The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Review
August 16th,2014
Well, I fucking did
it! I beat Skyward Sword after 3 long damn years. All of my opinions are from
the standpoint of a person who was hyped as fuck and preordered this game. It
certainly had a ton of potential which was shown off well by the last 8 or so hours
if the game but it failed to capitalize on this in favor of sloppy level design
and a lack of support for motionless control. That's seriously all it would have took to make this game an 8 or 9 for
me.
The presentation and world was fine other than the fact it felt segmented due to the lands being split. I also liked how the music would ramp up with the combat, it made every strike satisfying and that's a unique mechanic. Other than that the music was ok, the skyward sword theme and skyloft theme as well as the classic Zelda theme were all well orchestrated but other that it was not that memorable and more atmospheric. The only audio thing I hated was Link's falling sound, it was annoying and terrible. Fi was sort of annoying too but I like her about as much as Navi, she just needed to not state the obvious so much.
The story was only well implemented toward the end I'd say.That's where a majority of the setup for the lore of Zelda happened and it really got me at that point. The main characters were all fine I guess. There was waaayyyy too much dialogue at certain junctures though and it could have been heavily toned back.
The graphics were also very nice and even though i didn't care for them at first, they grew on me.
The gameplay was this game's major fault I'd say. You get used to all the controls in time but the motion controls were often unresponsive with the whip and bombs a lot. I think the main culprit must be that there was a lot of level design flaws. Often the world was designed to the player's detriment. You will die a lot in this game from bullshit level design or fall and have a million hour talk about why that's bad with a knight. The overworlds were never that much fun to run around in which is bad for a Zelda game.
The dungeons were hit and miss for me. The Ancient Cistern, Sandship, and Final Dungeon were fun but that's it, the rest sucked. And that's a lot of what I have to say about this game, the second half is better than the first but retains a lot of the flaws too and they detract from my fun. There's a lot of needless bullshit like the Silent Realms and the fetch quests before dungeons.
There was one thing I found really fun though once I figured it out and that was upgrading my weapons and potions. Getting all the necessary items just engrossed me for some reason. And seeing the differences was rewarding. Bull collecting became fun with the motion control and it was a really in depth sort of stealth experience with some of them. This game also lacked a lot of the freedom of previous Zelda titles.
While Skyloft was neat little town to explore, it was the ONLY town which made the world feel hollow. The original Zelda didn't have towns but it did have a lot cool people and shops scattered around it's world to make that limitation a fine thing. Skyward Sword could have benefited from some shop characters who would show up at set locations.
That brings me to my final thoughts. While I found this game abysmal for most of my experience, something about it made me finish it. It's not a great game by any means and I probably won't be revisiting it soon but It had a lot of neat gameplay ideas that were unfortunately either botch in execution or implemented well way too late in the game. This coupled with the mostly bad overworlds and rough level design made for a tiring and tedious experience. The music was ok, nothing special. There was some fun moments but the ride was bit too long for my tastes. All the lost potential and the crippling unneeded bullshit difficulty at some points really hurt the game. Even still, I'm generously awarding it 5.5 out of 10 for some really solid moments and a great ending segment and final boss. Hopefully the next Zelda really nails it. Sorry Skyward Sword, I like you to an extent but we have some very clashing souls when it comes to your design. So much missed potential.
The presentation and world was fine other than the fact it felt segmented due to the lands being split. I also liked how the music would ramp up with the combat, it made every strike satisfying and that's a unique mechanic. Other than that the music was ok, the skyward sword theme and skyloft theme as well as the classic Zelda theme were all well orchestrated but other that it was not that memorable and more atmospheric. The only audio thing I hated was Link's falling sound, it was annoying and terrible. Fi was sort of annoying too but I like her about as much as Navi, she just needed to not state the obvious so much.
The story was only well implemented toward the end I'd say.That's where a majority of the setup for the lore of Zelda happened and it really got me at that point. The main characters were all fine I guess. There was waaayyyy too much dialogue at certain junctures though and it could have been heavily toned back.
The graphics were also very nice and even though i didn't care for them at first, they grew on me.
The gameplay was this game's major fault I'd say. You get used to all the controls in time but the motion controls were often unresponsive with the whip and bombs a lot. I think the main culprit must be that there was a lot of level design flaws. Often the world was designed to the player's detriment. You will die a lot in this game from bullshit level design or fall and have a million hour talk about why that's bad with a knight. The overworlds were never that much fun to run around in which is bad for a Zelda game.
The dungeons were hit and miss for me. The Ancient Cistern, Sandship, and Final Dungeon were fun but that's it, the rest sucked. And that's a lot of what I have to say about this game, the second half is better than the first but retains a lot of the flaws too and they detract from my fun. There's a lot of needless bullshit like the Silent Realms and the fetch quests before dungeons.
There was one thing I found really fun though once I figured it out and that was upgrading my weapons and potions. Getting all the necessary items just engrossed me for some reason. And seeing the differences was rewarding. Bull collecting became fun with the motion control and it was a really in depth sort of stealth experience with some of them. This game also lacked a lot of the freedom of previous Zelda titles.
While Skyloft was neat little town to explore, it was the ONLY town which made the world feel hollow. The original Zelda didn't have towns but it did have a lot cool people and shops scattered around it's world to make that limitation a fine thing. Skyward Sword could have benefited from some shop characters who would show up at set locations.
That brings me to my final thoughts. While I found this game abysmal for most of my experience, something about it made me finish it. It's not a great game by any means and I probably won't be revisiting it soon but It had a lot of neat gameplay ideas that were unfortunately either botch in execution or implemented well way too late in the game. This coupled with the mostly bad overworlds and rough level design made for a tiring and tedious experience. The music was ok, nothing special. There was some fun moments but the ride was bit too long for my tastes. All the lost potential and the crippling unneeded bullshit difficulty at some points really hurt the game. Even still, I'm generously awarding it 5.5 out of 10 for some really solid moments and a great ending segment and final boss. Hopefully the next Zelda really nails it. Sorry Skyward Sword, I like you to an extent but we have some very clashing souls when it comes to your design. So much missed potential.
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