Time for my first progress report. I've roughly 7 hours in, currently at the entrance to the second dungeon. I would have played more if not for prior commitments. Gotta say, I'm pretty damn elated so far.
I'll try not to retread the impressions that Nbz gave yesterday, although I must give my take on the big talking point: the Motion Plus combat. I think it is truly excellent, because it really is, as sword fighting should be, about outsmarting the enemy. One of the core fundamental I learned quickly is that the blocking stances taken by your foes aren't random; rather, they track the point of your sword as you move it around and move their weapons accordingly. To begin with, I was having trouble outmanoeuvring the series staple Bokoblins, until I realised that the trick is to confuse them. Basically, you goad them into blocking a certain way, then reposition before they can react to it. It's great because there are no lazy combat encounters. If you think you can swing willy-nilly, even the regular enemies will make you pay. I will also echo Nbz's thoughts about the first boss battles, which very much epitomises what I've been talking about. Lord Ghirahim pushed me down the wire -- it seriously gets the adrenaline pumping.
I've also enjoyed other aspects of the motion control, but I will leave comment about that for when I've acquired more items.
Now for some aspects of the game that have been discussed much less, some stuff that surprised me. Link has a few new mobility enhancements in Skyward Sword. Firstly, he can move around in first person! It's only really used for a mechanic that I won't delve into right now, but still, I didn't expect that at all. Secondly, he seems to have taken a page from certain modern action games, in that there's a fair amount of solo climbing. You may have heard that Link has a stamina bar for running, lifting, spin attacking and such, but what you might not know is that running against a vertical surface will have Link scale it and can leap around on ledges, like Nathan Drake or Ezio. I find it satisfying just to move around in this game.
Lastly for today's impressions, I'd like to speak about the structure of the game. It is perhaps a bit soon to discuss this so early on (again, I'm only at the second temple). At the moment, the structure appears to be somewhat unusual for a Zelda title. Essentially, Skyloft, your home island in the clouds, is kind of like a hub world, and via gaps in the cloud, you descend to different regions of Hyrule. You can travel between land and sky very easily, and I can confirm that there are other, smaller sky islands to discover on your Loftwing, which is cool. As for Skyloft itself, the place is more or less side-quest central, and it looks like there is some Majora's Mask stuff going on, in that helping people solve their problems earns you Gratitude Crystals, which go towards a meta side-quest. The things I've sampled so far have been decent breaks.
However, the real stand-out is how utterly fantastic the construction of the world design is. The two locations I've been through thus far, Faron Woods and Eldin Volcano, are laid out in a looping, overlapping manner. To put it another way, the routes you take are intertwined, and shortcuts to previous areas can be made, so it never takes too long to get anywhere and backtracking is painless. Moreover, these areas are more like obstacle courses - they aren't as puzzle-focused as dungeons, but there's very little flat, empty space to cover. And on a minor note, I've already encountered two brand new species of friendly characters, one of which is a hybrid between a kiwi bird and a plant...!
I hope this has given some context for the sceptics out there. I personally think you should buy Skyward Sword. In my opinion, it is the bee's knees.
Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Read 615018 times)
