It has the weakest dungeons of any of the 3D games imo. They range from just okay to escort style slogs
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RttP Skyward Sword: An amazing, yet flawed game. SPOILERS
- Thread starter Kinsei
- Start date
It has the weakest dungeons of any of the 3D games imo. They range from just okay to escort style slogs
Serious? One of these days I'm going to disect every single dungeon in the wind waker and point to why it is bad. From my perspective those dungeons are no where near as good as Twilight, Skyward and OoT.
How can the dungeons be good if the puzzles suck? The vast majority are extremely straightforward with not thought process required. Also wind waker gives you absolutely no incentive to explore the dungeons. IIRC Instead of finding a secret heart piece hidden in dungeons like in almost every single Zelda game, you get useless rupees..
LegendofLex
Member
For some people, motion controls are just as natural/more natural than pressing button sequences. I might as well ask "do people want to keep pressing buttons for 30-40 hours?" It's just a form of input.
skyward sword is way more flawed than wind waker, and doesn't even come close to reaching the highs of wind waker.
fi is the worst thing
the pacing is the worst thing
game had some great dungeons but also some meh dungeons
overall one of the weaker zelda experiences, alongside twilight princess
Yep. It's a really good game marred by padding, Fi's existence, and the ham-fisted and straight up forced light hearted tone. There's absolutely no reason a planet ravaged by a war between God and the devil, a war where God was losing badly, should look like fucking disney land. Come on, Nintendo.
Aside from that, I liked the story surrounding the Master Sword and the interactions between Link and Zelda, especially the
The game overall needed to be much, much darker with it's environment design considering the prologue to which the game is set only a couple decades after. The only area that gets a pass in this department is the desert.
I just want a darker Zelda game in general though :\ This series has absolutely no business being chipper and cheery like a Mario game, at least not until after Ganon is defeated.
Aside from that, I liked the story surrounding the Master Sword and the interactions between Link and Zelda, especially the
Sleeping Beauty scene.
I just want a darker Zelda game in general though :\ This series has absolutely no business being chipper and cheery like a Mario game, at least not until after Ganon is defeated.
Because it's tied to a simple yet effective parry system that comes in handy if you play more defensively and helps to mask your sword movements on enemies that track it.
GasProblem
Member
Omg you make me happy! Hopefully it gets announced at the nov 12th Direct then. Then it'll time for me to buy the Motion+ attachment I still don't have.
LegendofLex
Member
You should dread bossfights, but not quite for that reason. I dread Deviljho in Monster Hunter, but that doesn't mean that fighting it doesn't feel like a legitimate challenge.
Though i only really had issue with the third fight, couldn't get a grasp of the Groosenator.
BumblebeeCody
Member
True. I actually didn't think of parts of the story still being relevant and yeah, I forgot about the war previously told. But nothing about Skyloft made it feel special. It had the Goddess statue, but why was it just a very small limited island with a few select residents on it?
Superior? Hardly. 25 years on and I can give you a SNES controller and it'll work perfectly fine. 19 years on I can hand you a GameCube controller and play Twilight Princess, Wind Waker and everything on the Zelda collection just fine. But 20 years on, will anyone still give a crap about motion controls? Of course not. Even now Nintendo has little to no use of the Wii remote. The same can be said for Kinect and Sony's Move controller. Motion controls are and always were a fad. Because of this, Skyward Sword is a game stuck with controls from a fad era of gaming.
In 20 years time I'll still be saying "Why am I flying my Loftwing with a motion pointer on the screen when there is a clearly an unused analog stick on the nun-chuck"?
Also, I fail to believe that a single person ever had an issue with the controls. Doesn't matter how many times you can proclaim it.
If you're that one magical person who managed to NEVER miss a sword swipe, accidentally get hit by those electric Moblins when you clearly went for their open stance, had an arm ache while flying the Loftwing (specifically flying down) or never had to reset their controller with D-Pad down while dousing to stop from looking up or spinning in a circle, then yes, the controls are 100% perfect.
I'm not that bothered about the motion controls either. It's the same problem I had with Nintendo forcing terrible fad controls on games like Phantom Hourglass. A clearly working Dpad and Buttons but instead you have to hold it one handed and guide Link with a stylus. The controls are just questionable.
Because it was a game that is supposed to give a reason to the existence of a 3 well established characters and did it poorly. Well other games like OoT and ALttP talk about them in past events, Skyward Sword gave them a starting position and failed to pull it off. This also makes even less since since Minish Cap comes after the timeline which makes the forging and the Master Sword even more of a strange event in that game.
The history of the world that you're a apart of. It's clearly an established land with it's own history.
Yeah but I'm only talking about SS since it's the first in the timeline and attempts to give meaning to many different staples of the Zelda series at once.
When you make an origin story, one of the worst things you can do is make people question more about the game/media that causes contradictions.
I'm open to admitting misunderstanding some of the stuff in SS and yeah, you've did provide from good answers that I didn't even know about, but as I said before, SS is the point at which everything starts. Yet, it manages to tell a terrible story while ruining every other Zelda at the same time because of what SS does.
brandonh83
Banned
Man, I like TWW as much as the next guy but it easily had the worst set of dungeons out of all 3D Zeldas.
FireBeaver
Banned
I really like the way they portrayed Zelda in this game. It's actually one of my favorite incarnations.
Dr. Black Jack
Member
Everything about the game was the best Nintendo has ever done with the series, except the overworld which was the worst. Since the overworld is the main draw of every Zelda game for me it ended up being kind of a letdown. The huge empty sky plus geographically limited, puzzle-based outdoor sections just killed the scope of the game for me.
The controls were awesome though, really don't see how people had trouble with them unless they waggled without trying or have terrible coordination with their arms/hands. The only thing I wish was done differently was the slashing motions; it was hard to quickly change the orientation of your strikes on the fly without hitting unintended ones on the way. It should've required a held button to engage the striking mode to prevent that.
The controls were awesome though, really don't see how people had trouble with them unless they waggled without trying or have terrible coordination with their arms/hands. The only thing I wish was done differently was the slashing motions; it was hard to quickly change the orientation of your strikes on the fly without hitting unintended ones on the way. It should've required a held button to engage the striking mode to prevent that.
LegendofLex
Member
What was done poorly? Zelda's powers are finally established as coming directly from a goddess, one whose specific job it is to guard the Triforce, no less. Link's powers are established as coming from his devotion to said goddess, which is pretty much exactly where heroes are supposed to get their virtue and magical abilities in every hero myth ever. If anything, it's Ganondorf who got the shaft, since TWW hinted at some complexity behind his fall to evil and SS suggests it's because an ancient demon wants to use him as a pawn in his power struggle.
Did you think that the gods just plopped down some people called Hylians in Hyrule and say "here you go, this is Hyrule, and you live here"?
Of course the land had a history that predated the kingdom of Hyrule and its settlement by the people who owe fealty to the royal family. Even Twilight Princess alluded to this.
LttP was the "first in the timeline" when it released. It explained where the Triforce came from (created by three gods), where Hyrule came from (settled by the people chosen by the gods), where the long ears of the Hylians came from (given to them so they could hear the voices of the gods), where the hero came from (hero prophecy), where Ganon came from (human thief Ganondorf who attempted to steal the Triforce), etc. etc. It also introduced the Master Sword, Kakariko Village, Lake Hylia, the western desert, and many other series staples.
OoT was the first in the timeline when it released. It actually showed the origins of Kakariko Village (Sheikah village), the Triforce (with the creation cutscene), of Link's tunic (Kokirish clothing), the sages (a multiethnic line of magical beings, descended presumably from an even ancienter line of beings who created the Temple of Time and the Master Sword), and introduced the races, the idea of the Triforce being split when someone touches it, etc.
SS shows what Hyrule was like before the kingdom was established, what happened to the Triforce before it was sealed in the Temple of Time, how the Master Sword was created, how Zelda got her powers, and (supposedly) why Ganondorf appeared. It also introduces a bunch of pre-Hyrule races.
I don't see what's so different about SS, other than that it didn't meet your fantasies of what Hyrule was like pre-kingdom.
Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and A Link Between Worlds all contain more egregious contradictions than Skyward Sword.
OoT outright contradicted the accounts of the war to seal Ganon as told in LttP. In LttP's story, there was no hero who appeared to save the land, Ganon got the entire Triforce (and still had it by the time of LttP), and the sages were all human old men. How did Ganon wind up with the entire Triforce between OoT and LttP? It was never explained when OoT came out.
TWW contradicted the aftermath of the war to seal Ganon by creating an entirely new divergent story where Hyrule was destroyed by a flood. This was so irreconcilable with the OoT-LttP timeline originally established when OoT released that they had to invent an entirely new timeline with a BS justification just to get LttP to still fit in the game's story universe. None of this was explainable when TWW came out; they had to introduce the idea in Hyrule Historia, or fans had to assume that it was just another legend and legends sometimes contradict or diverge from each other.
TP straight up handwaved the entire child ending of OoT by saying "oh, Ganondorf got the Triforce anyway, even though you prevented him from entering the Sacred Realm." This still hasn't been explained, by the way.
ALBW attempts to reconcile the story of LttP with the story of OoT by introducing multiracial sages, but then for some reason the Triforce is presented as split up between Ganon, the hero, and Zelda, even though this is not at all the case in the original LttP-LoZ-AoL timeline - the Royal Family keeps the fully united Triforce after the events of LttP. How did Ganon wind up with the Triforce between LttP and ALBW? It's never explained.
SS contains no raw contradictions.
- There's no reason why the hero prior to TMC had to wear a hat; SS never establishes hats as a prerequisite for heroes. Even TMC doesn't really establish a "rule" as much as it establishes a cute little fairy tale "origin" for the hat. In TWW/TP, the tunic is specifically defined as having previously been worn by/belonged to the hero of legend (OoT Link, in the context of both stories, who wore it as a Kokiri). So if anything, TMC already screwed the idea of in-universe continuity behind the hero's garb to hell even before SS came along.
- The Master Sword is implied to have been recreated from a less powerful state (it's called the Master Sword as if that name existed previously), and the SS manga shows it being used prior to SS; there's no reason why seven ancient sages couldn't have still forged it as told in older media.
- No one ever explained why Link/Zelda/Ganon always incarnate to battle over the Triforce. So SS talking about this contradicts... what, exactly?
I didn't hate the controls in this game, but I didn't think it added anything to the game either.
Besides moblins running up to you and blocking in a certain way that allows you to swing and damage them in a certain way.
the only time I really had any trouble was with the swimming. god damn that was terrible.
Motion controls can go. they aren't needed at all.
Besides moblins running up to you and blocking in a certain way that allows you to swing and damage them in a certain way.
the only time I really had any trouble was with the swimming. god damn that was terrible.
Motion controls can go. they aren't needed at all.
it doesn't help that at the same time in 2011 I was playing Dark Souls, aka the best third person sword and shield combat controls ever in a video game
I used to think Wind Waker was the best Zelda some years ago, but don't lie.
Every dungeon had two treasure charts, and the Tingle statues, dunno what you are on.
this is really wrong
this is wrong too
Wind Waker has consistently good dungeons, but nothing really great. There is no Forest Temple, Stone Tower Temple, Snowpeak Ruins or Sandship. I thought the dungeons where you had to use the partner characters were especially unique and had a lot of creative puzzles. They definitely could have been better, though. Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword have it beat in the dungeon department... but that's the only department where those two games have Wind Waker beat.
Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
My fave zelda as well.
It's the only Zelda game I've played that I didn't like and I think it was mainly due to my frustrations with the controls since the enemies actually demand you to actually be able to swing specific ways. I could not get the game to read my inputs consistently and it made every fight a pain in the ass and not enjoyable. It was so bad I thought my controller was broken so I got another one and nothing changed. I tried using big exaggerated swings to using small tiny movements with just my wrists and everything in between I could think of and nothing seemed to improve it. Often I would swing left to right and it went up and down instead. It also inverted itself at random where up was down and down was up. I did not have a good experience with it.
I liked Skyward Sword just fine but I haaaated the controls. It felt like a chore playing it, at no point did I ever think the controls were fun. I liked the story though. Fighting the same bosses multiple times felt like a slog. Really didn't enjoy the flying stuff, took too long and the motion controls on that felt unneeded. I still enjoyed the game overall but it didn't really hold a candle to Wind Waker for me.
Damon Bennet
Member
Holy fuck did I hate the backtracking and the tear-search or whatever it was. almost made me quit the game.
I really loved the world though. I hoped it would be more like wind waker in terms of exploration. the school-ish setting where the game starts is amazing, I want a movie about that. but some things were just shitty and could have been much much better
I really loved the world though. I hoped it would be more like wind waker in terms of exploration. the school-ish setting where the game starts is amazing, I want a movie about that. but some things were just shitty and could have been much much better
LegendofLex
Member
Eh...
- SS has a better town than any of the towns in TP or TWW
- SS's themed hub areas (Woods, Volcano, Desert, Sand Sea) tend to be more fleshed out on average than analogs in TWW (islands) or TP (every area that isn't Lake Hylia or Gerudo Desert; Death Mountain, Faron Woods, and Snowpeak in particular are really just corridors)
TWW's ocean/TP's field are better than SS's sky, though, and that makes a damn huge difference.
My fav Zelda so far.
Everyone always complains about the tadtones but I loved that section. Seeing the woods flooded in 100ft of water was amazing, and they way the swimming mechanic works it basically feels like you get to fly through it. I also liked the Imprisoned fights, seeing as how I fought it differently each time. The last encounter was amazing.
edit: I'm really gonna miss the motion controls too lol. Skyward Sword was the most fun I've had with a videogame, and the wiimote was a big part of that.
Everyone always complains about the tadtones but I loved that section. Seeing the woods flooded in 100ft of water was amazing, and they way the swimming mechanic works it basically feels like you get to fly through it. I also liked the Imprisoned fights, seeing as how I fought it differently each time. The last encounter was amazing.
edit: I'm really gonna miss the motion controls too lol. Skyward Sword was the most fun I've had with a videogame, and the wiimote was a big part of that.
skLaFarebear
Member
Its gonna be hard to go back to mashing B to swing a sword. SS's controls were flawless and the enemies/bosses designed around those sword controls were so fun to fight.
I guess that's true. The town never came to mind because, while it's technically better than the towns in TP and WW, I wouldn't call it great by any means. It was totally forgettable by the time I finished the game imo. The N64 game still has it beat in that department, which is unacceptable considering MM was 11 years old when SS was released.
this is literally my opposite LOL
fuck the tadtones and the terrible swimming controls and FUCK fighting that ugly ass boss 4 god damn times. padding at its worst.
jesus christ wtf
Oh yeah I apologize I do remember the map pieces. Since I was turned off by the sailing, I had no desire to explore the islands.
Skyward Sword is good. Admittedly its pretty difficult to get back into twilight/skyward as the game starts off really slow. The controls felt rewarding after getting used to it, I remember being real frustrated with the Ghirahim fight. There are problems with the controls but much more interactive than the traditional controls imo. I loved how everything was a puzzle, even the enemies in SS. Problem is there's a lot of tediousness that will get on your nerves.
I loved outside portions and the dungeons for the most part. Figuring out how to get to the dungeons was a great addition which I hope they keep in Zelda U. The padded portions can't be defended. Overall I think it's good, probably the most fun Zelda game for me. Exactly like op says it has a ton of flwas, but there's a lot of good stuff in the game. 8.5/10 for me.
Since its back to traditional controls, hopefully combat is improved.
zero shift
Banned
Sorry facts are facts.
For shooting things: Keyboard and Mouse > Analog
For slashing things: Motion Controls > Buttons
Just because something didn't become standard doesn't mean it isn't superior. There have been plenty of interactions methods for games FAR superior to the gamepad but they never caught on due to convenience. Also motion controls never died. Many aspects of them are standard in modern controllers, just look a Splatoon.
I didn't. It was perfectly accurate. It reminds me of the arguments of people claiming that a mouse isn't as accurate as analog, it just isn't true.
Dark Souls would be far better with motion controls.
I totally agree. It has the highest highs out of any Zelda game I've played, but also the lowest lows. No other mainline Zelda game has made me go "this is fucking stupid bullshit" at some points.
I also have a mild grief with the fact that the swordfighting was effectively a "look for the angle that the game wants you to hit and then swing at that angle" minigame that didn't change much throughout the entire game, regardless of the enemies you fought.
I'm still of the opinion that if the Wii launched with this game, that console would've been thought of much more highly than it is (isn't?) now.
But yeah, Skyward Sword would've been the best 3D Zelda only if they cut the last 5 hours of that game...
Ah, who am I kidding? Skyward sword is still the best 3D Zelda - warts and all... It's just the tad notes sucks so freaking hard.
But yeah, Skyward Sword would've been the best 3D Zelda only if they cut the last 5 hours of that game...
Ah, who am I kidding? Skyward sword is still the best 3D Zelda - warts and all... It's just the tad notes sucks so freaking hard.
pinkurocket
Member
Great controls and puzzles. Loved how everything was designed from overworld to dungeons. Greatly held back by the annoyances that slow everything down like that damn dowsing, notifications resetting every time you restart etc. Those controls though, they are so amazing. I wish Nintendo would explore that even more, perhaps not with Zelda but a different/new IP. It felt so good. I don't even know if we'll ever have that again, depends on what controls the NX will push.
Also the artstyle failed to reach it's full potential on the weak Wii. I'd love to see footage of what they actually would've liked it to look like in HD. Not just upscaled through Dolphin, which messes up or just gets rid of some of the subtle effects where the background blends away like a water painting. I did notice those recent Zelda orchestras display rerendered HD footage of the game, but I don't know if those are available anywhere.
Also the artstyle failed to reach it's full potential on the weak Wii. I'd love to see footage of what they actually would've liked it to look like in HD. Not just upscaled through Dolphin, which messes up or just gets rid of some of the subtle effects where the background blends away like a water painting. I did notice those recent Zelda orchestras display rerendered HD footage of the game, but I don't know if those are available anywhere.
LegendofLex
Member
Truthfully, I don't think any Zelda game since MM has had a particularly great town. But SS's was at least pleasant; TWW's ranged from rote to pointless, and TP's were pretty poor all around.
You just answered your own question. You clearly can see why people have trouble with the controls.
You have to move your sword to a new position fast enough to take advantage of an opening but not so fast that you trigger a slash, and then slash from the new position to get the right angle, and even then you might be slightly off mark and get a different angle.
Or say you're doing the bamboo cut mini-game and realize that slashing too fast will actually make you perform worse since the Wiimote starts to fall behind.
I don't want to be rude, but I also don't believe the people who say the controls work 100% of the time. I'd settle for BBC's 98%. It's not unplayable and it's not without its merits, but I really just vastly prefer traditional controls that melt into your hands and just erase that aspect of thinking about what to do and fumbling. Trying to replicate real motion in-game with limited, fake motion with a bunch of restrictions to keep in mind is nowhere near as automatic as a standard setup.
Davey Cakes
Member
It was a 60-hour game for me on only one playthrough and I enjoyed the controls the entire way, except for the swimming where I couldn't keep calibration for some reason.
The controls were fun for a lot of us. They weren't particularly exhausting, either.
Going by the OT and countless LTTP threads, it was clear that the game controlled in a divisive manner. Some people wouldn't have it any other way. Some would want the new scheme banished for life. It was quite a thing to see.
pinkurocket
Member
Yea, well, just like in games where you need to properly time your button presses for the attacks to get registered, you have to be aware of when to strike with the Wiimote to make it work for the game. When you button mash in a game, like in WW, Link will only attack at his own pace. You can be mashing the button 10 times, and Link does 4 sword slashes.
It's a different mindset that you have to get into to get the controls to work. Yea, sure, it's wonky at times and the calibration is a little annoyance, but overall if you can get into it. It really is an awesome and unique way to play a game.
brandonh83
Banned
LegendofLex is a badass, puttin' my fandom to shame.
gooderthanu
Member
I hated the game as well. I'm one of many that have played every Zelda game that has come out (except cdi versions) and it's one of my least favorites. I also didn't phantom hourglass or spirit tracks(didn't even finish). One of my favorite things is exploration which none of these really had. Same with TP but the dungeons were so amazing that I had a good time. I hated the desert robot people. Getting to temples was agonizing with those sneaking missions. Tad tones sucked. Collecting the bugs on that island was OK but everything was so linear! Little to no exploration.
On the flipside Lttp, Oot, and majoras mask are my favorites with mm being way up there with amazing sidequests.
On the flipside Lttp, Oot, and majoras mask are my favorites with mm being way up there with amazing sidequests.
Ubisoft is somewhere crying.
To be fair, it would have been a janky mess without Wii Motion Plus
skLaFarebear
Member
Yeah I see it now. IIRC, Skyward Sword was supposed to release pretty close to Motion Plus but got hit with a few delays. It's pretty unfortunate
The controls never bothered me, the sparse overworld and having to revisit the three main areas twice did. Never really liked the music much either when that was always a huge part of a great Zelda game.
I got up to the flying dragon (?) in that big storm and just never bothered to finish it.. I should really look up the ending on Youtube someday.
I got up to the flying dragon (?) in that big storm and just never bothered to finish it.. I should really look up the ending on Youtube someday.
gooderthanu
Member
The final final boss fight was pretty good though. But not as much as Oot or so.