The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

[Nekofrog]

The overworld wasn't THAT sparse either. I personally see it as on par with Ocarina. Ocarina's version of Hyrule field was pretty damn boring, even if the other parts of the land were interesting. At least there's fun stuff to find in TP's Hyrule field, areas you can only access with certain items. In that way, it captured the essence of Zelda, to me.

OOT also came out in 199goddamn8, it had an excuse for a "sparse" overworld.

TP did not.

[ocre]

OOT also came out in 199goddamn8, it had an excuse for a "sparse" overworld.

It really irks me when a game that comes out 10 years after it's contemporaries has less features and stuff to do in it.

And that's a general statement, not necessarily about the Zelda serie.

[liquid wind]

Makes me wonder what might've been if OoT HAD taken place entirely in Ganon's castle as originally planned, considering how much the other games borrowed from OoT it might've significantly changed the whole series since then

[Overflow]

yeah not sure what the hell your problem is but Groose is the best thing to happen to Zelda in about ten years

This. I cannot even express how much this this is.

[Koriantor]

This. I cannot even express how much this this is.

When Groose was "naming" the surface world I thought to myself "No way... No way... Is groose really the one who names Hyrule?" When he said "Grooseland" I laughed harder than I probably should have.

[Bleck]

But the items? The spinner made for a boss battle that reminded me of Goht from Majora's Mask, which was one of my favorite boss battles. And dual clawshots? How can you hate on dual clawshots?

the spinner did make for a pretty fun boss fight

and that's it

the zelda trend of items that are sort of cool and very useful in the temple you get it in which are then immediately almost (and sometimes completely, fucking dominion rod) worthless outside of it is not a good thing

LTTP had the best items of the entire series because there was just so much shit you could do with everything, with Majora's Mask in a very very close second if you count the masks as items

The overworld wasn't THAT sparse either.

nekofrog posted pretty much exactly what I was going to about this

OOT also came out in 199goddamn8, it had an excuse for a "sparse" overworld.

TP did not.

[Overflow]

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

I think if they would have just sped up the text, eliminated the constant reminders of what item you picked up, and hell added an option to not have Fi pop up every bloody moment, this wouldn't have been an issue.

That said I thought Fi's character at times was endearing.

[Overflow]

As annoying as Fi was, I will still take her constant nagging over the easy bosses and dungeons of TP. SS actually had some really challenging enemies and puzzles so Nintendo gave us a character to point out the obvious to ease the difficulty a bit. I will accept this.

It's like with NSMBWii or DKCR, or even SMG2: by giving us the super guide and the ability to skip any level, the developers can make unbelievably challenging and difficult levels for the hardcore gamer, because they know that any less-skilled players can just choose to skip ahead. In contrast, a game with little to no assistance would necessitate being easier so every gamer could complete it. (I'm talking about Nintendo alone, here. I know other games like Demon's Souls are stupid hard with no help.)

Also, I kinda liked Fi.

[cobaltstarfire]

Fi never bothered me much, but it may just be because in my mind it became a long joke...and then at the end Fi made a self referencing joke about it and that sort of just sealed the deal for me.

[Bleck]

I think if they would have just sped up the text, eliminated the constant reminders of what item you picked up, and hell added an option to not have Fi pop up every bloody moment, this wouldn't have been an issue.

I also think that if they got rid of all the issues, there wouldn't be an issue

As annoying as Fi was, I will still take her constant nagging over the easy bosses and dungeons of TP. SS actually had some really challenging enemies

if at any point you had difficulty with a boss in SS it was likely because of the control scheme and not because of any actual difficulty

[Overflow]

if at any point you had difficulty with a boss in SS it was likely because of the control scheme and not because of any actual difficulty

It was more to do with figuring out how to beat the enemies. For example, with the Skulltulas in the first dungeon, you have to fight them in 3 different ways: one when they dangle from the ceiling and you have to spin them around to expose their belly, one when they're stuck to their webs and you have to get behind them, and one when they're crawling on the ground toward you and you have to flip them upside down. Figuring out how to do all these things was quite a fun challenge my first time through. Of course, once you know how to do it, it's pretty easy. It's like that for most of the enemies and bosses, so it's more like a puzzle, which I really enjoyed.

Oh, but there was that one room where they set 4 stalfos after you at once. That was pretty tough.

[nohero]

As annoying as Fi was, I will still take her constant nagging over the easy bosses and dungeons of TP. SS actually had some really challenging enemies and puzzles so Nintendo gave us a character to point out the obvious to ease the difficulty a bit.

The only enemy that ever really gave me a hard time in SS was the damn techno bokoblin, and those were minor enemies. All the bosses were simple, really. Of course, if you play on Hero Mode, they become considerably tougher. I really don't think bosses in SS were any tougher than ones in TP, overall. In fact, the final boss is much more of a pushover than Ganon's incarnations in TP.

the zelda trend of items that are sort of cool and very useful in the temple you get it in which are then immediately almost (and sometimes completely, fucking dominion rod) worthless outside of it is not a good thing

I do get your point, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "Man, Super Mario Bros 3 was the worst game in the series. The damn frog suit was only useful in like 2 levels!"

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Skyward Sword did two things to maintain the items' relevancy throughout most of the game: 1)It made sure to incorporate the items in some form throughout nearly all the game, and 2)have the combat focus be mostly on swordplay, while items were relegated to multi-functional tools. While the slingshot could hit far away switches, vines, and take out smaller flying enemies, it could also be used to stun larger mobs, and the whip could be used to pull levers, swing across gaps, and steal items(just horns from what I can tell though) from enemies, for a few examples.

It's too bad they didn't think of all that during the development of Twilight Princess. They could have used the Dominion Rod for letting the player control lesser monsters and have them protect Link, give the spinner a sort of dash attack ability, etc.

I do agree however with Bleck that wasteful is probably the best way to put Twilight Princess; a lot of fun ideas that weren't realized or simply discarded in minutes. Still thought the game was excellent though.

[EC2151]

Midna was an annoying tsundere stereotype and Linebeck was excellent but the games he was in were pretty shitty

I haven't played SS, so I'll reserve judgment on ol' Groose, but I will say I really liked Linebeck's character, and that the idea of giving Link a scheisty cowardly asshole as a sidekick is a great idea with lots of potential... That being said, PH was pretty mediocre. And ST was even more so - bland everything coupled with a boring monster-of-the-week story and those terrible train rides.

Zelda was a cute sidekick, though.

Midna was an all right character, but the whole Lol let's break the mirror thing made the entire game pointless and irrelevant to the series. That and turning Zant from cool badass into gibbering madman is again not a bad idea but executed poorly - he should have been the final boss and beefed up appropriately.

Though I think we can all agree:

This guy's big pimpin'

[Koriantor]

That and turning Zant from cool badass into gibbering madman is again not a bad idea but executed poorly - he should have been the final boss and beefed up appropriately.

But then we wouldn't have had Gannondorf as the final boss. Those were probably the funnest and most rewarding boss fights I ever did fight.

[zircon]

Skyward Sword did two things to maintain the items' relevancy throughout most of the game: 1)It made sure to incorporate the items in some form throughout nearly all the game, and 2)have the combat focus be mostly on swordplay, while items were relegated to multi-functional tools. While the slingshot could hit far away switches, vines, and take out smaller flying enemies, it could also be used to stun larger mobs, and the whip could be used to pull levers, swing across gaps, and steal items(just horns from what I can tell though) from enemies, for a few examples.

It's too bad they didn't think of all that during the development of Twilight Princess. They could have used the Dominion Rod for letting the player control lesser monsters and have them protect Link, give the spinner a sort of dash attack ability, etc.

I do agree however with Bleck that wasteful is probably the best way to put Twilight Princess; a lot of fun ideas that weren't realized or simply discarded in minutes. Still thought the game was excellent though.

But I think the items would have been MORE relevant if they could be used more frequently in combat. For example, the Whip is pretty much only for puzzles. So are the clawshots. I would be interested in seeing fights that could be approached using not just the sword but other tools as well. Yeah, I know there are enemies like the hopping head guys that require the bellows, but I suppose what I want to see would be fights that can be done in a number of ways. That's why I like the bow & arrow.

[Mirby]

I haven't played SS, so I'll reserve judgment on ol' Groose, but I will say I really liked Linebeck's character, and that the idea of giving Link a scheisty cowardly asshole as a sidekick is a great idea with lots of potential... That being said, PH was pretty mediocre. And ST was even more so - bland everything coupled with a boring monster-of-the-week story and those terrible train rides.

Zelda was a cute sidekick, though.

Midna was an all right character, but the whole Lol let's break the mirror thing made the entire game pointless and irrelevant to the series. That and turning Zant from cool badass into gibbering madman is again not a bad idea but executed poorly - he should have been the final boss and beefed up appropriately.

Though I think we can all agree:

This guy's big pimpin'

I agree with you on all parts.

But TP's ending did make me tear up a bit.

Oh, and I think the Double Clawshots were the most awesome item in TP, and I used them whenever possible. Same with Bomb Arrows (nice throwback to the LA trick).

[GravitySuitCollector]

I kinda liked Fi.

I do, too. She's not that annoying to me, at least. The hearts are low messages are annoying, but the battery one was actually a bit useful (although the battery message was a bit early to me... The Metroid Prime series on Wii handled it really well with the battery bar on top). I also liked the sort of dry humor they had with her (the undead bokoblin outlandish underpants made me laugh. ). One of the more annoying guides, I thought, was the King of Red Lions in WW. He just annoyed me for some reason. Although, she wasn't that big of a help in fighting some enemies; a lot of the time her messages gave no info on how to fight them at all. D:

[LuIzA]

I found Fi extremely boring. The way she interacted with Link and the world itself was so... robotic. Midna was a different story, I thought it was pretty awesome the way she couldn't care less about the "light" world, and the evolution of her character.

[liquid wind]

I like Fi a little as a character but as a game mechanic...ugh, I really hate the way she has to pop up constantly to make sure you haven't missed something that is glaringly obvious. Just part of the larger problem really, I don't like how the camera constantly zooms in on things to make sure you don't miss them either, as well as treating you like a mentally handicapped ape it just breaks the flow of the game.

Still love the game somehow, I usually would hate a game I have this much criticism for but they did do a lot right, going to have to replay it soon before Xenoblade is out

[LuIzA]

To be honest, I've never experienced camera zooms like you said.

It's a very good game overall, far from perfect, but still very enjoyable, EXCEPT those silent realms, I HATED THOSE WITH A PASSION. But bosses were more challenging, and that was a plus, as I found them too easy in TP. Still I think I preferred TP in general to SS. That said, I still think Ghirahim is the best villain I know in the series IMHO, he kind of reminds of Kuja.

[nohero]

To be honest, I've never experienced camera zooms like you said.

It's a very good game overall, far from perfect, but still very enjoyable, EXCEPT those silent realms, I HATED THOSE WITH A PASSION. But bosses were more challenging, and that was a plus, as I found them too easy in TP. Still I think I preferred TP in general to SS. That said, I still think Ghirahim is the best villain I know in the series IMHO, he kind of reminds of Kuja.

I truly thought the Silent Realms were the strongest aspect of SS; they were far more challenging than any other part of the game. Then again, I enjoyed the hub labyrinth of Phantom Hourglass - aside from having to go through it multiple times - a lot, too. I guess I'm just a sucker for the pseudo Metal Gear feel.

Did people really find SS's bosses more challenging than TP's? I seriously saw no difference. I mean, you could beat the boss of the "Earth" temple by running under his legs and staying at the bottom until he fell back down, running to his side, tossing a bomb into him, and repeating it a few times, instead of the seemingly intentional strategy of staying up top and lobbing bombs at him until he reached the bottom.

That reminds me: I was also pretty miffed at the inclusion of two fire dungeons, once of which was (shocker!) the second temple. It was also kind of a kick in the nuts for them to be like "no, no, no... this is an EARTH temple!" Don't sell me a feces shake and tell me it's strawberry, Nintendo.

[Swifthom]

I agree with you on all parts.

But TP's ending did make me tear up a bit.

Oh, and I think the Double Clawshots were the most awesome item in TP, and I used them whenever possible. Same with Bomb Arrows (nice throwback to the LA trick).

I LOVED the double clawshot in Twilight Princess....

And I was really, really, really eager to get a second pair in SS... Only, it wasn't made advantage of in 'quite' the same way...

Seriously, the Sky level from TP could be expanded to an entire small 'Portal' style game and it would be brilliant.

[Necrotic]

Seriously, the Sky level from TP could be expanded to an entire small 'Portal' style game and it would be brilliant.

Oh my god yes