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[Yoshi]

It has the following faults:
- It has added a stamina bar
- It has added some rudimentary forging

Nothing else and these things play rather miniscule roles. I think Skyward Sword is the best Zelda game there is. It has a fantastic pacing with almost no empty space, the world design is packed with interesting puzzles and the overworld was designed in a way to really always offer fresh gameplay content even on revisits. My absolute favourite moment was when I had to revist the volcano area the last time and was strapped of my items and had to figure out how to traverse the environment with a completely different toolset. Even though I hate stealth and this was the stealth moment in SS, I was absolutely in awe how masterful the design was to accomodate for these very different playthroughs of the areas, offering completely distinct puzzles. Also Skyward Sword came up with a lot of new puzzles that were not present in previous Zeldas and offered even a completely new style of puzzles, the large environmental puzzles

There is nothing (serious) wrong with Zelda SS's design, only with its reception.

EDIT: Regarding the padding: Mechanically I don't see where there is padding in SS. Presentational, maybe, but gameplay wise each revisit of a location (bar the one short trip to the first dungeon, which was still part of a fantastic puzzle) was filled with new, unique gameplay content. This also holsd for the Imprisoned, that is fought three times, but it's still three different sets of behaviour, that are not even strictly iterative (I find the second phase the hardest).

 

[tryagainlater]

Skyward Sword is a weird game for me. Every Tim I think of something good about it, I think of something bad about. I liked the dungeons (outside of the first sand one which is very boring) but disliked the constant backtracking. I liked Skyloft but the Sky as an over world was horribly disappointing.

The Sky being a bad over world may be the worst thing for me. They had a cool little connection between the surface and sky with the block things that would make chests appear on the Sky islands. Then you fly there, drop onto the island, walk 2 feet and open the chest. Wind Waker being my favourite Zelda, I just can't understand why there weren't little puzzles for each island that made them unique and memorable. Were they added late in production or something? At least BOTW seems to be making up for that.

Still, there isn't much I hate about the game. Fi is terrible and fighting that monster is the worst. I returned Hyrule Warriors when I saw he was in the game (granted, I wasn't enjoying it much up to that point). I actually really liked the silent realm stuff. Actually found it quite engaging but I suppose starting over again if you fucked up would be annoying. Even though I mentioned the backtracking as a negative above, I still was never bothered by it that much. I thought they were reasonably creative in changing up the areas on return. Didn't even mind swimming for those tadtones.

It's a good game. Nothing more, nothing less. The person who said it's a Zelda game that's just there is right. Also, put me on team liked the motion controls.

 

[SirDecoy]

One issue I had with the game was the harp and it made me notice a negative trend since the N64 Zeldas: the playable musical instruments have gotten simpler over time.

-In Ocarina of Time you could play around on a full note scale I believe and learn songs, really enjoyed playing with it. I'm lumping Majora's Mask here since it had the same system but added more instruments, so that's cool.

-Wind Waker you were limited to four notes and restricted to a beat.

-Wolf Link had to choose between three howl notes.

-Skyward Sword you waved the wiimote at a certain speed and had no control of pitch.

(I may be wrong on this list)

I understand the musical instruments aren't necessarily integral to the Zelda series formula and that Nintendo is perhaps trying to make them more approachable but I miss their inclusion and didn't enjoy the harp at all.

 

[dragonzdogma]

Bought a Wii U for Christmas,
I had never played Skyward Sword, or Twilight Princess
Finished both back to back first SS clocking in at 63hrs, TP 52hrs

Here are my scores(Game pro style)/foot notes.

SKYWARD SWORD

Points taken off for constantly repeating dialog box when finding useless materials,or red/blue/gold rupees. (sometimes interrupting battles)

Motion controls work well, however I feel that some elements could have been better with out them (such as riding the bird)

Weapon variation was weak compared to even older games
such as Ocarina of time & link to the past.

FI kinda tells you the obvious way to many times to the point that the character becomes unlikable.

I was surprised how repetitive boss fights are and locations.

The story is nothing special/repetitive and predictable with a very bad villain
and a very disappointing final boss that couldn't even top Ocarina of time.

sky diving properly has a very bad learning curve ( luckily it was only needed for side quest)

Exploration is very limited and the rewards are predictable and useless.
Pieces of hearts simply make the game easier ,and all other materials are useless since you really don't need the shield that often.

Regular enemy variation was very poor all I remember is bat,blob,and native looking troll,plants.

Once you beat the game you unlock "hero mode" but all it does Enemies will deal 2x damage and will not drop hearts upon defeat. Not really worth a second run.

TWILIGHT PRINCESS

Points taken off for constantly repeating dialog box when finding red/blue/gold rupees. (sometimes interrupting battles)

The wolf could have been assigned to a button instead of having to repeat midna dialog
vise versa when becoming human.

Exploration is good but the rewards are predictable and useless.
Pieces of hearts simply make the game easier and ruppes are not that hard to obtain.

Finding light bugs game play repetition

Shadow Beasts repetition to unlock warp points

Ability to warp way to early in the game made Epona useless

wolf abilities could have actually been giving to Midna (such as tracking(smell ability)/senses and all that) to avoid repetition of having to switch from human to wolf.

Bad pacing during the whole magic wand looses it's powers arc story.

No new game plus,no second quest?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overall the Fun factor is solid in both games,
But I honestly had to reconsider the score for SS after playing TP,
SS came out 4 years later and I think it felt short compared to TP in terms of game play/enemy variation/weapons/exploration.

The legend of Zelda IMO needs to reconsider the rewards it gives to the players when finding treasure chest in the vast world (pieces of hearts does not cut it anymore)
perhaps they can find inspiration in games like dragons dogma,and reward gamers with abilities like Dragons dogma, to fully customize Link with stronger bows/armor/speed/abilities/Magic and such.

I strongly feel that the LOZ does not have to go back to motion controllers as I only feel that it will hinder the experience of the main line series.

Perhaps some of you wont agree with me,
but I do feel that the majority of us feels that the next Zelda needs evolve while maintaining it's iconic personalty.

Here's my review.

 

[Labrynian Rebel]

1. The world isn't interconnected, simply having a cave or a river that allowed you to walk from Lanayru Gorge to Eldin Volcano would do wonders for world-building

2. No significant floating islands besides Skyloft. Why do they have a huge bird-riding culture? Where are they flying to? Is it all to visit the Pumpkin place?

3. Fi spells out exactly what you need to do, without you asking her, that's fine for a tutorial, but this is present during the entire game. The % stuff was fun and added personality to Fi, but it's better to have "It's 97% that this plant isn't Zelda" than "It's 79% that you need to go through the red door at the desert place to talk to the Deku Tree"

Skyward Sword has it's faults, but it's still one of my favorite Zelda games.

 

[jluedtke]

It's one of the most forgettable games in the series, IMO. And it felt like it would never end...in a bad way. The last third of the game was so unnecessarily padded and it was a battle of wills for me to finish.

Plus, remember that "find the musical notes" bit? Oof...the worst.

Oh but there was this asshole

Ugh! That guy... When he showed up in Hyrule Warriors, I shut off the game and never played it again.

 

[CrazyHal]

- Game treats you like a baby

- Horrible pacing

- For the majority of the story, we have no idea what the heck is happening and why we're doing the things that we do.

- Fi

- Fighting the same boss's multiple times

- Lots of padding

- Motion controls can sometime be fustrating.

- Backtraking.

- FUCKING FI YES I KNOW THAT THE BATTERIES IN MY WIIMOTE ARE ALMOST DEAD STOP TELLING MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

 

[watershed]

I wonder how much/many of the games flaws can be seen as the result of being a Wii game, an era when Nintendo worked especially hard to simplify controls and game systems and over-explain things to their audience. Fi for instance is a huge hand-holder.

 

[Nuu]

Glad you had a great experience but just because you had a flawlessly calibrated set of controls doesn't mean others did.
Like many I had a game of constant battle dealing with the sword drifting out of calibration or just randomly flying up in the air for no reason. It was the first Zelda game where I didn't feel part of the world as the calibration issues kept pulling me out from having fun.

I still tried to enjoy my time and when the motion controls worked it was great, but there was just far too many moments of frustration which ultimately left me wishing for a non motion set of controls.

So because you had busted motion controls that means the games controls were bad? That makes sense...

 

[jabberwocker]

So because you had busted motion controls that means the games controls were bad? That makes sense...

It makes sense in that a lot of people had issues with that game and the motion controls. Link would sometime just do whatever the hell he wanted it seemed. This isn't an isolated instance and the game sucked because if it.

 

[watershed]

So because you had busted motion controls that means the games controls were bad? That makes sense...

If you're trying to pretend that the issues with Skyward Swords' motion controls are imagined or the fault of gamers you should let that go. Lots of people had problems with the controls because the controls had problems. Its unfortunate but true. The sword combat controls and other motion schemes were never as reliable as button controls. There was enough irregularity for it to be a widespread issue throughout the game for a ton of players.

 

[Asiratlan]

Honestly, to me (and I played every Zelda game except Four Sword on Gamecube), Skyward Sword's biggest problem lies in it's universe. Skyloft is wayy to underused in the game except for Side Quest purpose, the creatures living in Hyrule are not interesting at all. I miss the good old Zora/Goron/etc. The overworld is empty of people yes, but it was totally on purpose of creating an Hyrule with almost no human living there and I have no problem with that. Maybe giving a bit more life to the world with actual Zelda's creature seen in the past game could make it a better experience, or giving more background story about the civilisation that lived before could actually give a lot of interest into this new world.

 

[Afrocious]

This is the only 3D Zelda game I have no desire to return to and play. The dungeons were cool, but I didn't see the point of scrapping hubs for the individual races of beings you find for puzzles. They end up leading into more puzzles in the dungeons. Maybe I'm conditioned to think that puzzles in Zelda games are mostly exclusive to being in dungeons whereas everything outside of dungeons involve talking to NPCs, buying items, exploring around.

Fighting the Imprisoned...I dunno why we needed to take him on as much as the game made us. Reoccurring boss fights can work in some games, but SS did it worse than DMC4 which is saying a lot. Also, looking at the Imprisoned annoyed me. I was supposed to be intimidated by this thing, but it had huge cartoon toes for weak spots. Not to say Zelda needs to be edgy and serious, but I was confused as to what I was supposed to feel seeing this thing.

That said, the visuals in the game were so odd and clashing, which I think came from Nintendo trying to go for a good marriage between Wind Waker's cel-shading cartoony style and Twilight Princess' more realistic style. However character and enemy designs got too absurd or unremarkable (I don't remember a single boss in SS aside from the final boss, Imprisoned, and lazy looking one-eyed sea monster, and some glass doll thing with swords). Link and the other human-like NPCs were more normal looking and everything else was sort of zany like those raccoon things, like they were ripped straight from WW. Link's normalcy clashes with the things he's fighting in a negative way, so it felt like I was playing some bright colored weird ass cartoon.

WW did it better because even Link and Zelda were cartoony like everything else.

Fi was terrible as well but enough people have pointed her out already.

 

[watershed]

Honestly, to me (and I played every Zelda game except Four Sword on Gamecube), Skyward Sword's biggest problem lies in it's universe. Skyloft is wayy to underused in the game except for Side Quest purpose, the creatures living in Hyrule are not interesting at all. I miss the good old Zora/Goron/etc. The overworld is empty of people yes, but it was totally on purpose of creating an Hyrule with almost no human living there and I have no problem with that. Maybe giving a bit more life to the world with actual Zelda's creature seen in the past game could make it a better experience, or giving more background story about the civilisation that lived before could actually give a lot of interest into this new world.

Yeah the overworld was more a series of gameplay zones with more level like designs than organic landforms which hurt the immersion factor. That and revisiting areas felt like a chore. I liked the novelty of every area being a series of challenges but it felt like beating a level more than traversing a world and once I beat any particular area, I really didn't want to do it again.

 

[CrowdChant]

This is the only mainline Zelda game that I never finished, and I'm a huge Zelda fan. I got so frustrated with the motion controls at times and finally got sidetracked by other game releases and never went back to it.

I'd love an official remaster without the necessity of motion controls. Obviously that would require a lot of reworking of core mechanics so I don't know how likely it is that it will ever happen.

 

[jabberwocker]

This is the only mainline Zelda game that I never finished, and I'm a huge Zelda fan. I got so frustrated with the motion controls at times and finally got sidetracked by other game releases and never went back to it.

I'd love an official remaster without the necessity of motion controls. Obviously that would require a lot of reworking of core mechanics so I don't know how likely it is that it will ever happen.

Not really stab, side swing, overhead swing. They basically did the same thing but it was in reverse as the player made the standard swing types.

 

[PtM]

I wonder how much/many of the games flaws can be seen as the result of being a Wii game, an era when Nintendo worked especially hard to simplify controls and game systems and over-explain things to their audience. Fi for instance is a huge hand-holder.

Oh, I would bet a kidney on it (not really). Remember that they stretched TP's tutorial from one to three days for the Wii audience, and gave them a "practice bow". This is the same era where they reminded Mario in the middle of water how to swim, just in case of spontaneous Alzheimer.

 

[Jigorath]

It was such a dull game. The pacing was horrible. Worst mainline Zelda by far.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Skyward Sword is the most underrated game in the series.

 

[Neoleo2143]

In my opinion, the only explicit "padding" in Skyward sword was returning to the Skyview temple. Otherwise, it has a slow introduction but once the game gets going, it goes fine and constantly introduces new challenges and situations at a consistent pace.

I also like the story. It has some issues, but the way they built up Zelda's character development and how they characterized Link to work within the themes so well was brilliant.

Also I dunno why people hate the imprisoned. There's a bunch of ways to beat the guy and the fight always changes each time you fight him.

 

[AppleSeason]

I've been playing A Link Between worlds these days, and it makes you appreciate some things where Skyward Sword shines:

- The dungeons

- Most boss fights are incredible, except for the guy reading your sword position to counter and the recurring imprisoned battles.

For me getting rid of the imprisoned (time limited fight with too much room for failure when jumping or aiming since it's basically Shadow of the colossus without a grab button) and the padding between dungeons would have saved the game. Just look at Link to the Past, my favourite Zelda: You can just go from dungeon to dungeon without having to worry about stuff. Or even with Ocarina, there probably was padding and stuff to do between dungeon, but it never was as obvious of a timewaster as in Skyward Sword with "find 999 goron pubic hairs with dowsing, then in the middle backtrack to fix a robot you need to get that las pube".

Also I dunno why people hate the imprisoned. There's a bunch of ways to beat the guy and the fight always changes each time you fight him.

In my case, same reason I haven't played Dead Rising: Time limits are stressing, little room to fuck up on the last two encounters (that happen with less than 30 minutes between them). And every time you fuck up a jump or you fall of from the bottom you have to waste a lot of time again getting in the right place. It's pretty much unfair when you fall off while hitting the nail on the head.

You leave colossi for SOTC. Or God of War.