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« on: July 07, 2015, 07:05:26 PM »
This is my video game review of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Nintendo Wii. My review for this game is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing it through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start.
My expectations were all confused with this game. On one hand, it's a Zelda game. Those are always great! I love Zelda! On the other hand, I wasn't enthused about the art style following its reveal, not much about it looked amazing to me or hyped me up, and it came after previous console Zelda game Twilight Princess, which is one of my favorite games ever. I figured this game probably couldn't top Twilight Princess, but it would at least be a pretty good Zelda game on its own, right?
It has its moments. The Ancient Cistern is one of the coolest Zelda dungeons, and Koloktos (also of the Ancient Cistern!) and Tentalus are two of the best Zelda bosses ever, in spite of Tentalus' cliche weakpoint and Monsters Inc-esque design. The storytelling continues the more cinematic direction Twilight Princess was headed in, for the better in my opinion. The soundtrack is finally orchestral, and there are some great songs. The new item upgrading stuff is pretty cool as well, even if grinding for materials can be a bit of a chore. The timestone mechanics in the Lanayru area are very, very cool.
Unfortunately, I have quite a few grievances. The 1:1 sword combat seems really cool, and at first, it is, but the enemy design of "slash this way and time it right" starts to get old. The motion control stuff in general wears out its welcome, and often feels downright gimmicky. Why on Earth do we need to move the Wii-mote around in all these weird directions just to open the door to the boss? As if the overuse of motion control elements wasn't enough, you constantly have to recalibrate the Wii Motion+, as it likes to mess up every few minutes or so.
I get that things are supposed to look like an Impressionist painting, but the blurry textures still put me off. Things get a little low-poly in some areas, too. It being on the Wii isn't much of an excuse, since Brawl and the Galaxy games look great.
Remember those parts in Twilight Princess where you were stuck as a wolf killing bugs to collect the Tears of Light? That stuff kinda brought the game down just a little, but at least you had a new set of moves to exploit in your new form, namely sensing, digging, and Midna-jumping. It's back in full force with the Silent Realm sections. Only this time you better move your ass, cause if you don't, the statues'll get you and you have to start over! Of course, you're also screwed if you walk into the wrong places even if you still have time to dick around. All that stuff was probably put in to make these segments more tense and fun, but since screwing up means you have to start over, it just makes them much worse than they were in Twilight Princess. And there's even more collecting crap! Like when the Faron Woods are flooded, and you have to collect all the music notes to learn the Song of the Hero. If those parts weren't very liked in Twilight Princess, why make them worse and have more of them in this game? Padding?
There are a bunch of other little problems I had with the game that bugged me. The hub/overworld that is the sky really sucked. Remember how Wind Waker's ocean had a tendency to seem empty and lacking in enemies? Hoo, boy... Anyways, the big three landmasses all being completely split apart was just weird and made the game seem even more linear than Twilight Princess in a way. I don't like the world of a Zelda game feeling that broken apart. Twilight Princess had named provinces, yet still managed to feel more unified than this game's world. This game's special instrument is the worst yet (I don't care too much for the wolf howls, but they were way better than the harp), it seems like there's a lot of recurring enemies and places and repetition (The four silent realms, fighting the Imprisoned three times, fighting Ghirahim three times, going to the same three landmasses again and again...), and the stuff that's supposed to be the exploration just...didn't feel like exploration. It felt more like solving a series of puzzles, only outside of dungeons, maybe interspersed with some pseudo-platforming sometimes. Twilight Princess had more of a sense of wonder in its world than this game's puzzlefests, which is kinda funny considering that game's "realistic" art style. Oh, and screw only being able to save at certain points. A Link Between Worlds is the only Zelda game that can get away with that in my eyes.
Although most of the game disappointed me, I will admit that the final couple hours were a great finale. The story stuff, the great last dungeon, the horde battle, the final bosses...it's like I was finally at the "Okay, now it's getting good!" part. Only it ended right as it was starting to pick up. Sorry, but a great last bit doesn't make the whole big experience a blast. I'd probably call this the worst "main-series" Zelda game I've ever played. Even with that in mind, though, I'd give it a 7/10, since outside of constant calibration issues it's not too broken, some of the puzzle solving was nice (even if puzzle solving did wrongfully take the place of standard exploration in my opinion), some of the motion control utilization was actually pretty neat (even though it is blatantly shoehorned in at times), and there are admittedly some pretty great moments, with a solid final couple hours. However, I've decided that...
I give this game a 3 out of 10.
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