The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

[canderson]

One thing that bothers me in the game is that they did the same stupid mistake as in TP with the Rupees. Every fucking time I turn the game off and collect a treasure I have to read through the crap again xO

Edited November 30, 2011 by canderson

[Ekaje]

At least you can get rid of that if have the Homebrew Channel and use cheat codes, though it's still boggles my mind how apparently no one thought it was a bad idea that should be removed.

Edited November 30, 2011 by Ekaje

[speedfreak]

Beat it last night, loved it!

I especially liked how Ganondorf is basically the human existence of Demise similar to how Zelda became the human existence of Hylia. Demise was a pretty cool fight and pretty challenging too, though I think the final battle with Ghirahim was more fun. I'm guessing the Goddess Temple will eventually become the new Temple of Time (the one seen in Ocarina/Twilight Princess). The Dark Master Sword was badass looking. The ending was pretty nice too. I knew that old lady was going to end up being Impa! Also I guess we are to assume that Link said he would stay on the surface with Zelda and together they made Hyrule.

This game actually explains a lot more then I was expecting it to about Zelda lure and it ties in pretty nicely with OOT. Though there were some retcons.

I don't know if it's my favorite Zelda, but it's high up there and I really enjoyed it. There were a lot of "fetch quest" type situations and some of the pre-dungeon areas did feel kinda like filler, but the game has some amazing highs that easily made up for that IMO.

The motion controls worked great for me. Yes, you ARE going to have to recalibrate, but even so I thought they were wonderful. Though certain things really shouldn't have had motion controls tacked on. Pointer should have been used for Bow, Sling Shot, etc.

The surface world was great. Honestly i loved it, but two thing were needed in order to make it perfect for me. One, they need to connect the areas together so you don't have to go to the sky to get to a different area. And two, they really needed some town areas on the surface below.

I loved the story for the most part. My major complaint is that it could have used more meat considering how long this game is. You go HOURS without much of anything important happening.

Other random thoughts.

Not enough boss fights, too many reused. What was there was great though.

Groose = great.

Sky world needed more stuff to it.

Really like the graphics.

Wasn't my favorite Zelda soundtrack, but it was good.

I'll post more if I think of anything else.

Edit: Oh one other thing!

So Fi is still sleeping within the Master Sword even up to the events of Twilight Princess? Are we to assume that the Sword "choosing" future Link's (OOT Link, WW Link, TP Link) is actually Fi deeming them worthy to carry the blade? Also it said parts of Demise were sealed into the sword aswell. Do you think this was done in case nintendo ever want to bring him back? Anyway it's nice that there is an opening to see Fi, Demise (and by extension Ghirahim) again if Nintendo feels like bringing them back.

Edited December 1, 2011 by speedfreak

[SuperStingray]

Finished the game. Decided to start a review blog. I don't know how long it will last given my school's workload, but this is the first game on it.

Edited December 3, 2011 by SuperStingray

[Jetronic]

Not sure if anyone here already knew (some of you might) but just last week a game breaking glitch was discovered that prevented you from completing the game once you started a quest involving one of the game's songs.

Sometime yesterday Nintendo officially addressed the issue with the following statement:

We have been made aware of the issue that results in being unable to progress in the Song of the Hero quest. If the game has been saved after completing the sequence of events, it will no longer be possible to proceed through the game on that save file. The only options at that point are to either start the game over or to use an earlier save file to continue.

The situation is caused by performing the following sequence of events during the Song of the Hero quest:

1. At the beginning of the quest, go to Lanayru Desert to retrieve the song of the Thunder Dragon.

2. In the Lanayru Mine, speak with Golo the Goron.

3. Complete the Thunder Dragon's event, and receive his song.

4. Before heading to the forest or volcano regions, speak with Golo in the mine again.

5. At this point, the forest and volcano events will no longer occur, making it impossible to continue.

Solutions:

• This issue WILL NOT OCCUR if the Fire and Water Dragon songs have already been collected before collecting the Thunder Dragon's song. Talking to Golo in the Lanayru Caves will also NOT trigger this issue.

• If the game has been saved after completing the sequence of events, it will no longer be possible to proceed through the game on that save file. The only options at that point are to either start the game over or to use an earlier save file to continue.

I wish I had a better answer, but I'm afraid there currently is no other fix available. I can assure, however, that we are documenting all feedback we receive on this issue. Thank you for your patience and support.

Sincerely,

Sharon Matheny

Lol, a similar type of glitch was in twilight princess. Both that and this involve someone in a cave breaking your game.

[JezMM]

^ I think we discussed that a few pages back but not sure.

It is really funny though. When I first met Golo I was immediately reminded of the glitch cave from TP, really similar envioronment. They need to stop having archeologist characters examining caves from now on. Too dangerous.

(Never got the glitch on TP mind you since I played it on the ole' cube (as it was meant to be of course 8D)).

[Marcello]

I must be extremely lucky. I almost never encounter glitches in games. Not even '06.

Edited December 6, 2011 by Christmas MaRCELLOF

[Jetronic]

^ I think we discussed that a few pages back but not sure.

It is really funny though. When I first met Golo I was immediately reminded of the glitch cave from TP, really similar envioronment. They need to stop having archeologist characters examining caves from now on. Too dangerous.

(Never got the glitch on TP mind you since I played it on the ole' cube (as it was meant to be of course 8D)).

I did see that actually, but the exact cause of the glitch was unknown until Nintendo was made aware of it.

[PSI Wind]

Not sure if anyone here already knew (some of you might) but just last week a game breaking glitch was discovered that prevented you from completing the game once you started a quest involving one of the game's songs.

Sometime yesterday Nintendo officially addressed the issue with the following statement:

Lol, a similar type of glitch was in twilight princess. Both that and this involve someone in a cave breaking your game.

I was going to do it in the order I visited the areas in the beggining anyways (Farore, Eldin, then Lanayru)

[canderson]

There was a glitch similar to this in Twilight Princess?

In that game, the glitch I encountered, had me stuck in some room with a cannon, and for some reason I was unable to leave the room. I don't remember the specifics.

Edited December 6, 2011 by canderson

[JezMM]

There was a glitch similar to this in Twilight Princess?

In that game, the glitch I encountered, had me stuck in some room with a cannon, and for some reason I was unable to leave the room. I don't remember the specifics.

That's the big glitch that people usually talk about from TP yes. If you saved at that point, the NPC you're supposed to talk to goes missing back to his original spot during that scene (outside of the room). Because he's programmed to stop you from leaving (he usually stands in the doorway at this point), you cannot leave the room, but his absence means you can't talk to him to continue the line of events.

[SuperStingray]

This reminds me of that issue in Sanctuary Fortress in Metroid Prime 2. Why do these glitches always happen LATE in the game?

[Nitwit_Speed]

Skyward Sword is absolutely incredible, i just got it. I'm not too far in, but the overworld is an awful lot of fun- I'm willing to say it's more fun than the dungeons.

I'm way too lazy to use the sword correctly, though, so the slingshot is getting a workout. Those electric bobokins- parry them, you take damage. And then they hit you while you're taking damage. I'm always glad to get those suckers right in the eye before running my poorly-used blade through them.

[Conando]

Just shield bash everything like a boss.

[Melru]

I'm way too lazy to use the sword correctly, though, so the slingshot is getting a workout. Those electric bobokins- parry them, you take damage. And then they hit you while you're taking damage. I'm always glad to get those suckers right in the eye before running my poorly-used blade through them.

That's exactly what I'm doing with them. I'm terrible at parrying because they look like they're about to attack when they actually just screw with you, and so I get hit and lose shield strength instead. The slingshot has been my friend lately.

Anyway I just made it to the third dungeon. i'm way too slow ;_;

[Death the Kid]

Haven't gotten my hand on a copy yet..but I plan to! also; thought I'd share this with you guys. apparently a game-breaking glitch has been discovered in skyward Sword near the latter part of it. basically, one of those pains in the ass where you either have to resume from an earlier save file or start from scratch. for those that haven't gotten this far yet, it's spoiler heavy! that's my only warning.

http://www.zeldainfo...ero-glitch.html

Edited December 7, 2011 by Shinigami

[speedfreak]

A few days ago I completed everything (heart pieces, goddess cubes, side quests) then I figured I'd give myself a few days to think the game over. I've come to the conclusion that, while I loved the game, it is not my favorite 3D Zelda.

I loved the story, the characters, the art style, the fact that some of the music was orchestrated, and the sword controls. However the things that I love most about the Zelda series were done better in previous entries IMHO. I'll elaborate more in spoiler tags.

Dungeons

My favorite thing about Zelda games are the dungeons. While SS dungeons 3, 4, and 5 were all pretty great the rest were only "okay" IMO. Twilight Princess had more, and some of the best dungeons in the series IMO. Though the sand ship in SS does come close, I still prefer TP dungeons overall.

Overworld

The overworld was pretty fun, but I felt the overworld to dungeon ratio was completely unbalanced. It took to much time to get into a dungeon only to wrap it up in 20-30 minutes (sometimes it was closer to an hour but not often). I feel dungeons should be the meat of the gameplay, not the overworld. I know previous Zelda's weren't completely balanced with this either, but to me it stuck out much more with SS.

I like that the overworld was more then just empty fields (though I wouldn't mind having some of them) but they really needed to connect the three areas so I didn't have to get on my bird every time I wanted to go from the forest to the mountain, or desert, etc. Also it would have been nice if there were some towns below the clouds other then Skyloft. I know the only people in the game were up there but couldn't there have been little towns for the other species?

The sky overworld was really cool to fly around in, but there wasn't nearly enough to do. 90% of the islands are tiny things with Octoroks or a chest. There were maybe 5 islands in the whole sky with anything substantial to them.

Boss Fights

Next up boss fights. SS had some great ones, but too few IMO. They reused some too many times. Ghirahim was a cool first dungeon boss and his final fight just before the final boss was different enough to let slide, but fighting him in the 6th temple with little variation over the first encounter with him was lame IMO. I wanted something unique and that fight felt pretty rehashed IMO.

The Imprisoned wasn't a very great fight the first time and we had to do it three times with little variation.

Twilight Princess had an original mini boss and big boss for every one of it's 9 (?) dungeons while Skyward Sword used a lot of normal enemies as mini bosses, used Ghirahim twice as a big boss, and didn't even have a big boss in it's final dungeon.

SS did have that cool air battle with Levias, but then TP had the three different field battles with the Ogre guy (horseback with enemies on field, joust on bridge, sword battle in burning building) and the wolf fight once you get the last of the bugs collected.

As far as final battles go the very final battle with Demise in SS was better then the very final battle with Ganondorf from TP. However I look at the entire sequence of TP as the final battle and IMO Puppet Zelda + Beast Ganon + Horse back Ganondorf + Sword fight Ganondorf > 100 bokoblins + Ghirahim + Demise.

Music

I love that they finally started using orchestrated music, but honestly the soundtrack itself wasn't the most memorable. There weren't as many catchy themes as past Zelda's IMO.

Side Quests

This is where SS easily beat TP IMO. However the sidequests in SS are still "meh" compared to the fantastic and unique things you do in Majora's Mask. I still had fun with a lot of the side quests in SS, but I admit most of it felt like fetch quest busy work. I'd love if they would do more original scenarios for side quests for future games like MM did. Defending a carriage from robbers, stopping aliens from stealing cows, helping a couple get back together, and a ton of other unique things is a lot better then "I lost this, go find it" or "I need this, go buy it".

Enemy Variation

Too many "recolors". Why are there so many types of Bokoblins? No Like-likes, no Poes, no Redeads, no Wizzrobe and worst of all no Darknuts!? They could have been the ultimate sword battle enemies!

Characters

I enjoyed just about every character in SS more then any character in TP with one gigantic exception. Midna > Fi. I really wish they would have developed Fi at least a little bit as the game went on instead of her being all robotic the entire game. They try to do this touching goodbye scene in the end but Fi shows almost no character the entire game so it was hard for me to care that she was going to sleep forever.

Final thoughts

I may should like I was disappointed but honestly I really did love the game. It's just easier to complain about what you didn't like then praise what you did. I did love more then I disliked for sure. Though with 5 years between releases I guess I did expect them to deliver a bit more.

So yeah, fantastic but not perfect game IMO. It's not my favorite Zelda but it was great. I rank every Zelda so close to one another that it hardly matters anyway. Each one does something better then the other so I love them all for different reasons. It would be nice to get one that's the "complete package" though.

P.S. I know it's the unpopular opinion but TP is still my favorite Zelda. LOVED the dungeons and boss fights and final battle to bits. Those are the things I personally find most important in a Zelda game.

Edit: I forgot one thing. The sword controls were great, but anything you have to aim with should have just used the pointer IMO. Also some of the motion controls were there when they didn't need to be, for example swimming.

Edited December 7, 2011 by speedfreak

[DistantJ]

Haven't gotten my hand on a copy yet..but I plan to! also; thought I'd share this with you guys. apparently a game-breaking glitch has been discovered in skyward Sword near the latter part of it. basically, one of those pains in the ass where you either have to resume from an earlier save file or start from scratch. for those that haven't gotten this far yet, it's spoiler heavy! that's my only warning.

http://www.zeldainfo...ero-glitch.html

Thanks mate but we've been talking about it for several pages

[Carbo]

I've never really been able to call myself a Zelda fan, even though Wind Waker is up there as one of my favorite games of all time, and I had incredibly low expectations for this game, having only seen two trailers ages before the game's release that were ridiculously underwhelming. Couple that with the fact that it's for a console I've neglected a healthy amount, I somehow bought the Wii Motion Plus edition on impulse since I had spare money. But having gotten to the Earth Temple so far, I'm really surprised how much I'm loving this. If it only gets better from here on out, it might end up being my favorite Zelda game.

Motion control is completely stupid at times though. It's probably the best game that has ever used them, but that's not really saying much and I wish there was an option to play without them.

[speedfreak]

The boss rush is nice, but after having them in both WW and TP I sure did miss a cave of ordeals equivalent for SS. Can't belive they left that out.

Edit: I worded that to sound as if WW and TP had boss rushes, which they don't. To clear any confusion I meant after having a cave of ordeals type thing in both WW and TP, it was missed in SS.

Edited December 7, 2011 by speedfreak

[canderson]

I've played TP and WW, but when you say cave of ordeals, do you mean the area when you have to beat a certain amount of enemies on each floor and will become more difficult as you progress??? I think I've did that in Windwaker, but I have yet to find an area like that in Twilight Princess....I think.

So in that spoiler is someone wrecking the final boss. I thought the battle was okay and pretty straightforward overall, but I didn't expect him to get wreck like this. It's pretty insane and quite funny.

Edited December 7, 2011 by canderson

[speedfreak]

I've played TP and WW, but when you say cave of ordeals, do you mean the area when you have to beat a certain amount of enemies on each floor and will become more difficult as you progress??? I think I've did that in Windwaker, but I have yet to find an area like that in Twilight Princess....I think.

Yeah, that's right. There is one in Wind Waker on Links' home town island and one in Twilight Princess in the desert. None in SS though.

[Old dead account]

Fucking final exams and essays have been keeping me away from this game for over a week now. Tomorrow I can get back into it. I seem to be stuck in the area outside of Eldin just shortly after you meet those mole people, I think you have to blow up this rock that's just a few feet away from what appears to be a cork blocking the lava flow. How do I pass it?

[Ekaje]

I've played TP and WW, but when you say cave of ordeals, do you mean the area when you have to beat a certain amount of enemies on each floor and will become more difficult as you progress??? I think I've did that in Windwaker, but I have yet to find an area like that in Twilight Princess....I think.

The one in TP is optional. You access it by going down a hole in the desert that's revealed after you find and return the piece of Eldin Bridge that was taken the first time you crossed it.

Edited December 7, 2011 by Ekaje

[Conando]

Canderson, he isn't that hard. I took him out just like that in Hero mode.