Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Review

Credit: bestofbothminds

I've made previous posts about Zelda games before, so I'll spare you the nostalgia trip.  Warning: spoilers ahead!  (Also if you want some background music to listen to this, then click here.)

After a brief hiatus from the game, I've finally completed LoZ: Skyward Sword!  Right off the bat I can say it was a super worthy addition to one of the greatest gaming franchises out there.  Beautiful story, art, music, puzzles, you name it: it was there!  Let's break down the game:

For those of you who didn't know, my personal obsession with gaming started with Ocarina of Time.  I think it's safe to say that game is still an industry standard.  It's solid at every front and is a strong contender for the Greatest Game Ever Made.  So making Zelda games in the wake of the OoT juggernaut is quite the task.  While Nintendo will never be able to recreate OoT completely, they can sure do their best to keep the basic Zelda experience fresh.

Nintendo is the most creative video game company currently on the face of the Earth, so I came into Skyward Sword expecting nothing but the best in terms of a fresh adventure.  In the end, I got everything I expected-- new puzzles and gadgets as well as refreshed classics such as bombs, the hook shots, and the good ol' bow and arrow.  Mixed in with new gameplay elements such as timeshift stones, it all culminated into a very real challenge that puts your mind to the test.

I still found myself in the same routines as previous Zelda games--occasionally hitting a rough spot where I would spend 3 hours looking for a path or an object that ended up being right in front of me.  In Twilight Princess, I remember spending hours looking for the next part of a path in the Water Temple.  This time, I remember getting caught up in the Lanayru Desert.  Thankfully, a lot of frustration and wasted time was cut short thanks to Fi: your lovely companion for the duration of Skyward Sword.  Informative and thankfully quiet (I'm looking at you, Navi), Fi was an excellent guide.  You could ask her for hints as well as observations about your surroundings.  If you forgot about your objective, Fi was also just a question away.  She also made great observations about enemies (especially bosses) and compared your success rates and pointed out weaknesses.

Let's talk about the story for a bit before we go any further.  I'm very glad Nintendo made Skyward Sword a prequel--it actually sets a few things straight, such as why you always have the reincarnations of Gannon and Link.  Nintendo set the stage immediately.  You start off as sleepyhead Link again--late for something or another.  It's also the day of some annual ritual where the victor is essentially Zelda's boyfriend.  In this game, Zelda is your childhood friend who plays the part of the Goddess in this festival.  Your first opponent is Groose--your typical retarded jock who wants to get in Zelda's pants.  He knows that Link is a threat, so he kidnaps your bird, which is part of the festival in this floating sky city.  Link finds his bird and kicks the shit out of Groose and his cronies.  Link gets alone time with Zelda, gets the sailcloth, and is about to score with Zelda before she pushes him off the Goddess statue and you're forced to land in a little area perfectly with your sailcloth (which was very, very frustrating).  Things are all fine and dandy until Zelda is swept down beneath the clouds to a place where no Skyloft resident has ever ventured---to the ground.  There it is where you begin your pursuit of Zelda, who is also being pursued by Ghirahim.  It later turns out that Ghirahim is serving Demise, this game's version of Gannon.  Though Demise's name just sort of pops up in the story, he was actually The Imprisoned the entire time.  You kick Demise's ass in a pretty boring boss battle and send him back to his place.

Let's talk about overall gameplay/dungeons/fights.  First, I have to compliment Nintendo on the controls.  The WiiMotion Plus or whatever it's called was a great tool of precision.  The ability to actually control the angle of your strikes made this much more enjoyable than the old days of mashing B.   Nintendo utilized this technology to the fullest.  Although there was occasionally some frustration with the WiiMotion Plus, I can't really say anything bad about it.  It was pretty smooth.

As for the dungeons/temples/fights, there were a lot of fresh experiences.  As you probably guessed, they took place in different climates of Hyrule--mainly desert, volcano, and forest.  But other favorite climates wiggled their way in there, too.  It was nice to be able to access them from the sky, dropping down from your bird into the zone.  You could then select where specifically you wanted to land from a series of Bird Stone save points.  The biggest problem I found was that you ended up having to clear each zone like 3 times.  It got boring after a while, even though the zones always extended a little more.  Overall I felt like it made the game feel 10 hours too long.  In previous games, the climates and zones were constantly changing.  Here, I always had the impression that I was playing the same thing over and over again, just trying to get whatever the hell it was that I needed.

Overall, I was very pleased with the boss battles.  While they weren't exactly too hard, they still took some time to adjust to and find the weaknesses.  One think I liked was that you had the ability to go and fight them again through a dragon who recreates the battles.  If you won 9 in a row, you got the indestructible Hylian shield, which I found essential for the Gannon fight.  The weakpoints were usually the same--and eye or some exposed heart after ripping off some armor.  But Nintendo didn't always plop you in a small room with these bosses--they made some very interesting environments to fight the bosses in--such as on the deck of a boat in a storm.  The angle of your strikes always played in to the fight, too.  The most disappointing battle I had to fight was Demise.  Although I died a lot trying to find his weaknesses, once they were discovered then Demise was short work.  The environment never really changed all that much and Demise never really transformed (except from The Imprisoned to Demise).

At the end the credits, you have the option to restart the game in hero mode--a hardened difficulty which will overwrite your current game's save.  Don't make the mistake I did--make a copy of your save and then restart in hero mode.  I was dumb and in a hurry and lost my 35 hours of gameplay.

Skyward Sword was a super worth addition to the Legend of Zelda series.  I was really rooting for it for GOTY last year and was disappointed that it lost out to Skyrim--most likely because Skyrim was multi-platform and had a larger audience.

I really hope the new generation of gamers pay attention to Zelda.  They need to remember that it's not the multiplayer or the endless slaughter of enemies in a poorly thought out campaign that makes a great game--it's the challenge.  And Skyward Sword will stretch your brain and patience to bring you that challenge.