So I finally conquered Skyward Sword the other day at my Cousin's house while he watched me go through the final dungeon and the end game sequence. Put in a total of 49 hours, which is easily the most time I've spent with a Zelda game, and my overall opinions lean towards the very positive side of the spectrum.
The first thing I have to say is that I had 0 issues with motion control throughout my time with the game. Apart from re-centring the Bow/Beetle with the D-pad there was nothing I had to worry about. All my movements were perfectly re-created and I must applaud Nintendo again for showing us that motion control CAN work and can be done extremely well. I do think that swimming should have been assigned to the nunchuck, but the motion controls worked well enough so I wasn't too annoyed at that.
The next thing I'd like to touch on is Skyloft itself as a town. From what I experienced it is by far my favourite town in any Zelda game. Clock town is without a doubt the most living, breathing Zelda town, but Skyloft has that charm and instant likeability about it that seems absent in most other Zelda games. It essentially takes Wind Waker's charm and merges it with Clock Town's intricacy. Though it is small, and I would have loved to have many more explorable islands I still spent a huge amount of time simply running around Skyloft, not really doing much. It served as an excellent "break" in between dungeon's during the entirety of the game, and because of the way sidequests were opened up, I always had something to get on with after bombing through one of the areas below the clouds. I even discovered that I hadn't even visited all the houses on Skyloft even after 40 hours of gameplay, as the final two sidequests required me to visit the houses of two sets of people that I hadn't really interacted with before. Though it is without a doubt the area you get to know the best during your time with the game, when it came to the Silent Realm segment I actually didn't beat it on my first try, despite having not failed a single one yet. It took me 3 tries to get through it, which was really surprising. They had somehow managed to add challenge to a gameplay mechanic that is leveraged on your knowledge of the surrounding area, in an area which you pretty much know like the back of your hand at this point in the game.
Speaking of the Silent Realm, those segments were without a doubt my least favourite part of the game. I almost dreaded finishing off the 5th boss, simply because I knew that the next Silent Realm was in Eldin, and it was going to be a bitch. When I got through them it didn't seem so bad, but it was that overhanging dread before doing one which really got to me. But then again, it meant I messed around more in Skyloft as a procrastination technique, so I was happy nonetheless. I understand their presence in the game, as a means to diversify gameplay, but I really think that Nintendo could have gone about mixing up the gameplay mechanics in a more enjoyable way.
The thing in Skyward Sword that I took most pleasure from though, were the dungeons. Even though this game made it much easier to stop gameplay during a temple so that you could resume at a later time, I actually never found myself needing it. The dungeons were so compelling that I beat each individual one in a single sitting. My playstyle with games like Zelda is ususally to save before a dungeon, beat it, then save and switch off, but with Skyward Sword my play sessions ended up being much longer, because once I'd gone through the trouble of opening the dungeon up, I was so keen to jump into it that I just kept playing. And I didn't turn the game off afterwards either, tending to spend at least an hour more in Skyloft once I was done with the Boss. I firmly believe that the boss in the game's 4th Dungeon is one of the most satisfying, intense and challening bosses in any Zelda game ever. However, it was the desert area of Lanayru for which I reserve the highest praise. I think that the time changing mechanic is ingenious and they used it in such an incredibly clever way that I was really blown away by this area multiple times. Its for this reason that I think they really need to mix up the environments much more in future Zelda games. Faron and Eldin were very predictable and their specific gameplay mechanics felt a lot more tired than the freshness presented in Lanayru. I was mind blown twice during the game, and both times I was in Lanayru. The section with the time shift stone in the boat while you ride around the desert sea is one of the most clever things I have seen in a video game, and it really reminded me how smart the creators of this franchise can really be. In short, I loved the dungeons, and appreciated their relative simplicity as it allowed for a concentrated burst of enjoyment rather than a segmented experience in which I may get lost or have no idea what to do next.
I was, however, extremely disappointed with the 6th dungeon and its Boss, but one bad dungeon didn't really harm my overall enjoyment of the game when the others were just so good. I really enjoyed the upgrading mechanic that the game employs, but like Jonny said on RFN, I wish there was more stuff I could do with the items I collected. Who really needs 40 Amber Relics or 30 Jelly Blob things? Unless you are terrible with the sheild and end up replacing it and upgrading it constantly, then these materials really become completely useless. Moreover, I wish that they would balance out the distribution of these materials. I ended up having 40 of one thing and 2 of another, and yet 3 of my items needed multiple of the more rare material and none of the more common one. This led to me having to go and grind for materials, which I didn't really mind, but I would have certainly preferred if the ones you needed were dropped on a more consistent basis. The bugs were also a point of interest to me. I couldn't resist going after all of them, but when it came down to it I never used any of them for anything. I never felt like it was worth upgrading a potion and I never really needed the money from selling them. In the end they kind of sat there in my inventory as if I were some kind of collector, picking these things up for the sheer sake of it.Perhaps the thing that I found most impressive about this game is how well every single item (barring the slingshot) is used. Twilight Princess was all about individual items being central to individual dungeons, and after that you would hardly ever see them again (I'm talking to you, Spinner and Ball & Chain). Skyward Sword pretty much throws that idea out the window, and as a result you have a much more reduced roster of items, but the items see so much more use than they did in previous games. To be honest I can't even remember where I got most of the items, because their collection is so embedded into the game structure that it makes it almost impossible to pinpoint what you got when. In other games I could tell you the item for each individual dungeon, because they were so rigidly themed, whereas in Skyward Sword the items are collected not only in the dungeon, but also in the overworld leading up the the dungeon. Some items don't even feel like you are really getting something new because they are just upgrades to existing equipment. Not that this is a bad thing though, because it really enforces the idea that you use the items on such a frequent basis.I can't close this out without talking a bit about the end of the game and how it ties up the story. I personally found the final dungeon to be very interesting, but I would have preferred to see something completely different, rather than just a re-tread of old territory. Having said that though, the individual rooms were very interesting. The entire room shifting mechanic was an overarching puzzle in itself and was genuinely inventive. I did almost scream out in anguish as it showed me entering the Silent Realm to pick up the first piece of Triforce, thinking that I would once again have to go through this ridiculous process, but thankfully all you have to do is go over and pick it up. The final boss montage was for the most part very enjoyable. As someone who was very disappointed by the 6th dungeon, I was not happy to see Ghirahim return for the third time in the game. As a 6th boss he changed very little from our first encounter, the main difference being that I had a hell of a lot more hearts. This made it less challenging and generally disappointing that Nintendo had not put the effort in to think up a new boss that could rival the 2 incredible ones before it. That being said, the third encounter was without a doubt the best of the 3 and easily made it onto the list for my favourite boss fights in the game. They really mixed things up and made it both very fun, mentally taxing and physically challenging. Having said that, the final fight with Demise was slightly disappointing, but still very good. I easily costed through his first form, utilising the shield bash to my advantage, though I would have preferred to have a more upgraded one, my 2nd stage sacred shield did the job just fine. It was the second form that I had trouble with, mainly because it was very difficult to find a window in which to absorb lightning when he didn't have any. I died twice on that guy, but as so happens to be the case with most things in this game it was third time lucky. The final story sequence was very enjoyable and the revelation that Demise gets reincarnated as Ganon was certainly interesting, though it was kinda obvious given how similar both of them look.Overall I really did enjoy this game a lot. It is not often that I beat games of this scale in such a short space of time, that just the kind of gamer I am. But Skyward Sword had such a draw to it and was so compelling that I really felt dedicated to it and was very insistent on wanting to finish it. I know opinions are mixed, but personally I think that this is the Zelda game that I will most likely pick up and play through again multiple times, simply because of its streamlined mechanics, heart warming story and tight gameplay. Now time for Xenoblade 
Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Read 615417 times)
