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Before you all attack me, I'm just gonna throw it out there; I own both Skyrim and Skyward Sword, and I happen to really like them both. I'm just making this topic simply for the sake of asking a question. Now, after playing both Skyrim and Skyward Sword, the differences are night and day. Yes, both games have heavy fantasy elements, involve sword and shield combat, etc. That's all well and good, but for the most part, they're pretty different games. Skyrim has a heavy focus on exploration and combat above all things, you're given a lot of choice of what you might want to. There's hundreds of dungeons and pieces of geography to explore, and you're never told where to go or what to do. Now, doesn't that sound like a game we're all too familiar with? Yes, of course I'm talking about Zelda I. You'd be kidding yourself if you don't think that the whole selling point of that game was its non-linearity, it was the whole reason Zelda became popular at all. You could conquer any dungeon in any order you wanted to, go anywhere you wanted to at your leisure, and take things at your own pace. No one told you what to do, what item to get, how to do, well, anything in the game. Also, yes, there were some puzzles in the game, but they were few and far between, and most of them simply involved you pushing a block in a room, that was it. The meat of the game had you overcoming enemies and obstacles, with a very small focus on puzzles. Now, on to Skyward Sword. An excellent game, yes, but a very linear one in comparison to Skyrim and even the original Zelda. Each dungeon must be conquered in the order the developers intended, no bones about it. They are full of puzzles, battles, and generally have a lot of variety to them, something the original Zelda and Skyrim can't tout as a feature. However, the joy of exploring and finding something new isn't there. I beat Skyward Sword twice already, and loved it both times. I loved the motion controls, fighting enemies was a thrill, the puzzles were brain bending and overall it was just a fantastic, polished, and fun game. However, what made Zelda famous, exploring things at your own will, and finding new places, weapons, items, and more, surprises, was missing. This is why I say Skyrim is more of an evolution of the concepts the series originally set out to behold. Currently, the Zelda and Elder Scrolls franchises couldn't be further apart. However, if Zelda was put on hold after the first game, and Nintendo wound up releasing Skyrim or a game very similar to it and calling it Zelda, I would not have raised an eye brow.