[Megathread] The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

[Caiada]

I haven't played the game very far yet, but I'm going to add my opinion here:
* The graphics:
- The good: typical Zelda style, much better than the dark style from TP IMO. Love it.
- The bad: looks very pixelated here like other people have mentioned.
* The controls:
- The good: they're really intuitive. If you've played a Zelda game before, you'll pick them up right away.
- The bad: some of them are really unresponsive, to the point of infuriating.
o Flying is a bad (like someone else mentioned, the first flying quest took me 5 to 10min). Sometimes the bird goes down while you want to go up and crap like that. I also don't see the added value of tilting your wiimote instead of simply pointing it to the screen to turn either.
o Slashing is easy but dashing your sword forward hardly works. The skulltulas hanging from a thread were a nightmare to kill, hell, I lost less health on the first mini-boss than on the skulltulas (which are supposed to be common and weak enemies). The best I've managed on a skulltula hanging from a thread is loosing 2 hearths, the worst is I managed to die on one. WTF?
o The beetle seems to turn kinda slow, although that might be intentional?
* No way to skip dialogs you've already seen (has been a problem in every Zelda game so far). Hint: hold down A to make the dialog appear slightly faster.
* You get the sword and shield quite early on in the game. No bullshit like in older Zelda games where you only get a shield in the 3rd or 4th dungeon or whatever. But why does your shield disappear when broken? I mean, I can understand it taking damage, but give me a broken shield with 0 durability then which I can repair instead of having to buy a new one. That's just bullshit. And why doesn't your shield auto-equip when you upgrade it? I upgraded my shield, and afterwards noticed I didn't have one equipped. I couldn't directly find a way of equipping it, thought it got broken, got quite mad since I had just upgraded it, went up to skyloft to grind rupees in the waterfall cave for a new one, only to find out it was still in my inventory. Well I was rather relieved to see it was still in my inventory, but still quite stupid I wasted the time.
* No way to load or quit the game without dying that I found so far (except resetting it)?

Anyone else having problems with unresponsive wiimote, and if you solved them, how? I'm sitting quite close to the screen, so that might be it

I haven't had any problems with responsiveness.... The jab is just really finnicky. Sometimes I'll do it perfectly every time, others it will turn them into slashes. The skulltulas were just a pain anyway.

About your last bullet though, from the bird statue savepoints, there's the option of saving and quitting, which will take you back to the menu.

[Deleted]

About your last bullet though, from the bird statue savepoints, there's the option of saving and quitting, which will take you back to the menu.

Yeah, except:
1) I'm a perfectionist. When I loose 5/6 hearths on a stupid skulltula, I want to try again. I don't want to find the nearest bird statue to do so.
2) That requires saving. I don't want to save, I want to try again. Say I ruined 90% of my shield on a stupid skulltula, I want to try again without getting saved wit a 90% ruined shield (which was the reason I wanted to reload in the first place).

[Caiada]

Yeah, except:
1) I'm a perfectionist. When I loose 5/6 hearths on a stupid skulltula, I want to try again. I don't want to find the nearest bird statue to do so.
2) That requires saving. I don't want to save, I want to try again. Say I ruined 90% of my shield on a stupid skulltula, I want to try again without getting saved wit a 90% ruined shield (which was the reason I wanted to reload in the first place).

I see, yeah, there's no option to do so :/

[Gamdwelf]

I'm surprised at people's complaints about the motion controls, I have had almost no problems except occasionally with the sword stab move.

[skylla05]

Can't take your opinion seriously as you've only played for 30 minutes, sorry.

Judging by your location and sig, you're just a rabid fanboy that wouldn't take his opinion seriously regardless if it was 1 line, or 80 lines with perfect grammar.

He said the writing sucks, and made no mention about the actual story itself. Hurp. Zelda has always had notoriously childish writing ever since Majoras Mask. It's not going to deter me from grabbing it after work, but it's a valid complaint.

[Duruka]

Yeah, except:
1) I'm a perfectionist. When I loose 5/6 hearths on a stupid skulltula, I want to try again. I don't want to find the nearest bird statue to do so.
2) That requires saving. I don't want to save, I want to try again. Say I ruined 90% of my shield on a stupid skulltula, I want to try again without getting saved wit a 90% ruined shield (which was the reason I wanted to reload in the first place).

You mean you just want to reload the game, without saving? Hitting the reset button on the Wii should do that. Unless you mean something else.

Also, am I the only one not having many problems with jabbing? Sometimes my attacks will be wrong, but that's usually just 'cause I'm not used to these controls yet and swing the wrong ways.

[Digglett]

Judging by your location and sig, you're just a rabid fanboy that wouldn't take his opinion seriously regardless if it was 1 line, or 80 lines with perfect grammar.

He said the writing sucks, and made no mention about the actual story itself. Hurp. Zelda has always had notoriously childish writing ever since Majoras Mask. It's not going to deter me from grabbing it after work, but it's a valid complaint.

Yeah bro, totally a rabid fanboy. I mean it's not like judging a game of only 30 minutes of play is absolutely silly or anything especially since the first 30 minutes are to get you used to the controls and gameplay changes.

If he had legit reasons to hate the game, and played more than 30 minutes, I wouldn't give a shit, opinions are opinions.

I'm going to change my sig to a banana so people can stop pulling this "HAR HAR ZELDA SIG OBVIOUS FANBOI" argument, if my sig was a banana I'd still have the same opinions, so that argument always makes me laugh.

---------- Post added 2011-11-22 at 04:13 PM ----------

crap like that. I also don't see the added value of tilting your wiimote instead of simply pointing it to the screen to turn either.
o Slashing is easy but dashing your sword forward hardly works. The skulltulas hanging from a thread were a nightmare to kill, hell, I lost less health on the first mini-boss than on the skulltulas (which are supposed to be common and weak enemies). The best I've managed on a skulltula hanging from a thread is loosing 2 hearths, the worst is I managed to die on one. WTF?


Anyone else having problems with unresponsive wiimote, and if you solved them, how? I'm sitting quite close to the screen, so that might be it

The flying feels easier when you start getting used to it, it's a breeze to me now, the first time I had to fly I was awful, it might be that your controls are wonky, try sitting back a bit and not so close to the TV, see if that works.

[Ishu]

I'm going to change my sig to a banana so people can stop pulling this "HAR HAR ZELDA SIG OBVIOUS FANBOI" argument, if my sig was a banana I'd still have the same opinions, so that argument always makes me laugh.

OMG BANANA FANBOY! Your opinion on fruits is now invalid.

The flying feels easier when you start getting used to it, it's a breeze to me now, the first time I had to fly I was awful, it might be that your controls are wonky, try sitting back a bit and not so close to the TV, see if that works.

I wish I had the option of moving further back, but that would require me to completely rearrange all my furniture and that's not something I want to do just because of a game

[pmgbro]

no but he corrected his "review" about the controls but didnt amend the score. ignorance at its best.

---------- Post added 2011-11-22 at 03:11 AM ----------





---------- Post added 2011-11-22 at 03:23 AM ----------

[/COLOR]people still whine about the way it looks.... i think it looks fantastic.. so its your tv or your eyes which need "fixing" if you dont like the way it looks.. play something like skyrim imo.



that looks bad?

I can't honestly believe your game looks like that compared what I'm looking at. What tv do you have and are you using component cables?
its you, the game looks fantastic.[COLOR="red"]

[Digglett]

I wish I had the option of moving further back, but that would require me to completely rearrange all my furniture and that's not something I want to do just because of a game

Hmmm, is there anywhere you can put the censor bar? Might not need to move at all, probably just need to move the censor if you can. :<

[Duruka]

Hmmm, is there anywhere you can put the censor bar? Might not need to move at all, probably just need to move the censor if you can. :<

Does Zelda even use the censor bar? I thought it was all the Motion+.

Almost done the second temple now. I really like it so far. Rolling around on the boulder all over the place reminded me of Super Mario Galaxy 2 (if anyone even knows what I'm talking about).

[Muzjhath]

Am I the only one who started the game and did the first flying thing like a breeze and finnished it in say less than 3-5 minutes?
As for the sword thrust. At the start I had major problems with it, but it was mostly due to being to wild/unstead in my actions. Make sure you point straight to the TV when you do it with no wild motions. The area is a bit too small tbh.

I'm some 20 hours in, and on my second turn in Lanryu... that I can't propperly spell to. Going awesome, but should take some time after this for some other things, and opening some chests up in the loft. Been lazy with that.

[Ishu]

Hmmm, is there anywhere you can put the censor bar? Might not need to move at all, probably just need to move the censor if you can. :<

If the sensor doesn't need to be directly in front of me I could move it further away. But I assumed it needed to be for properly registering movement.

[Deleted]

I can't honestly believe your game looks like that compared what I'm looking at. What tv do you have and are you using component cables?
its you, the game looks fantastic.[COLOR="red"]

eh, i think it looks great.

[Loaf]

I'm playing this on a 60 in LCD tv and it looks all jagged and such. I'm not complaining, I was just expecting something more like that pic where it's smoother. Looks more like that one had special treatment to fix that jaggedness or something.

[Muzjhath]

I'm playing on a 42" LED and my picture has no flaws. It's not as sharp as the 1080p I get when using my xbox but the picture on SS is fully grainfree, no jaggedness.
Using the cable that came with my wii just plugging into the AV outlet on the side of the TV.

[Deleted]

I'm playing on a 42" LED and my picture has no flaws. It's not as sharp as the 1080p I get when using my xbox but the picture on SS is fully grainfree, no jaggedness.
Using the cable that came with my wii just plugging into the AV outlet on the side of the TV.

does 360 upscale to 1080p?

[Waylander]

no but he corrected his "review" about the controls but didnt amend the score. ignorance at its best.

---------- Post added 2011-11-22 at 03:11 AM ----------



its you, the game looks fantastic.

---------- Post added 2011-11-22 at 03:23 AM ----------

people still whine about the way it looks.... i think it looks fantastic.. so its your tv or your eyes which need "fixing" if you dont like the way it looks.. play something like skyrim imo.



that looks bad?

How is that possible? I'm using a new 38" HD-TV and component cable and my image quality on screen is not even close to this. (I enabled component cable in the Wii menu). I know this is a scaled image but Link looks almost anti-aliased etc.

[Deleted]

maybe try messing with settings.. look on forums, which have dedicated threads to trying to sort out picture problems.

[Ohly]

Beaten the game twice now, once on normal mode and once on hero mode. I have to say, it almost got better on my second time through. I'm gonna give my thoughts on the positive and negative things on the game, don't worry, it's spoiler free.

Short list of positive things:
+ The motion controls, once you get used to them, works like a charm. I have never had more fun fighting enemies in a Zelda game, although some enemies don't telegraph which direction you need to swing at them enough (I'm looking at you, Lizalfos , don't know how many damn hits I've taken from them)
+ The story gets really interesting the further you progress. They did and excellent job at keeping you in the dark regarding what's really going on. There are quite a few: "HOLYSHITOMGWTFSERIOUSLY!?" moments.
+ The orchestrated music is fantastic. The music of the second dungeon especially stands out in my mind. Also, some of the scenes that appear a bit into the game involving singing are just jaw-dropping in how beautiful they are.
+ The graphics, at least on my TV, look really good. Sure, there are a few textures that look kinda blurry if you study them up close, but Nintendo has done an amazing job with the graphics considering the kind of hardware they're working with. Easily the prettiest Wii-game to date.
+ Most of the puzzles are very clever. Even on my second time through I got stuck a few times and had to really think about how to tackle the problems when my memory failed me.


Short list of negative things:
- Some things feel like they really could have been done without the motion controls. Usually they don't feel like a gimmick, but ocassionally you just wish you could be using the control stick instead. Would have been nice to have the option of using the controls stick for certain things.
- Some things get a little repetetive after a while. Not gonna spoil anything, but there's a certain fight that gets a little tiresome. You will know it when you get there.
- Dowsing (I don't consider that a spoiler as you get the ability like 30 minutes into the game) sometimes takes away a bit of the feeling of free exploration. You tend to to jump into first-person view just scanning the area quite a bit.
- Some (read: very few) of the mini-games feel like they should not have been part of the main story, but rather be an optional thing. It sometimes feels like the game forces you to master a particular skill that's unrelated to the rest of the game just to be able to progress.


Conclusion:
While it may seem that I have pointed out quite a few negative things, that's all nit-picking. Overall, Skyward Sword is a fantastic experience. As soon as I've 100%'ed both of my current save files, I might even start up a third playthrough. I have not had this much fun with a game for years, and honestly, it might just be the best Zelda game ever.