Just finished a 100% playthrough of Skyward Sword

[Zapp Branniglenn]

This is something I've been working on since about a week or two before Breath of the Wild released. The same basic need to play a zelda game in anticipation of the new one, you understand the feeling. I was about halfway through before Breath of the Wild released and I spent ten days on that before resuming SS. As for why Skyward Sword, I'm not sure myself. Probably because it was the only 3D zelda game I hadn't played a second time. As for what 100% entails: all heart pieces, gratitude crystals, wallet and pouch upgrades, upgrades for permanent items, optional dowsing targets, and goddess cubes. Here's my review.

Spoiler

I regret to say my opinions of Skyward Sword have not changed in five years. There are some great ideas, like turning off parts of the HUD for a more immersive experience and bombs have never been this easy to use. But the game is rife with problematic design and mechanics. Every time you pick up a material, the game reminds you what that collectible is and slowly shows your count of it increasing by one on the material screen. If you collect more of that material, you avoid this pause until you start your next play session where the game "forgets" what you've collected. I know this was not a design limitation, because the same thing will not occur with different rupee types, or ammunition. They deliberately decided you must pause to read item descriptions this many times. The material economy of the game is atrocious. Drop rates from enemies are extremely low. Some materials you would naturally collect 20 of are used in upgrades that only require 4. And vice versa with rare materials, that are considered by the game to be "common" even though I got less of them than the "rare" ones. I did indeed need to spend time grinding for permanent item upgrades.

And certain instances of motion controls I can unfailingly say would have been better done with buttons. Flying, swimming, and strumming the harp just don't feel right, but you must master them. Parts of the game that require the harp do not care about your strum speed (contrary to what the game suggests), only the rhythm in which you begin a strum. It's effectively the same thing as playing the Wind Waker, if the Wind Waker was incapable of changing tempo and had only left and right notes. When I finish one strum, my arm wants to adjust for the next strum, but the wii mote registers such subtle motion as my next strum which is too early. This inaccuracy makes for a potentially annoying side quest, and even got me stuck for minutes trying to open a trial gate.

Among 3D zelda games, this one is absolutely the most tame to 100%. No need to break out a guide for something like gold skulltulas. Goddess cubes and stray gratitude crystals are manageable since you can earn the ability to dowse for them. Side quest NPCs tell you precisely what they need, and ensure you don't spend time in the wrong areas searching. Dowsing itself proves useful here. If you're in a place that doesn't have what you're looking for, it will point you to the nearest loading zone for a place that does have it, brilliant. I did have to resort to a guide for my last two heart pieces, however. One is the reward for a minigame that has the same structure as similar minigames that only reward you with rupees and materials regardless of how well you do. The other missing piece was a simple oversight on my part.

Fi is still Fi, so I figured I ought to embrace it. This is the tutorial ridden companion that will ask you if you need an explanation...and continue to give you one anyway when you select no. Knowing this from my first playthrough, I thought it would be fun to accept every tutorial, check out some enemy bios, and always select "Tell me more!" options. There's one or two unexpectedly funny lines from her, but she plays the role of an AI through and through, constantly missing my sarcasm as quickly as any other person on the internet. Her final scene feels real and I was overjoyed when she got a "cameo" in BotW, as that was something on my wishlist for the next 3D Zelda.

Combat is inconsistent. Shield parries feel good, but since the nunchuk is so incapable of accurate motion, I often shield bash when attempting to spin attack, as well as vice versa. My wii remote desyned a lot during many motions, but I found that a series of vertical slices can re-center the sword which helps in a pinch. The sword duel bosses and minibosses are the highlight of the experience. I just wish stabs were easier to perform. They use the motion plus' accelerometer rather than a basic waggle. Since the accelerometer isn't reading stabs until you stop your forward motion, every stab comes out in-game a moment after you've finished the motion in real life. This sort of delay does not happen with basic swings and only accentuates the limitations of using an IR sensor toy for motion controls.

The story and characters are pretty good. Groose is the only one with an arc and it's endearing. I think too much praise was heaped on this version of Zelda, as her screentime is limited to the first hour, a late game exposition dump, and then unconscious until the finale. She has the Tetra problem of losing her previous personality and goals the moment she discovers her identity. The game is also seriously in need of more lore with regard to the surface world and its tribes. Impa mentions being a member of the Shiekah tribe when no evidence of other Sheikah seems to exist. I also still find it a little disengenuous to have the most formulaic zelda adventure set before the point where Demise curses this world into a repeating set of cycles. It was an excellent opportunity to break conventions but they chose not to for seemingly no reason. Link looks how he always looked and he collects the same dungeon items and multicolored macguffins.

All in all, this game comes nowhere close to the ~95 aggregate critical scores that all 3D zeldas have consistently gotten on release and will continue to age poorly as the hardware required to play this game is only getting older and less responsive with time. Does Skyward Sword get too much hate in retrospect? Maybe, but that's not the right question to ask. Does Skyward Sword's motion controls justify their existence and add to the game more than they take away? That's not easy to answer, and we wouldn't be asked that again until 2016's Star Fox Zero.

What are your experiences with Skyward Sword? Do you plan to play it again in the future? Now that this series has broken free of the established formula, how do you expect Skyward Sword to be remembered? And if this game were to be HD remastered on a system that can emulate the wii's motion controls, what would you change? Ah, I actually wrote a short list for that a while back:

Spoiler

1. “off” button for Fi. No stopping for tutorials and suggestions on what to do. Keep her in scenes where she's involved with an NPC conversation like Scrapper.

2. Make spiral charge optional. All it does is slightly speed up dashes and push through tornadoes. It shouldn't be required to beat the game.

3. Options setting for flying and swimming to be controlled with the control stick and not motion control.

4. Equalize text speed between versions. Give other regions the reasonably fast scroll speed that JP version has.

5. Make ornamental skulls more common or not required for as many upgrades. More spawn points for ancient flowers too.

6. Cut down on parry activation frames, and make missed parries deal less shield damage to compensate.

7. Make it so bokoblins tend to hold their weapons in the direction your sword is, so that you can bait them into an opening like in Ghirahim fights.

8. Hero Mode available on start. Remove feature of carrying over materials in a "new game plus". While it is true the material economy is out of whack, this is not a satisfactory answer to fixing the problem, as it only applies to repeat playthroughs.

9. Make a “bombers notebook” for keeping track of side quests you've completed, and some way to track whether you've collected every last goddess cube. Without backtracking through areas with your sword out.

10. No more repeated material descriptions. It adds nothing to the game and the ten seconds of time you spend waiting for each one adds up considerably.

11. Increase the loftwing's speed innately. If you have to do a lot of flying over nothingness, you may as well make it feel like cruising an interstate highway. More comfy zen, less like waiting in line at a DMV.

12. Increase the regeneration speed of Link's stamina meter, and add an upgrade that expands his maximum stamina.

 

[Magical Glace]

My only real problems with SS are

1. THE CONTROLS.  I felt like they glitched out on me too much, and honestly I'd love to play a version of the game with controls more along the lines of TPHD/TWWHD (which are the best Zeldas control wise imo).  As they are, I feel like they do things at fairly good accuracy for motion controls, but when it comes to something so central and integral to the game fairly good just isn't good enough and can result in errors that had no fault of the player quite often.  And some of the motion control was just unnecessary, like swimming/flying, which do nothing with the superior choice of controlling them, the analog stick, which has a default/neutral position.

2. Fi is literally the most boring, annoying companion in the series.  She's just an exposition/tutorial bot in the most literal sense of the word.  Her suddenly having emotions honestly felt pretty out of nowhere, and she has no real connection to anyone in the cast sans Link.

I'm fine with it besides these two things.

Edited April 18, 2017 by Glaceon Mage

[Zapp Branniglenn]

8 minutes ago, Glaceon Mage said:

My only real problems with SS are

1. THE CONTROLS.  I felt like they glitched out on me too much, and honestly I'd love to play a version of the game with controls more along the lines of TPHD/TWWHD (which are the best Zeldas control wise imo).  

Oh! I plan to pick up WWHD sometime in the future. I heard that aiming has gyro controls, but you can turn them off if you don't like them.

What a concept! I know it's often said that gamers have no idea what they want, heck I say that sometimes. But when it comes to controls, gamers seem to have a great idea of what works. So I'm glad they picked up on this for post SS titles. 

[Interdimensional Observer]

Never finished SS, though I keep telling myself I should (like TH, but The Lady tennis match is too difficult in solo). I am terrible at stealth and always dreaded the Silent Realms (but not as much as the Ghost Ship- the reason I never completed WW). I stopped at The Imprisoned Round 3 because the first two rounds were already enough of a challenge for me and I was like "really, again !?!".

I never completed that harp thing at the bar- I just kept failing at it.

SS tried to destroy the overworld-dungeon dichotomy in the Zelda series. The Sky is proof they did not succeed at this completely, but the surface world generally had the distinction between dungeon and overworld diluted. The method chosen for this was to turn the overworld into dungeon, but not dungeon into overworld.

The focus on sword combat was another twist on the gameplay SS tried, but the sword controls were admittedly not perfect. And, non-sword items saw their uses in combat decrease.

I'm fine without a timeline- let every legend stand on its own. Let everyone choose their favorite tales. But the mythos contributions didn't really hurt much or anything.

The school element was totally unneeded in a Zelda game- junk American TV and anime alike have that enough already. The Zelda-Link romance was eh.

Two fire-earth dungeons was a bit much, the revisits and dungeon designs weren't bad. The Ancient Cistern and Sandship were good as everybody knows.

The nitpicks listed by above by others stand.

Perhaps not the best Zelda ever, but not bad.

2 hours ago, Gustavos said:

Impa mentions being a member of the Shiekah tribe when no evidence of other Sheikah seems to exist.

The Sheikah are horrifically underdeveloped throughout the series- only Sheik, Impa and Impaz are shown from the tribe (the first a fake, the last a reference to the median, so really we have 1 Shiekah). Give us our ninja tribe Nintendo!

[maybe]

i played skyward sword for a few minutes and stopped because I was bored

[Pixelman]

14 minutes ago, unique said:

i played skyward sword for a few minutes and stopped because I was bored

Yeah same

The last time I picked up the game was, idk, 6 years ago. It's still collecting dust, kek. Think I stopped after the entrance of the first dungeon.

[Anacybele]

My only problems with SS are that the sky feels too empty and there could've been one or two more dungeons. Otherwise, this is my favorite Zelda game and one of my favorite games of all time. I love the story and characters, the dungeons and overworld are great (the sky aside), and I love the gameplay controls too. I admit they can be awkward at times and take some getting used to, but swinging the Wii remote like an actual sword just felt so freakin' awesome. It was also harder than previous home console Zeldas (which had gotten too easy. TP is easy and TWW is boringly easy) because of this imo, since you had to hit enemies in certain ways to damage them and figuring out how to damage them was part of the fun.

I actually like Fi. Yeah, she's too hand-holdy, I agree with that. But I love her design, her singing voice, and her dancing! And the ending cutscene with her was feelsy and makes you feel bad for her. :(

I feel this game gets far too much hate. I only see people criticize it for the controls, Fi, and linearity. Nobody says they dislike the dungeons or story or anything else. They just say it's terrible for being linear, or for having an annoying partner or for the controls. If the controls are making it really hard for you to play, okay, that's fair. But linearity or an annoying companion don't make the game utterly terrible. I mean, people complain about Navi all the time, but OoT is still praised by everyone and their mother.

Edited April 18, 2017 by Anacybele

[The Geek]

I can forgive Skyward Sword all its faults because it gave us Groose and the best rendition of Zelda's character, making you actually care about her (I haven't played BotW so I don't know if that one is good too.  Tetra is a close second).

[Anacybele]

50 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The Sheikah are horrifically underdeveloped throughout the series- only Sheik, Impa and Impaz are shown from the tribe (the first a fake, the last a reference to the median, so really we have 1 Shiekah). Give us our ninja tribe Nintendo!

Oh yeah, BotW and its many Sheikah and...what were they called again? the enemy ninja tribe say hi. The enemy ones were so annoying that I forgot their names again. xP

Edited April 18, 2017 by Anacybele

[Zapp Branniglenn]

4 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Oh yeah, BotW and its many Sheikah and...what were they called again? the enemy ninja tribe say hi. The enemy ones were so annoying that I forgot their names again. xP

The Yiga clan. I remember it because of all those NPCs that act like they need to sell me something but they're actually ninja agents.

 

25 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

I feel this game gets far too much hate. I only see people criticize it for the controls, Fi, and linearity. Nobody says they dislike the dungeons 

I hadn't touched on SS dungeons previously. But I can think of one thing that holds them back, and it's the bosses. Two of them have Ghirahim instead of a proper boss themed to the dungeon. Scaldera is just king dodongo only you need angled sword slashes to hit his weakpoint once he's stunned. King Dodongo is about the worst choice of boss you could rehash. The scorpion is another boss asking you to make weird angled sword slashes, and his burrowing underground in the sand just wastes time as you reveal him with the gust bellows. Tentalus is the infamous "hey, that's my glowy eye!" and his phase 2 where you slash his hair tentacles is obnoxious if not creepy. Demise is the most threatening final boss to a zelda game since Majora's Mask (when you don't have Fierce Deity), but he loses a ton of points for being another "lol, don't touch the shock stick" enemy. There's a secret in this fight near the end where you can hold your sword skyward and have it get charged by lightning, then use it on him for the final knockdown. So satisfying.

Koloktos is amazing. Music, hacking him to piecing, using something other than your own sword, and the double damage upgrade to your own sword after beating him. Ghirahim 3 also deserves honorable mention as none of his three phases repeat old tricks from the first two fights. Hand to hand sumo match, Falchion duel, then bastard sword that you need to slash apart.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Oh, BotW has ninjas? Haven't bought it yet.

[Anacybele]

9 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

The Yiga clan. I remember it because of all those NPCs that act like they need to sell me something but they're actually ninja agents.

 

I hadn't touched on SS dungeons previously. But I can think of one thing that holds them back, and it's the bosses. Two of them have Ghirahim instead of a proper boss themed to the dungeon. Scaldera is just king dodongo only you need angled sword slashes to hit his weakpoint once he's stunned. King Dodongo is about the worst choice of boss you could rehash. The scorpion is another boss asking you to make weird angled sword slashes, and his burrowing underground in the sand just wastes time as you reveal him with the gust bellows. Tentalus is the infamous "hey, that's my glowy eye!" and his phase 2 where you slash his hair tentacles is obnoxious if not creepy. Demise is the most threatening final boss to a zelda game since Majora's Mask (when you don't have Fierce Deity), but he loses a ton of points for being another "lol, don't touch the shock stick" enemy. There's a secret in this fight near the end where you can hold your sword skyward and have it get charged by lightning, then use it on him for the final knockdown. So satisfying.

Koloktos is amazing. Music, hacking him to piecing, using something other than your own sword, and the double damage upgrade to your own sword after beating him. Ghirahim 3 also deserves honorable mention as none of his three phases repeat old tricks from the first two fights. Hand to hand sumo match, Falchion duel, then bastard sword that you need to slash apart.

The Yiga, right. Damn bastards... xP

I will kinda agree, SS's bosses were a bit lacking outside of Koloktos and the Sandship's boss (forgot its name too...). The Sandship's boss was holy fucking shit mind blowing man. You're first trying to flee what appears to be a sinking ship and avoiding these huge ass tentacles, then you're faced with the huge ass monster that those huge ass tentacles belong to! What intensity! Koloktos was definitely the best tho, that was a fun fight.

Ghirahim is fabulously awesome though! But his fights probably could've been saved for outside the dungeons a la the Imprisoned (fuck him though, forgot to mention how much I hated that monstrosity), so I see what you're saying here.

12 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Oh, BotW has ninjas? Haven't bought it yet.

Yup, there's a whole Sheikah village, and then the bastard Yiga like mentioned above. Man, fuck those guys!

[Zapp Branniglenn]

17 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

The Yiga, right. Damn bastards... xP

I will kinda agree, SS's bosses were a bit lacking outside of Koloktos and the Sandship's boss (forgot its name too...). The Sandship's boss was holy fucking shit mind blowing man. You're first trying to flee what appears to be a sinking ship and avoiding these huge ass tentacles, then you're faced with the huge ass monster that those huge ass tentacles belong to! What intensity! Koloktos was definitely the best tho, that was a fun fight.

Ghirahim is fabulously awesome though! But his fights probably could've been saved for outside the dungeons a la the Imprisoned (fuck him though, forgot to mention how much I hated that monstrosity), so I see what you're saying here.

Tentalus is the Sandship boss. Gameplay wise I'm not a fan. And his design looks like he jumped out of Monsters Inc. It also doesn't make much sense lorewise with the timeshift crystals. If you look around during the battle, the entire Ocean is in the past rather than just the ship. Also you're on top of the ship, but the area has no mast and sail? It's really bizarre.

Ghirahim is actually my favorite Zelda villain. Not that this series is brimming with a ton of candidates. While it's true he sandbags link too much and tends to disappear in a very trope-y fashion, I get the impression his bragging about how he'll kill Link is because he knows deep down he's evenly matched and trying to win a psychological battle in order to get an edge. Hence the moves where he catches your sword with one hand and teleports behind and above you for sneak attacks. Plus, he actually succeeds in his mission! This guy should be in Smash, not Falcon's dad!Ganondorf. 

Edited April 18, 2017 by Gustavos

[Zera]

3 hours ago, Gustavos said:

When I finish one strum, my arm wants to adjust for the next strum, but the wii mote registers such subtle motion as my next strum which is too early. This inaccuracy makes for a potentially annoying side quest, and even got me stuck for minutes trying to open a trial gate.
I never had any problems with the harp. Doesn't change the fact that it was extremely shallow, but still.

*Combat Ramble*
One thing I noticed is the enemies are slower and more telegraphy than in other Zeldas, so you have time to make sure the Wii Motion Plus knows what you're doing. And for the record, this game does NOT use IR. Games like Sin & Punishment 2 and Metroid Prime Trilogy use IR, but this one only uses Wii Motion Plus (and the aiming is actually worse as a result).

I thought Skyward Sword was a nice Zelda, but it lacks the replay value because of the padding. It did have some nice things though, like the customizable item pouch and upgrades, putting bombs in your pocket, and dialogue choices. Oh, and the music was pretty sweet too.

[Anacybele]

4 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

Tentalus is the Sandship boss. Gameplay wise I'm not a fan. And his design looks like he jumped out of Monsters Inc. It also doesn't make much sense lorewise with the timeshift crystals. If you look around during the battle, the entire Ocean is in the past rather than just the ship. Also you're on top of the ship, but the area has no mast and sail? It's really bizarre.

Ghirahim is actually my favorite Zelda villain. Not that this series is brimming with a ton of candidates. While it's true he sandbags link too much and tends to disappear in a very trope-y fashion, I get the impression his bragging about how he'll kill Link is because he knows deep down he's evenly matched and trying to win a psychological battle in order to get an edge. Hence the moves where he catches your sword with one hand and teleports behind and above you for sneak attacks. Plus, he actually succeeds in his mission! This guy should be in Smash, not Falcon's dad!Ganondorf. 

Well, yeah, the design of Tentalus himself isn't all that cool, and yeah, the ocean showing up everywhere instead of just around the ship doesn't make much sense, but the battle itself threw me for such a wild loop that I had to enjoy it. :P I thought Tentalus destroyed the mast and sail?

He's my favorite Zelda villain other than Vaati too. Sadly though, Ganondorf is the iconic and most recurring Zelda villain, so no one is replacing him in Smash anytime soon. I never liked him though...

Also, btw, that huge sword Ghirahim uses in battle 3 that you have to destroy is called a zweihander. Bit of trivia.

Edited April 18, 2017 by Anacybele

[Zapp Branniglenn]

1 minute ago, Anacybele said:

Also, btw, that huge sword Ghirahim uses in battle 3 that you have to destroy is called a zweihander. Bit of trivia.

Harumph! It's German for "Bastard Sword" or any overly massive longsword. Translates to "two hander". 

 

5 minutes ago, Zera said:

I thought Skyward Sword was a nice Zelda, but it lacks the replay value because of the padding. It did have some nice things though, like the customizable item pouch and upgrades, putting bombs in your pocket, and dialogue choices. Oh, and the music was pretty sweet too.

Ah, good catch with the aiming. The wii remote natively is IR, but in Skyward sword you don't point at things on screen, the motion plus just assumes you're facing the screen squarely, as well as your distance from the screen as you tilt. Is that some sort of limitation? They can't use both in the same game or something? Maybe Nintendo thought doing aiming through motion plus would help sell developers on using it in their games.

Makes me wonder how the joycons would fare at emulating motion plus. I have a switch, but no game that uses motion control. In fact I'm pretty sure the only motion control game out now is 1, 2, Switch.

[Anacybele]

4 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

Harumph! It's German for "Bastard Sword" or any overly massive longsword. Translates to "two hander".

Yup! I learned to count in German some years ago, so I knew that. XD

[Zera]

31 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

Ah, good catch with the aiming. The wii remote natively is IR, but in Skyward sword you don't point at things on screen, the motion plus just assumes you're facing the screen squarely, as well as your distance from the screen as you tilt. Is that some sort of limitation? They can't use both in the same game or something? Maybe Nintendo thought doing aiming through motion plus would help sell developers on using it in their games.

Nintendo wanted to sell more Wii Motion Plus to consumers, so they made it a requirement for the next Zelda game (because Zelda's popular). This was accomplished by cramming motion controls into every crevice of the experience, even if standard controls would've done just as well, if not better.

Imagine using the right stick (not that the Wii has one) to swing your sword in the various directions, and clicking the stick for a stab attack. I want to play a game that controls like that.

[Nobody]

I absolutely love Skyward Sword. I got it next to launch, beat it, and then immediatly replayed it, because of how much i liked it. I was legitimately surprised when I found out so many people disliked it lol.

Linearity isn't something that bothers me. I don't think it's inherently better or worse than open world design, and there are both open world and linear games i love and dislike. I loved how full of puzzles SS's world was, and the fact that the areas outside dungeons felt like dungeons themselves. I also thought Skyward Sword did dungeons extremely well, with the Sandship being my favorite in the series, and the Ancient Cistern and Skykeep also being among my favorites, while I also like all the others. I loved the intro and how it introduced skyloft as your home, and I also liked the side quests it had. Fi didn't bother me either, and I felt all the game was fun, even the parts people don't generally enjoy (like third third of the game). Oh, and I also really liked the motion controls and didn't have any problem with them.

Anyway, it's a game I can understand why people have problems with, but I love even the things people consider its flaws, and I'm happy i do. It is, tied with MM, my favorite Zelda game. 

Edited April 19, 2017 by Nobody