in Skyward Sword that said it's one thing to style textures and create a shader to mimic Impressionism and another thing entirely to try and capture the lighting aspects of it which would probably be far more complicated I think this is also the main reason why the game lacks a day and light cycle the lighting and impressionist paintings is far more arcs than it is science which makes it difficult to replicate in a computer game overall let's say the art style of the game is a success I don't think it adds as much to the game as the wind wakers visuals did but it will likely age quite well the times where it does work well can look staggeringly good and I wouldn't mind seeing it used again in another installment of the series before opening up the next dungeon link runs across some timeshift stones you can pick up and move around these are a great element but I'm going to nitpick a little about how they work the bow Cobden enemies are nothing but skulls in the present and moving them within the radius of the sphere goes back to a time when they were alive but this makes no sense keep in mind the past time frame is a point in time where the book hablen is alive this means in order for a school to be there in the present it would have to die in the exact same spot somehow this is true for every bell coughlan in the game it gives the impression that the bow koblan stand in the exact same location until they die I know I'm nitpicking but the bow covenants could have just materialized from nowhere like the bits of land out on the sand sea this would have made more sense and would have at least that it's a much-needed challenge to the game once the boating is finished a time shift stone concept is once again utilized in a new way the sign ship dungeon contains just one time shift stone on the mast which link has the shoot to swap the boat from one time frame to another it's really rare that a Zelda game takes a concept like the timeshift stones and pushes it so far they see so many different uses over the course of the game and then of the time spent with this mechanic feels wasted there's such a fantastic inclusion 5002 areas of Skyward Sword had other gameplay elements similar to this which were expanded on over the course of the game it would have been truly an amazing thing the bow is introduced here it functions in the same way it always has but the motion controls once again hamper the experience the weird thing here is that the aiming controls in Twilight Princess were actually much better even though it was a launch title originally destined for the GameCube it seems to me that the aiming in sky so it doesn't use the pointer at all but uses the gyroscope instead which is why the controls can go awry when aiming something the game informs the player that pressing the down button on the d-pad will realign the controls if they go out of alignment if this is a warning you actually have to give to a player before they can aim something and the game needs a dedicated button just for fixing the controls maybe that's a sign the controls need some work the aiming in Twilight Princess used the pointer which meant more precision the only downside being if you aimed away from the TV the controls would stop working as twisted as they are some people might prefer the Skyward Sword controls but once again this is the kind of thing that should be put on an option screen somewhere what's worse is that the analog stick is no longer used to survey from side to side either meaning you have to scroll the cursor to the side of the screen to look around this does allow link to be mobile while aiming at least but the few instances this come in handy are not worth it as far as I'm concerned again some control options would have been a nice inclusion Elden volcano Silent Realm and eventually the stout section their highlight just how much the game is out odds with itself about the repeated areas it seems to me that the thinking behind the reuse of areas wasn't just to cut down on development costs but also to see what they could accomplish when they allowed the player to become a custom with the areas and then sent them back there during the Silent Realm and stealth section for the volcano however the players often blocked off from going to other areas or forced down a very specific path what this does is change the layout of the space without providing any new visuals which is really the worst case scenario I admire the idea behind the silent realms and I think they're executed really well but Elden volcano really shouldn't see so much use over the course of the game it's too linear thanks in large part to how vertical it is in the forest for example getting from point A to point B can have several different roots in the volcano this usually boils down to deciding to move up or down the mountain along one of very few paths the dungeon here upgrades the digging myths which turned him into a little minigame of sorts when digging into certain holes it's a bit slow paced but not overused and a nice change from walking around I wish more of the item upgrades in the game were mandatory or had more uses as it is only the beetle and the myths get upgraded as a bare minimum the optional upgrade system is a nice inclusion but the game is so easy that none of it is ever needed I also like the pouch system but giving the player the choice between Heart medals rupee medals and Prague medals isn't very significant I'd love to see this expanded to increase the customization on link like allowing for more stamina more health more damage more magic and so on it would be nice to see this feature encourage players to play the game a little bit more the way they want and it would definitely increase the replayability of the game the upgrade system makes good use of all the little trinkets link picks up along the way which by the way annoyingly pull the player back into the menu every time they pick one up again after turning off the console there's a few too many of these compounds though and it's hard to see at a glance when upgrading one thing will prohibit you from upgrading something else since you'll be at a tumbleweed or whatever fewer numbers of trinkets on a larger rupee cost would make things clearer for the player while forcing them to only choose a couple of upgrades at a time the bazaar where link upgrades items is also a nice little streamlining feature of Skyward Sword the shop upgrade station fortune-teller potion vendor and stash are all located in the same building this saves a lot of time compared to walking into five different structures and I can only hope Nintendo remembers to write this one down before they forget to include it in the next game the way the music dynamically changes as link wanders from one stand to another is a great touch to the soundtrack of Skyward Sword is fully orchestrated the first game in the series to do this I don't think the soundtrack to the game is particularly memorable and sadly some of the best tracks are only used in short one-off sequences or an optional places the flying team in particular never caught on with me and I got tired of listening to it fairly quickly in stark contrast to the wind wakers ocean-themed for all the fuss that some fans have made about having an orchestral soundtrack I don't think it adds much the experience if anything it made all the music sound too homogenized to stand out most of the time the Silent Realm remixes are all very good however and one thing I really like is the dynamic way the cutscenes are scored this lends a lot more energy to them than they had previously I think now's as good a time as I need to talk about the side quests and minigames the side quests and Skyward Sword are almost always just fetch quests from point A to point B these are a common thing in a lot of games but Skyward Sword doesn't mask any of it very well it really is about link taking an item from one area to another the vast majority of the time which leaves the quest feeling rather flat the town is pretty well fleshed out however it's probably the best single town the series has seen since Majora's Mask and there's some interesting things to discover about the NPC's along the way but from a gameplay perspective it rarely surprises the only side quests were real married is the one for the lumpy pumpkin which actually mixes up the gameplay with a few little minigames of its own the minigames in general are much better than the side quests the fun fun Island minigame is a fine inclusion and it can be addictive trying it over and over again to land the massive rupee bonus for a perfect game the bamboo island one is fine as well but at the mercy of the motion controls which can either be unforgiving or can smile upon you and cause victory I really don't feel much difference between playing in abysmal game and a victorious one it feels rather random the boss Rush mode is a welcomed inclusion and it's something I think would benefit every Selda game since the bosses are very often the highlight of the experience it's a simple inclusion as well probably didn't take much work to link all these together so I'd love to see this used again in future there's also a minesweeper type clone which is surprisingly full-featured with three different difficulty levels and a rollercoaster game which doesn't have much step but is enjoyable for what it is the bog island game is probably the most fleshed out optional island in the game although the bug net controls can be a little hard to get a grip on the game works fine and again it can be surprisingly addictive before getting to activate the gate of time the imprisoned wakes up again for another fight it's more frustrating than the first time and thanks to the inclusion of hands it looks goofier than ever after going through the gate into the past link finally meet Zelda but she seals herself away in order to keep demise imprisoned this sequence is pretty effective and while most of the dialogue choices in the game are pointless I like the one presented here even though it's equally as meaningless it reaffirms that link is a character in his own right to some degree and that's solely a vessel for the player there's no other option for him but to rescue Zell after this however the entire premise collapses in on itself into a vortex of disappointment opening the gate of time doesn't expand on the game in the slightest link can't even venture outside instead it's back to the present - once again revisit all three areas in order to collect a song as I said my ocarina of time review I've completed every Zelda game to date but I'll be honest when I was told to go back to all three areas again and then I had to deal with the horror of collecting tad tones I considered giving up I finished the rest of the game just for the sake of it the biggest problem with Skyward Sword is that it's probably the most superficial Zelda game ever released nearly everything in the game works on a surface level but has no depth to it the combatants Gerbert sword has no sense of pacing or flow to it contrary to previous games in the series where combat was very much about blocking and positioning in later games the combat was expanded upon item use felt more natural and links animations were made more fluid over the course of the game the player need to become more skilled at swordplay and discover many enemy weaknesses to certain items since item use in combat is pretty terrible and start with sword the only way it increases difficulty as the game progresses is by giving enemies more ways to block attacks at the end of the game the player is doing exactly the same kind of stuff they were doing at the start I'm not saying combat in previous le games had a huge amount of death just that Skyward Sword is definitely a step backwards the overworld is equally bad it's so barren it almost feels like a parody of Zelda over worlds in general in ocarina of time the world was pretty empty as well and while I won't make excuses for that at least it felt like a world it all linked together in a way that made sense which was a big deal at a time since most 3d games were still using abstract hubs or loading times to segment the world ocarina actually dropped the player in Hyrule and let them move around from one place to another themselves Majora's Mask featured more intricate exploration figuring out NPC routines and discovering aspects about their lives the Wind Waker featured a huge world with plenty of islands to explore and even though it fell short it's an amazing accomplishment in comparison to Skyward Sword flying the bird around the sky looks good and the setting is great but once again there's no debt there's simply nothing here landing on a tiny island just large enough that has a chest makes me laugh at the absurdity of it all there's just no point to any of it there's fewer items than any of the treaty installments so far the slingshot is also once again used the pad at the inventory instead of just giving the player the ball the items themselves are okay even though they seem to be more about giving the player something to do with their hands rather than adding any depth to the puzzles the dungeons are usually very straightforward and I can't think of a single puzzle in the game which stopped me in my tracks for more than two seconds the general reduction in difficulty which started with the wind waker is still present to the point where the game couldn't even be considered remotely challenging when compared to ocarina of time or Majora's Mask the story sets itself up to be a prequel to every resulting game today but doesn't accomplish anything with it the most shocking revelation in the game is that Zelda is actually the reincarnated form of the goddess hylia the character who had never even been mentioned before until the intro to Skyward Sword back in the days of ocarina and majora Nintendo clearly didn't care about crafting an overarching timeline for the Zelda series Skyward Sword seems like some vapid attempt to start the series but instead just messes things up even more up until the release of Skyward Sword diminish cap was considered to be the first in the timeline and although I'm mainly talking about the 3d installments of the series I want to take some time to say that the Minish Cap was a good game although it was a little short it was well designed throughout and included my favorite companion ever featured in the Zelda game as low at the start of diminish cap there's an opening sequence detailing a previous incarnation of link and shows that he wasn't wearing a hat in the grander scheme of the Zelda timeline diminished cap was basically an origin story furlings hat which was a fun idea it was executed extremely well and by the end of the game it was nice to know that the hats of the various links worn through the years were a sort of Unknowing tribute to as low Skyward Sword undoes the entire point of this game if Skyward Sword actually cared at all about being faithful to the timeline then link wouldn't be wearing a hat which would have been an extremely easy change to make and might have even made his design more interesting people don't need to see links had to recognize him unless maybe he's a goron or something not content with just ruining the story of the Minish Cap though Skyward Sword steals the concept and does an origin story for The Master Sword at the end of the game it turns out fire had been in the master sword all along not overly attached to diminish cap but I do think it was a nice little game and the best thing about the origin story presented for Lynx hat was that it was humble Skyward Sword isn't humble in the slightest it almost seems obsessed with presenting some epic origin story for the series in the end all it offers up is a line from the Mayas saying he'll be back again to hunt the future incarnations of Lincoln Zelda and the revelation that Zelda is actually some sort of goddess reborn none of this impacts the rest of the series in the slightest or changes anything they should have known better than to try to explain this stuff anyway because there was never going to be a satisfactory answer and there can always be more Zelda game set before Skyward Sword there's always going to be ruins willing to explore and they didn't just get there by themselves someone built them I honestly have a hard time believing that Skyward Sword will remain the first game in the chronology forever since skyward swords explanations were always going to be goddesses and magic the very least he could have done was act as some sort of lead-in to the events in ocarina of time but instead all the provinces are named the same as the ones in Twilight Princess the closest thing to opening up Ocarina of Time is the founding of Hyrule but there was people living there before and considering how little Nintendo cares about the timeline those people probably called a Hyrule to begin with that sounds incredibly stupid doesn't it that's probably what you're thinking that would be incredibly stupid it would almost be as incredibly stupid as the king of Hyrule passionately telling the children at the end of the Wind Waker that their new land won't be Hyrule because he wanted the past washed away and then within a few years they discover a new continent guess what they call it my only guess why this happens is because Nintendo thinks people need the place to be called Hyrule just that link needs to be wearing a hat as long as this attitude persists then there's really no point in there being any kind of timeline inconsistent time-travel pops up again during this game at the start of the game link enters the seal temple and the player can look through a crack in the door to see a crystal containing zelda in other words even before Link's quest begins the outcome is determined in the very same room though there's a place where later on in the story link plants a seed in order to heal a dragon and it grows into a tree the tree isn't there in the beginning the outcome is not determined these two things vital to the plot and in the same room operate on different time travel mechanics so to get back to my original point the story in Skyward Sword is as shallow as any of the previous games and that worst hurts the game because it raises expectations it can't deliver on and interrupts the gameplay far too frequently the art style of the game is equally shallow although I personally enjoy it more than the visuals of Twilight Princess I don't think the impressionist style was chosen because it was the best fit for the game the style of the Wind Waker for example wasn't just some random decision by a Nintendo to shake things up it had goals to accomplish making link more expressive and ensuring the game didn't have to compete with the same graphical standards of the time don't get me wrong the style and Skyward Sword is executed very well for what it is but I get the feeling it was put into the game more for the sake of crafting a compromise between Twilight Princess and the Wind Waker rather than some underlying reason which would benefit the game itself even the good new inclusions like the adventure pouch with its ensuing customization and the stamina meter feel very underdeveloped and the best thing I can say about them is they open the way for future Zelda games to take these concepts and improve on them for its ultimate active style over substance there's the shoehorning of motion controls into every facet of the game mostly this makes me wonder about how Skyward Sword will play in the future will people still use motion controllers anymore or where they in fact a passing fad keep in mind this is an important question because every fight in the game is built on the notion that link can swing his sword one of six directions even if motion controls stick around is the Wii controller so imprecise that future players won't be able to go back to Skyward Sword without it causing even more frustration than is present now in 15 years will anyone actually care about this game maybe I'm the only person who cares about this but I'd like to think that the Zelda games should be above passing trends and should be games which are so great and well thought out that they really stand the test of time to do this again needs depth and it needs not to be based on a gimmick which will be outdated in a few years time the ending of the game sees link gathering up to three parts of the song by heading back to all three areas the tab tone section is pointing to scattering the volcano section is pointless gathering and once again to desert out join theater areas by actually producing some new content for the once the song is all together that's the lead-in to the end of the game there's a final Silent Realm in Skyloft which is pretty unexpected and a great way to start rounding out the experience the final dungeon in the game is a mixture of all the previous areas but it feels more fully featured than the ending dungeons in any of the previous games it puts all the items to use again and although I've never liked these sliding block puzzles they do add something to the dungeon it's great that the rooms themselves slide around and it's one of the nicer troll backs the game has the previous Elder games the ending sequence starts with the third and final imprisoned fight then jira him again and then finally the proper ending we can unlock although the game refuses to call him that for some reason I've said before that Skyward Sword is a game that gets worse the longer it goes on and I think one of the best examples of that is the list of bosses here's all the boss fights in the game in chronological order jira him scald era Maul dirac the imprisoned cabacas´s Tantalus jira him the imprisoned site D imprisoned JIRA him demise just look at how that list falls apart at the end in the ending sequence Elda is taken hostage and link is forced through a gauntlet of enemies in order to get work this had potential to be a powerful moment but the controls ruin it unlike Twilight Princess where link could run and slash at the same time Lincoln Skyward Sword stands perfectly still whenever the sword is being used if you ask me the entire plot of the game has been leading up to this moment making this incarnation of Zelda so likable giving her plenty of screen time and a strong bond with Link could have all paid off here Zelda's life is an immediate danger so what this should have resulted in is link bashing to the bottom of the slope as quickly as possible instead there's barricades thrown up and the sword animations force all movement to halt this section was never going to be challenging so it shouldn't have even tried instead it had potential to express that link has come so far and once the rescue Zelda so much that he can literally run through a horde of enemies and slice them apart as he goes this would have felt extremely satisfying but it wasn't to be thankfully the final fights with JIRA him and demise are satisfying at least and features some of the best swordplay in the game to the my section in particular utilizes the Skyward strike very well and the ending animation would link leaping into the air to be hit by lightning is very satisfying the story concludes exactly the way you would expect with everything ending up line by disappearing into the master sword feels pretty forced she doesn't say a single thing during the game that could lead the player to believe she likes link at all but then at the end she gets sentimental I just didn't buy into it to be honest the best thing about this is knowing that fires trapped in there in the other games unable to speak she must be dying after all this time it also adds an upside to mistakingly slamming the sword against the wall as well it's good to know she's in there I'm not fond of the heavy emphasis on story and Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword as I think it all too often breaks up the gameplay and gets in the way of the whole reason people play the games in the first place the story never really should be the draw just a little something to urge the player on that said the story in Skyward Sword is much better executed than the one in Twilight Princess the twist that the old lady is Impa is good and it's nice to see groups of all the little as a character in the end it's a more enjoyable ending than most games in the series it's just a shame that it takes so many cutscenes to get there the best thing I can say about Skyward Sword is that at least it attempts some new things unlike Twilight Princess but where Twilight Princess was so polished because it lacked originality Skyward Sword suffers from the opposite problem in previous games there was generally one large new gameplay element introduced as a major twist on the formula up until now I thought this was detrimental to the series as it gives the tractors an easy way to label each game as being about a single gimmick when really they're about a lot more than that Skyward Sword whoever makes a good argument for the series continuing on in the usual way the game pushes out in so many new directions that it rarely does any of them well in that way I can say I respect Skyward Sword but on a moment-to-moment basis I enjoy it less than Twilight Princess or any of the other 3d Zelda games for that matter the best shake-up 2d Zelda formula it introduces is the significant amount of content between dungeons which is a welcome change it's all framed rather poorly whoever makes the game feel like a series of levels rather than a world it's worth noting as well that the game had a development cycle of five years longer than any other installment in the series when I think of that figure I don't think about how well Skyward Sword turned out I think about how Majora's Mask with an 18-month turnaround time is better than Skyward Sword on almost every level I also think about the Wind Waker which was given less time than it needed but still included a vastly more interesting well done Skyward Sword the exploration is such a huge downgrade compared to previous titles that it feels non-existent I consider exploration to be such a core element of Zelda that initially when I was thinking about Skyward Sword I considered saying it's a good game but a bad Zelda game I don't think that would be entirely fair of me however since Zelda games are so prone to change which is one of the best aspects of the series in my Twilight Princess review I did say I wanted to see the series take more risks Skyward Sword is a risk which is good but I don't think it's one that paid off the highs are high but the lows are incredibly low and with that it's time for me to say that this concludes this series of reviews if you watch them all then congratulations on sticking it out all the way to the end I hope it was all worthwhile or at least some of it anyway there's a little more Zelda on the horizon however as in my next video I'll be comparing and contrasting all five of the games I reviewed in this series so I hope you'll join me then and thanks for watching

Channel: Matthewmatosis

Views: 582,716

Rating: 4.719655 out of 5

Keywords: Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, N64, Gamecube, Wii

Id: 7qAjK7wd5QE

Length: 49min 35sec (2975 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 28 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/JoelLikesPigs]

Actually sat down and watched this all the way through, if Arins and Jons Zelda videos go into as much depth as this I will be heavily impressed. The reviewer here makes many strong points on why this instalment fell so flat, whilst not being too overly dramatic and praising the areas which deserved it.

[u/Watcherthatboxer]

Arin wasn't joking. Professorial-ass reviewer for sure

[u/GamingPrower]

See, this is the kind of reviews that we need more of in the game industry.

I'm tired of tainted reviews that can never criticize for fear of stuff like losing their job.

[u/Jonathan_B_Goode]

Went into this expecting a British accent like Arin said. My ears were shocked to hear a fellow Irishman. YOU LIED TO ME, HANSON!

[u/Goluxas]

Wow, just amazing. I hesitate to call this a review. It's more a deconstruction and game design analysis. I've now watched three of his five Zelda reviews, and I've gotta say, this man knows his shit.

I love these game design pieces, like this and Sequelitis. Can anybody link me to more, or has this vat of awesome been tapped?

[u/Sohym]

Sweet! I was wondering about that. Thanks for the link, OP!

[u/lookitslink]

Arin liked or favorited it like a month ago or something. Watched every video of his. Subbed ever since.

[u/sabindrim]

Essentially the Red Letter Media of Zelda...but better. Thanks so much for the share OP.

[u/rexshen]

Meh dont care I like skyward sword.