I got my review copy of Skyward Sword in late last week and ever since then I have been furiously playing through the game at every given opportunity. After completing the game late last night I finally feel that I am ready to post my review of what many are calling the “Wii’s Swan Song.”
Before I start, I would like to say that Skyward Sword is an overall wonderful experience and certainly deserves to be up for Game of the Year. However the game is not without its faults and it will not be receiving a perfect score here on this site. With that stated, I will now break things down into various categories of discussion.
Skyward Sword’s Graphics
I decided to start with this because many fans have been giving Skyward Sword a hard time because of the art style that Nintendo went with. Many were shocked that Skyward Sword would not be getting an updated version of Twilight Princess’ art style, but that’s done with. It is not happening so move on.
Skyward Sword does not really feel like a cartoon in the way that The Wind Waker did. In fact it feels more like an abstract version of Ocarina of Time. So there really should not be any complaints about the art style. It is not kiddy by any means and in fact I think some younger kids may even have trouble playing the game because of the controls.
However, back to the point, Skyward Sword does not lose any points because of its art style, but there are still problems with the graphics that should be addressed. It is 2011 now and games are expected to have a certain level of detail and quality. While playing Skyward Sword I could not help but feel for the Wii. This was the first time that I have seen a game and actually thought to myself that it deserved better. The Wii just could not handle the level of detail that Skyward Sword deserves and it is through this game that you will realize (if you have not already) that the Wii is severely out of date and is in need of a replacement.
One of the first things I noticed when starting my quest was that you can literally see the jagged edges around characters. When Link is standing still one can see pixels sticking off of him. Many character models all seem to suffer from this trait but Link is definitely the most notable.
Environments are not safe from this either. Gamers will notice that anything not right there in front of them will appear blurry in the distance. This is especially highlighted in several of the cinematic cut-scenes to showcase a newly discovered area. To me it was most noticeable in the Lanayru Desert.
So while the game does not look horrible, there are definitely areas that need improvement. And I really do not want to point blame at the game as much as I do the console that it is on. I merely think that the Wii could not handle a game quite like Skyward Sword.
Skyward Sword Story
One of the areas that Skyward Sword really shines at is its plot and direction. Fans were hooked the moment we found out it took place before Ocarina of Time and that it revolved around the creation of the Master Sword. Taking things back to their roots seems to be a popular occurrence right now and Nintendo really hit the nail on its head with this one.
Now this will have some spoilers in it, so if you do not want to have some of the plot ruined then just skips past this section.
Skyward Sword tells the story of Link and Zelda who live up in the sky on an island called Skyloft. Legends speak of a time when life existed below the clouds but that is all in the far past and most know nothing of these legends. After Zelda is kidnapped while flying Link is thrust into an adventure that has him going to the surface and trying to track down and protect Zelda from a demon named Ghirahim.
Ghirahim wants Zelda’s soul to revive his master, known as Demise. Before the creation of Skyloft people used to live on the surface. But then Demise decided he wanted to gain the power of the Triforce and began a war. The Goddess Hylia was unable to properly defeat him but was able to send the humans to safety in the sky while she sealed him away.
Knowing that the seal would one day break Hylia, gave up her immortality and put it into a human form…Zelda. A whole scheme begins to unfold with Zelda (Hylia) awakening to her true form, Link creating the Master Sword, and gathering the Triforce, and finally a showdown with Demise and Ghirahim.
Now, the plot itself is solid and one of the most creative in the Zelda franchise so far. However the real kicker to me was the ending. As Demise is defeated, he places a curse on Zelda and Link where his hatred will live on forever and will always find them. This is highly suggested as being the story of Ganondorf’s creation. Ganondorf is literally a humanoid form of the hatred that Demise cursed them with.
Now the plot is not without fault either. Skyward Sword tends to lean heavily on long cinematic cut-scenes to tell its story. However, anything outside of a cut-scene is basically devoid of plot. There is also little background information given on Demise. Why was he evil? Who exactly is Ghirahim? How exactly was Hyrule (the surface) created? Etc etc. There is no real back-story to why we are doing things.
With Twilight Princess we had several cut-scenes that took us back to look at events from the past. We had the story of the interlopers being sealed away. We had Ganondorf’s execution attempt. And much more. I know that I was looking forward to Skyward Sword because I thought it was the first Zelda game and there would possibly be no more lingering questions. That however is not the case and to me the plot suffers a bit from that. Not much, but a little.
Character Development
Character development is another fairly strong area for Skyward Sword. For the first time ever, Link and Zelda have a real relationship outside of hero saving princess. Zelda is in fact not a princess at all at any point during the game. The two of them grew up together in Skyloft and it is heavily hinted that she has some loving feelings towards him. Link’s feelings towards her are not as clear but if anything he certainly has some interest.
Link and Zelda’s relationship seems to be the most important connection in the game and therefore the most emphasis is put onto the two of them. And with this we have some of the more touching moments in the game. However, due to this, the development of other characters takes a hit.
The first and foremost is Link’s tag-a-long partner Fi. Fi is essentially an emotionless being with the sole purpose of assisting Link. She was actually created by the Gods to do just that. However, her lack of emotions was not well developed or expressed. Throughout the entire game she would pop up and make probability estimates on the percentage of chance that an event could happen if we took a course of action. I personally did not find this amusing and not even creative. To me it was a lack of effort.
Maybe Nintendo did this so Fi would not retract from Link and Zelda’s relationship. After all, some of the best connections in the Zelda series have been with Navi and Midna (other tag-a-long partners). However, at the end of the game, as Fi returns to Link’s sword to sleep for eternity, she expresses that she feels happiness for the first time in her existence. I felt like this was a tacked on moment in an attempt to stir an emotional response. Not at any point in the game did Fi show any form of emotion and not ant any point did gamer’s have any chance to connect with her. Due to this I felt nothing there at the end as she went to sleep forever.
Next I would like to talk about Ghirahim. Many were worried that he would suffer from Zant-syndrome and just be another puppet to his master. However that is not the case. In fact Ghiarahim’s master, Demise, felt more tacked on than Ghirahim himself did. His personality was fantastic and just enjoyable all the way through. Some of the best dialog and cut-scenes in the game revolved around Ghirahim and it was nice to see an antagonist so actively involved throughout the game for once.
Now with Demise, as I said in the plot section, I would have liked to see more about him. Granted he was only around for about 15 minutes of the game, but some kind of back story or motivation would have made him feel more real.
Lastly we have Groose and Impa. Both characters were nice additions and it was great to see Groose totally transform from a bully to an honest caring guy. His crack about calling the game the “Legend of Groose” was priceless as well. Impa as we all know, is a Sheikan guardian to protect Zelda. I will not spoil the ending for you, but after seeing it you will have a much greater appreciation for Impa.
Changes to the Series
One of the biggest selling points to Skyward Sword was how the general Zelda formula was going to be getting an overhaul. That however is not necessarily the case. We heard throughout the entire process that it would no longer be the whole “discover new region, dungeon, get item, beat boss, new region, dungeon, item, boss, repeat” formula. But that is not really true. Yes Link does not discover tons of new regions and areas. However he does return to the same areas over and over again. The first 3 dungeons take place in 3 new regions. Then after a plot twist, Link returns to the exact same regions, now able to explore a tad bit more of those areas, to do 3more dungeons. Then after another plot twist Link returns to the exact same regions to collect some more stuff and then be done with things.
To me this is different but not in a good way. I was expecting more and it was implied that things were going to be more than that. We kept hearing about going back into dungeons and how the overworld was like a dungeon. Yet in the actual game you only return to one dungeon a single time and not one part of the surface was actually like a dungeon. The regions were more wide-open than past Zelda games, but there was still no feeling of it being a big gigantic puzzle. Nintendo took a step in the right direction but by the end of the game things got predictable and it would have been nice to see a deviation from their deviation of the normal.
Next is the ability to fly on what is known as a Loftwing. In many Zelda games Link can ride around on a horse. In the Windwaker the overworld is explored via boat. In Skyward Sword the overworld is explored by flying. However, the thing is that I never felt like the sky was the overworld. I felt like the surface was the true overworld and the sky was just an inconvenient way to get around. The different regions did not connect in any way and the only way to go from one to another was to fly to them. There are a lot of floating islands in the sky to explore but unlike The Wind Waker, there is little motivation to explore them.
One of the nice things about Skyward Sword is that Nintendo really did address the problem with items. In the past gamers would get a new item in a dungeon, use it to beat the boss, and never touch that item again. However in Skyward Sword you really do use a majority of the items throughout the entire game.
I would now like to address the new ability to upgrade items. It is totally not needed. A complete waste of effort. I beat the game without upgrading any of my main items. There just is no need and it is a shame really as there was so much potential. Games like Fallout and other series do a great job with upgrading items because the enemies get harder as you progress. That is not the case in Skyward Sword so you will find yourself easily taking out the enemies by the end of the game. If you are a 100% completionist then the upgrade system will come in handy for you, but for the rest of us it will not be touched ever.
On a similar note is the use of shields. For the first time in the series history, shields take damage and break from impact. You can repair them or buy another. And shields can also be upgraded. However this is again not needed. I bought a Wooden Shield before I went to the first dungeon. It broke during the dungeon’s boss fight. After that I never used a shield again and had no problems because of that decision.
The last thing that I want to mention is the new energy meter. I will summarize this briefly as one of the best additions to any Zelda game ever. I never want to play another 3D Zelda game without the energy meter. It was done perfectly.
Overall, Nintendo took a step in the right direction but the results did not live up to expectations. Skyward Sword brought a lot of new elements to the table and for the next Zelda title I would like to see these items expanded upon.
Other Gameplay Elements
In this section I would just like to go over some of the finer details of the game. This will include side quests, enemy AI, and more.
I will start with the side quests. Skyward Sword is packed to the brim with loads of extra quests that you can do. The game itself will probably take you about 30 hours (more if you get lost a lot) but if you complete all the side quests then expect to be playing for a good amount of time. However, one of my complaints is that the side quests often revolve around collecting things. In fact, that is also one my complaints about the main story. There was one point in the game that I thought I was done with the game and ready to go fight Demise. Boy was I wrong. In fact I was only about 65% done with the game. After clearing through my 6th dungeon and having the Master Sword fully created I thought things were ready to wrap up. However that was not the case.
I found myself on a silly case of collecting dozens of musical notes from a now Flooded Faron Woods. I then found myself having to go back to all the regions to collect the rest of a song that just happened to be divided into 3 pieces. Thankfully, the other 2 regions were not as painful as swimming through the entirety of the woods to find notes that try to swim away from you (true story).
Next is the issue of the Silent Realm. We have heard a lot about these areas but I was still not sure what to expect until I got to play them for myself. In the Silent Realms, Link must gather 15 tears of light (much like Twilight Princess) while evading capture by a series of guards. Before writing this review I read many others and a lot of them expressed annoyance at these segments, and rightfully so in some cases.
If you are not aware, the premise of the Silent Realm is this. You must collect those 15 Tears of Light that are hidden throughout all 3 regions (surprise surprise), and one on Skyloft as well, however if you are hit even once you must start the entire thing over. Sound annoying? Well it can be. Thankfully for me, I had generally good luck with these segments. For the most part I would clear them in 1 or 2 tries. However for people who slip up a lot, they will most likely find these segments to be all kinds of irritating.
Lastly is the new enemy AI. While improved significantly, there are still some glaring problems. I was hoping for boss fights that would adapt to how you are fighting but that does not happen. Fights are still done in a pattern that you simply must repeat until the boss is defeated. Bosses also react to what you are doing and will not really react unless you trigger them to do so in certain ways.
For instance, I found, and have video footage of this, that in the first boss fight with Ghirahim, I could literally stand next to him without attacking and he would not make a move to strike me down. That is pretty lame for a boss that is supposedly trying to kill me.
Music
After E3 we all heard that Nintendo would be featuring a nearly fully orchestrated soundtrack for Skyward Sword. This got many fans excited as many felt that Twilight Princess had deserved full orchestration. Due to this the music quality is of course higher than usual. However, that does not necessarily mean the soundtrack is better.
In fact Skyward Sword lacks a large quantity of recognizable songs that will get stuck in your head. Besides the game’s theme and the closing credits, there are no other songs that stood out to me as being that amazing.
Skyward Sword’s Controls
I saved this section for last as it is one of the biggest selling points to the game. As you are all well aware, Skyward Sword uses the Wii Motion Plus to accomplish 1:1 sword combat. And I can thankfully (I was honestly worries about this) say that they game delivers a solid set of controls 99% of the time.
Sword combat is fluid and very well done. Many of the monsters can only be killed by precisely aiming your Wiimote so it will take some getting used to. However, I found that by the end of the game I was effortlessly slicing through monsters that took me quite some time at the start of the game.
Now again, there were some minor hiccups in the controls but nothing worth getting upset about. Every now and then the Wiimote seemed to lose its focus (especially while trying to browse your map or choose a location to land) and it just requires putting your controller down and trying again.
There were also some problems with the rolling of bombs. For whatever reason Nintendo decided to have gamers aim the bombs with the same controls that are used to walk. Aiming probably should have been done with the Wiimote. Due to this, there will most likely be several times where Link will stand there holding a bomb instead of rolling it, despite furious swinging the Wiimote to trigger its action.
Yet do not take these minor hiccups as a sign that the controls are broken. Skyward Sword is in fact what every Wii game should have been. It is shocking that it took this many years for a game to truly use the Wii’s motion controls to its full extent.
Summary
Overall Skyward Sword is one of the year’s top games. If you are a true gamer than this is one that you should not miss. Skyward Sword justifies buying a Wii on its own and deserves a look for the Game of the Year. There are some flaws with the game, but on the whole Nintendo has created one of the decade’s finest games and has set the bar high for future additions to the series.
If they continue to adapt and add-on to the Zelda formula than the next game will be an even greater masterpiece. The bar has been set high and though Skyward Sword failed to deliver up to its full potential, there was still minimal problems with the game. For a Zelda game I give it a 9.5/10. For a game in general, an 8.5/10.