The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

[Modus]

Weird. I'm on a Phenom II 4-core OC'd @ 3.7GHz and it runs fine, with a stutter or two every couple minutes. What resolution and AF? I do 1600x1050 2xAF

1920 x 1080 and 4x AF, but both those things shouldn't effect performance much.

Lowering native res to 1x helps a lot, but it looks SOOO good at 2x native. I guess my CPU just isn't up to snuff.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

I need to invest in a better cooler so I can OC my 3.5 ghz Phenom II quad to 3.8 or something. Right now I'm running the game at 2x native and while it doesn't have any jerky framerate drops or stuttering, the game slows down a bit in areas such as Skyloft or Faron Woods.

[SenPi]

So I beat the game today. Overall I was majorly impressed and pretty much loved everything about it.

Few gripes here and there, but nothing big enough to make me not enjoy the game.

Few things though ***Spoilers and such probably big ones***

First off, what does a brotha have to do to get a triforce around here? I felt like that part of the game took way too long. While I enjoyed the fact that they reused a lot of places, this part seemed too long..

And for the other thing. The last boss was WAY to easy for me. I spent the time getting some potions/fairies, only to go in, get hit like twice and beat it. I was like "thats it....?"

[RDX]

i don't want to recognize anything beyond characters maybe.

well in that case you should probably stop playing zelda games and play something else. there are plenty of different games out there for you to choose from. maybe skyrim?

also i liked how recognizing the characters is only a maybe.

basically your post was severely lacking in logic.

Third area is when things get different.

i hope so. i got to the second temple, 9 hours in, and while it's not terrible, I'm not too engaged either. i haven't played in two days and while i do want to play, when im playing it's not really all that exciting. maybe im just getting old. i want to get a new sword or something. the first dungeon was amazing, but everything in between is nothing special.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

I don't see how that's lacking in logic. The only thing you as a consumer should be concerned about is whether or not the game is fun, not about the contents. That kills any creativity that the dev team may have. Why can't The Legend of Zelda have totally different characters in a different country/world doing totally different things? "Then it wouldn't be Zelda!", you say? Bullocks. Zelda is whatever the devs want it to be, as it means the sky's the limit on what kind of experiences you could have.

Force Zelda or any other series into the expectations corner, and you'll be eating that same cold green bean casserole you've been eating for years.

[Nekofrog]

To the Dolphin people, anyone know how to fix these weird lines I'm getting?

Are you using revision 7719? That's the best for SS. 3.0 is ass and renders it improperly.

also your processor speed is pretty bad for dolphin. you can probably do better with 2xAA, 2x internal res, @ 720p maybe.

[Nekofrog]

well in that case you should probably stop playing zelda games and play something else. there are plenty of different games out there for you to choose from. maybe skyrim?

also i liked how recognizing the characters is only a maybe.

basically your post was severely lacking in logic.

So when a series runs its ideas into the ground and keeps rehashing over and over it's okay because change has no logic

yeah, sure. right.

why not change the setting? why does it have to be generic fantasy settings with elves every time? time must progress in the zelda-verse. tell a story from a different time period, a different character's perspective, or i don't know, just fucking make something new

how many mainline zelda games have there been now? zelda, zelda 2, zelda lttp, zelda 64, zelda major's mask, zelda wind waker, zelda twilight princess, zelda skyward sword. if nintendo out and out refuses to make new ips with new characters and settings, the only solution is to just fucking shake things up with the series that they DO have. especially when they've been running for so long that creatively they're fairly bankrupt.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

I love how we've basically migrated any Skyward Sword on Wii discussion to how to get the game to work properly on an emulator. XD

[DarkeSword]

why not change the setting? why does it have to be generic fantasy settings with elves every time? time must progress in the zelda-verse. tell a story from a different time period, a different character's perspective, or i don't know, just fucking make something new

Well, that's what the Zelda series is, though. It's Nintendo's whimsical fantasy adventure series. It's about swords and magic and heroes and princesses. You take that away and it becomes Zelda in name only. Progress Zelda to a Victorian steampunk setting or something vaguely WWI-ish or even futuristic cyberpunk setting and you lose the setting that frames the idea of a boy with a sword and shield fighting monsters to save the princess.

how many mainline zelda games have there been now? zelda, zelda 2, zelda lttp, zelda 64, zelda major's mask, zelda wind waker, zelda twilight princess, zelda skyward sword. if nintendo out and out refuses to make new ips with new characters and settings, the only solution is to just fucking shake things up with the series that they DO have. especially when they've been running for so long that creatively they're fairly bankrupt.

They aren't really creatively bankrupt though. Skyward Sword has great puzzles and dungeon design; its only real problems are the constant hand-holding (Fi) and the interface issues (treasures, shops, etc.). Even combat becomes a puzzle game about angles, and that's pretty cool.

[Calpis]

Totally agreed with DS on this one. We don't consider Mario Tennis, Party, Golf, etc as main Mario games. We consider them Tennis, Party, Golf, Kart etc games with a Mario theme. You give Link a gun and set it in the future, it's not Zelda anymore. It'd be a branch of Zelda.

Now that I think about it, that's kind of what happened to Mario in the Galaxy Series. Mario in Space with weird gravity effects. But they do still have the Mario formula in it: platforming, getting stars, level-by-level progression, then at the end, Koopa. If you just change where a Zelda game is set, or the theme, people still complain that "you still get the same items and go to dungeons with bosses with a main boss at the end of the game", aka the Zelda formula.

[ocre]

I think Nintendo could branch out in the setting a bit. One of the best things about Skyward Sword for me was the feeling that I didn't know what was coming next as far as setting. They've already given us the alternate world of Termina; a world with a decidedly darker and weirder feel over Hyrule. It also turned many conventions and characters on their head. Capcom gave us Holodrum and Labrynna. I'd love to see another Zelda take place in not-Hyrule. They could give us a new artifact that has nothing to do with Time or The Triforce. Maybe a female antagonist for a change. Vaati in a console game would be cool. Zant and Veran were good antagonists but were both kind of bogged down by Ganondorf. There's plenty they could do to liven up the series. Changing up the formula to where it's a completely different game doesn't seem like the answer. Some reviewers( the CNN reviewer I linked earlier being a prime example) aren't even fit to criticize the game and just seem to be jumping on the Nintendo hate bandwagon). I read somewhere that it may be a good idea for some people to give Zelda a rest, rather than say Zelda needs to take a break from Zelda.

Having said that, I think a lot of the innovations Skyward Sword introduced are being met with a lot of undeserved flack. Motion controls being chief among them. There's a lot of room for misunderstanding. I know people that have completely condemned using Link's shield yet they didn't understand that you can stagger the enemy with a well-timed motion. Oh well. Hopelly people will realize the err of their misjudgements and skyward sword's motion control will be next year's wind waker graphics.

[RDX]

I don't see how that's lacking in logic. The only thing you as a consumer should be concerned about is whether or not the game is fun, not about the contents. That kills any creativity that the dev team may have. Why can't The Legend of Zelda have totally different characters in a different country/world doing totally different things? "Then it wouldn't be Zelda!", you say? Bullocks. Zelda is whatever the devs want it to be, as it means the sky's the limit on what kind of experiences you could have.

Force Zelda or any other series into the expectations corner, and you'll be eating that same cold green bean casserole you've been eating for years.

It's stupid because no one expects the same thing of games like Mario, which have been the same game for 20 years. If you don't like the Zelda formula, don't play Zelda. If you don't want to play a game that has Link having shenanigans related to magic and swords and gadgets, don't play Zelda. Sometimes I don't pick up the newest Mario game because I'm sick of platforming and I'm bored with fire flowers and super mushrooms. I probably won't be getting Super Mario Land 3D because it doesn't look fresh and exciting enough to me. That doesn't mean that Nintendo should completely reimagine the Mario universe, maybe even take Luigi and Peach and Bowser out of the mix. That wouldn't make any sense. Some people like the familiarity, they don't mind that the general structure of the game has stayed constant over the years. Mario sells, Zelda sells, why change it if people apparently like it?

Same thing for Mario Kart. I owned Mario Kart 64 and I loved it. Then I rented Double Dash and DS and I didn't like them at all. So I stopped buying Mario Kart games. Everyone wins.

I'm sick of how the 3D Zeldas always attempt to copy OoT in some shape or form every game, but overall I usually enjoy the experience anyway even if there are some things that are wrong with the game. I would love it if Zelda games branched out a bit and followed in the footsteps of games like LA and MM, but getting rid of the characters and completely reformatting the general dungeons and bosses and item collecting structure wouldn't make sense. That'd be like taking kart racing out of Mario Kart, and platforming out of Mario. Every installment of the Zelda series has at its core been about dungeon crawling.

why not change the setting? why does it have to be generic fantasy settings with elves every time?

im ok with this.

But go look at the sales of the Zelda game that did nothing other than change the game's graphical style and tell me that would work out well for Nintendo. I mean it wasn't that bad, but it was present throughout most of the GCN's lifespan and it only sold 4.5 million.

so much editing

[Overflow]

To be fair, I do think that there is potential for the Zelda series to branch out a bit. After all, there are full on Mario RPGs! So I think that there's room for a Zelda RPG, or strategy game, or what have you. Spin-offs.

As for the main games, I think it's the gameplay that makes zelda what it is. Namely: Sword combat, puzzle solving, item acquisition and exploration. Every zelda game has that to some extent, and that is the core of the gameplay, just as Shoot, take cover and lob grenades are the core gameplay for almost every shooter out there. To change these core mechanics would be to change the very essence of the game. If Call of Duty 16 was an run'n gun game like Contra, would it be Call of Duty? In name only: the game is so radically different that without the title it would be unrecognizable as being from the same series.

Zelda 2 suffers from this, but to a lesser extent. Although it is a dramatic alteration from the standard Zelda series, it still retains enough of the core gameplay (sword combat, item acquisition and exploration) to qualify it as a Zelda game. Really, all it's missing is the puzzle solving, but some of the enemies and bosses are almost puzzle-like.

My point is that you can change the dressings or even setting of the game, but if you remove the core gameplay, it stops being recognizable. If you don't like the core mechanics of the Zelda games, then don't buy them: if those mechanics were changed, it wouldn't be Zelda.

Again, this is for the main series. As for any side games, I think they could branch out a bit and experiment, but maybe remove the 'Legend of Zelda' from the title, as it really wouldn't be a "Legend of Zelda" game.

For quick comparison, the 'main' mario games usually have 'Super' in the title. Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Land, Super Mario Galaxy, you get the idea. A Zelda spin-off should do the same thing.

Heck, they even have.

You want a unique Zelda game? There you go.

[orlouge82]

why not change the setting? why does it have to be generic fantasy settings with elves every time? time must progress in the zelda-verse. tell a story from a different time period, a different character's perspective, or i don't know, just fucking make something new

Did I stumble into an alternate universe wherein Wind Waker was never created? Also, it's sequels Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks? Or were you thinking something more along the lines of a futuristic Final Fantasy VIII or XIII setting, because I think those two games got just a ton of praise from fans and no criticisms whatsoever.

EDIT: Oh, also, Mario Kart 64 was the pinnacle of the Mario Kart series

[Lemonectric]

Did I stumble into an alternate universe wherein Wind Waker was never created?

Neko must be in the other timeline

[Kenogu Labz]

Apples to oranges. Though I would be interested in seeing different settings, I'm not sure it would work well if they simply leveraged pure Steampunk or pure Science Fiction. That was one of the major draws of Wind Waker and Skyward Sword: the mechanics were familiar, but the settings were very different. Given how strong the Oracle games were, something like that might provide a strong initial lead-in to such a setting.

[Modus]

I realized today that I get way more enjoyment out of handheld Zelda games than the console versions. Phantom Hourglass had so much going for it and no, Ganon doesn't have to be in every game.

[Red Shadow]

hes not

though his dad or grandpa or best friend is

[Nonamer]

The New York Times on Skyward Sword:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/arts/video-games/the-legend-of-zelda-skyward-sword-by-nintendo-review.html?_r=1

Do you find this article to be accurate? It's rare to see the NYT talking about video games, let alone review them...

[sephfire]

Actually yeah, that review is a pretty solid assessment of the game.

[RDX]

That's actually probably the best review I've read of the game. I'm still only outside of the second dungeon, so I honestly barely have the right to judge, but judging by where I am, that seems pretty accurate. The thing about the graphics is so true, and it bothers me so much I have to mention it again. It looks like a N64 game. Aside from more complex geometry, Majora's Mask was probably more crisp than Skyward Sword is.

[Calpis]

I must either be blind or something. I seriously think the graphics are great and don't really notice the aliasing during normal gameplay. Last night my friend saw me playing it and started ripping it for "looking like the graphics in FF7". Why is the aliasing such a huge point of contention for some people? I get the feeling that some people are playing games 2 feet away from the TV in order for something like that to really make a huge difference in gameplay. I normally play about 5-7 feet from the TV and I have to actively start looking for pixels to notice it.

I guess I'm just getting older and don't give a shit about HD graphics, trophies/achievements, sandbox gameplay, or any of these other modern gaming trends that all of these people are saying Zelda is lacking.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

So I finally finished the game, and what an amazing ride it was from start to finish.

I can probably say without a doubt that this is my favorite Legend of Zelda by far. Sure, the general structure hasn't changed much since Ocarina of Time and even A Link to The Past, but maybe it's OK to accept that as long as Nintendo does enough around that to breathe some life into it, and I feel that Skyward Sword manages to achieve just that. It feels familiar, but the way you progress through the game, the organic and tightly-developed puzzles that are EVERYWHERE, much more useful items and a very intuitive UI, and of course the excellent motion controls make it feel fresh the whole way through.

One of the largest problems I've had with Legend of Zelda since even the N64 entries has been "travel and game fatigue" in that after a certain point of the game, I'm just sick of having to ride around the overworld or sail around the damned ocean looking for heart pieces or other collectibles, or just travelling from area to area. Not only does this game alleviate that problem by finally allowing us to choose and travel to destinations easily, but with the way the areas are designed, I'm constantly engaged and I never felt that fatigue as well as I can remember through the game's entirety.

It goes without saying that the MO for this game's creation was "make a Zelda game with Wii Motion+ 1 to 1 accuracy and controls", and there are a few stumbles here and there(though it might be related to my wiimote+), but the motion controls really do add a whole new level to the immersion. To me, it didn't feel like my success was dependent on Link's stash of hearts or the gear he had; Link's success felt directly related to my skill and creativity with items as a player. Due to this, every puzzle and combat encounter felt incredibly satisfying. When I was fighting Ghirahim in the first temple, I didn't feel like Link was my avatar, I felt like I was fighting him directly. I don't think traditional controls can offer this type of feeling. Had Wii Motion+ already been integrated into the Wii at launch, and had Skyward Sword been released alongside a Wii Sports, I think people would be thinking about motion controls very differently today. Playing this game really strengthened my belief that motion controls done well can really heighten the level of immersion in a game by far. I think the next generation of videogaming is going to be pretty incredible if they can build on experiences like this.

I think I'll be able to discuss game content like the music and story once I get off this completion high, but I have to say that on a whole, the game just keeps ramping up, getting better and better the further in you go until a very climatic(and awesome) finish.

All this talk of jaggy looking graphics makes me actually fear playing this game on the Wii though. Thank you, Dolphin team for allowing me to experience this game how it was meant to.

Edit - I think the next Zelda should involve Link(or maybe a side story where you play as Zelda or Impa) having a focus on magic. Use the Wiimote to draw different signs to equip different magic, then once equipped, use whatever motion to activate. Fire, Ice, Gravity, Lightning, Earth, etc. In addition to swordplay.

[keiiii]

Calpis, look at higher res Dolphin screenshots and compare them with how the game looks on Wii. The difference is pretty huge. Didn't someone post a direct comparison shot in this thread earlier?

I adore the art style for the game (including the "washed out" colors, which I believe was deliberate), but the low resolution is pretty bad. Not N64-bad, no, but definitely obsolete-looking for 2011.

At the end of the day, though, the aliasing does not affect the way I enjoy the gameplay, no matter how noticeable it gets. Other issues like the unnecessary shop/ item dialogue do.

Overall, I feel like the game offers a lot to be enjoyed. I love the exploration puzzles in particular, and what I have seen of the story/ writing so far is my favorite out of the entire Zelda series. It's just that the few small issues it does have are so basic that there's really no excuse for them to be present in today's gaming. Aliasing is understandable given Wii's limitations, but the dialogues??

[Calpis]

I understand there's a difference. I'm just saying it gets annoying that every review mentions it when it's not so much a game issue as it's really an issue with the console.

Also, dialogue isn't just a "small issue". Even ignoring the creative direction behind it, the production aspect of including VO in a huge game like Zelda isn't small. You can't say there's "no excuse" for not including it.