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[Adamski]

 
I actually hate the harp playing feature. Sometimes it will work easily, no problem, other times its just shitty.

[Atnas]

Encountered my first motion control problem today... the cursor would skip around when it was towards the center of the screen in the pause menu and map. made placing beacons terribly frustrating. Also affected the sword and net, but not much else. I tried all my WM+ controllers and they all had the same problem... But it worked itself out? Kinda frustrating because I had to fool around for 20 minutes before it got working again.

But then again, out of my 18 hours played only 20 minutes have been frustrated at the controls not working.

beat the 3rd dungeon, this game rocks.

Commentary on first three bosses with very few spoilers:

1st - super fun, difficult, made ME feel helpless. Successful in every way. Lasted much longer than I expected, very satisfying

2nd - Easy. But surprising when it gets to the weak spot stage at first. Even though I wasn't in much danger, I still really enjoyed the battle and the terrain was very unique. If it had another stage to it it would have been perfect

3rd - Dangerous, but too short. Did a lot of damage, but was kind of too easy to hit, would have liked the weak spots to not only change angles but to also maybe not remain open for so long. With baby versions of the boss all over the dungeon, why not include some of them in the fight?

That said, I like these bosses more than any other zeldas so far.

Question for those of you past the third dungeon: Fun fun island needs its wheel back, and I'm looking at it in the desert and trying EVERYTHING on it, and its not coming out of the sand. Why doesn't the gust jar blow the sand away?

[BlueSweatshirt]

@Atnas
For the cursor problem, press down on your wiimote to center the cursor and that'll fix it. That's fixed it for me at least.

I had a difficult time with the third boss. If you let him go underground after chopping off his pincers he will start spawning out his mini-me's.
As for your wheel, just advance on in the story. Soon enough you'll get a "tool" to help you carry stuff around. You'll know what it is when you get it.

===============

I'm now past the sixth temple and I'm really enjoying this. Some things have frustrated me, like the constant "one more thing before you can do <x>"'s in the story. But the content of such is always good, so I'm not too bugged by it. In some ways I feel like this game is heavily lacking in exploration. Being fair, the extraneous islands in skyloft are pretty bland. I was hoping Nintendo meant tighter content with less white space in-between the meat, but really there's very little meatyness outside of the main story and Skyloft, which is kind of a shame. But maybe I just haven't found it yet. I'm going to find the Triforce soon, so I'm assuming those will be the last temples/dungeons I face before the boss. A total of 9 temples in a way is kind of a disappointment, but at the same time it's kind of awesome considering how the non-temple parts of levels were also their own challenge. The main adventure of this game has been very satisfying! However I am kind of disappointed by the underutilization of some tools. I feel like there could have been more creative uses for them in the dungeons, but it was simply never done. I feel like the whip was pretty much only used in the waterfall temple and that was it, which is a shame because I thought it was a really neat item. Also, I really love the bamboo cutting minigame. And I think this game's use of motion controls is friggin' superb and this is how it should be done. Swordplay is fantastic in my opinion. No game has ever had such a real connection to me-- In this game I feel like I'm practically there. It's exciting.

[Adamski]

Im quite shocked reading these posts. Out of the first three bosses, I found the first boss to be hardest, third boss to be incredibly easy/quick to kill... also thought he was the most obvious in terms of battle tactics... 

[BlueSweatshirt]

I had a terrible time trying to stab him. 

[Bandages]

So after having to drive around town finding a place that still carried the motion plus attachment, I ended up giving up and forking over $40 for a controller with it built in. The nice lady working behind the counter gave me a discount because the sight of an ill young man, fighting the elements and the idiots all over a mall only to be continuously broken by the empty shelves was worthy of her pity.

Got home, started playing Skyward Sword on my TV after blowing the dust off my Wii. Now, I have a ridiculously large TV. It's 62" which I think is too much but my parents don't care and I guess it's bratty to complain about having nice things, so I won't. Perhaps it was because I had been playing Uncharted 3 and watching HD shows on Netflix that this happened, but I could not read any of the text in the Zelda game without sitting closer to the TV, otherwise the eyestrain from the blur would make my cold-induced headache all the worse. The graphics are... Really bad! I wasn't expecting much, but geeze I guess I've gotten complacent playing my Skyrims and Uncharteds because everything just looks so bad.

Tutorials are incredibly boring so I just kinda breezed through most of that. Something I liked: All the characters are really charming and unique. Even Groose who was just a giant douche was lovely in his own way. Insulting his hair led to a funny response.

Oh yeah, as a side note: fuck conversation trees, LINK DOESN'T TALK. I have just been choosing the most heroic options every time because LINK DOESN'T TALK and he sure as hell wouldn't be like "oh fuck this hero business" before getting coaxed into it by Catalyst Character #3.

So the characters were great, the little romantic tension between Zelda and Link was absolutely adorable, and the island, despite looking worse than the islands I fell in love with in Wind Waker back on the Gamecube, was neat and full of interesting little things.

THEN I HAD TO FLY THAT FUCKING BIRD.

My controller was less of a "controller" and more of a "suggester" as my bird careened around the sky doing absolutely fuck-all, stalling and making turns that were either way too sharp or not turning at all. It wasn't an issue of controller misuse. I was holding that thing as gently as I could. Eventually I perfected the FLY ALL THE WAY UP AND THEN FREEFALL INTO THE GOLD BIRD strategy, and I emerged victorious.

It's a damn good thing the AI couldn't actually win that challenge, or else I may have just stopped playing there.

Then I got the parachute.

Zelda must have thought me incapable of even basic tasks as I climbed back up the tower again and again, defeated by the concept of "aim towards this huge fucking circle"

Again, the controller made me its bitch. I think after enough tears were absorbed into the chase of the remote, it decided to start working. Another point for the "Nintendo is run by Satan" conspiracy that started after it was revealed the SNES was powered by orphan souls.

After meeting Midna The Sword Guardian, I went down to the surface and spent a few minutes learning how inept I am at killing bokoblins, while trying to find some ADORABLE testicle plant monsters.

That's where I've stopped.

My impression of this game is that it is certainly supposed to be a Zelda game. It has the Link, it has the Zelda, it has the Whimsical Scenery. And yet, the control scheme and the total revamp of the item system (I'm still not sure what the significance of collecting bits of refuse cleaved from a monster is) has made me bitter about the game. I'm not playing it, I'm fighting it. I am struggling to make the control scheme work with me to enjoy the game. It's certainly taken a lot of joy out of the game for me. As a seasoned gamer, I feel as though I have the requisite mindset and enough gametime under my belt that I shouldn't be challenged with the hardships of fumbling through the control scheme of a game.

But this is the future of Nintendo, where everything is EXCRUCIATINGLY INNOVATIVE, and I must be forced to feel like an idiot as I swing my plastic dildos wildly trying to figure out why exactly the dekubaba WONT. FUCKING. DIE.

I hope that this game gets better, because I'm still going to play it. The characters and world have charmed me enough that I realize that beneath this horribly flawed exterior, there lies the heart of a really fun game. Will I ever unearth the heart from amidst its infuriating tomb? Only time will tell.

[Atnas]

Thanks for the help Jakman!

As for the 3rd boss, I thought I should stab, but every time I went to attack I would just instinctively do a strike / upwards and it worked, I think the spot is only protected on the top, so you can't hammer.

Also hell yes @upgraded stamina potion! It really helps when you revisit Lanaryu. Incessant spin attacks and dashing, oh yes.

What's everyone carrying with them? I keep a wooden and iron shield, treasure medal, a few potions, and an expanded seedpouch. The heart/life medals dont seem to be worth it in most cases.

Also wallet expansions are the best idea ever. I hated having to waste rupees because my wallet was at max in earlier games. 3rd dungeon and 1100 rupee capacity hell yes!

@Castle: I'm very sorry to hear of your negative experience. It helps once you feel at peace with the gyro sensor. I played Wii Sports resort last year which skyward sword is basically a reskin of so I was extremely at ease with the controls. Also, the game looks very beautiful on my modest TV, I think it's the same issue of old games looking best on crts, it's not a high def game, and playing it in high def is mostly just going to look really bad.

Also, flying is flapping, to get high in the air, then diving, though you can use the boosts to get high. it helps to just keep the rhythm in mind very gentle curves are all that are needed.

Dekubabas require very binary vertical or horizontal strikes, also watch your distance, sometimes I get my ass handed to me because my first couple strikes I'm hitting it with the hilt of my blade first. It might help you to do spin attacks in either direction as they'll always be perfectly vertical or horizontal.

Freefalling, the wiimote is your body. When its horizontal, tilt it as though you were tilting link.

And it's entirely possible you just got a lemon wiimote. It should function like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_aGjL1bwN0

Also I appreciate the dialogue trees myself. Link does talk this time.

[Gimym JIMBERT]

Motion control, resetting hardcore to fucking casual

Now we have our "hard core" motion control champion, it only exemplify the divide.

However your concern are legit, actually the game is clearly divide between 2 camps about control, as destructoid point at:

The Zelda series (Skyward Sword included) is about doing the opposite thing. It's about leaving your room, leaving your body behind, and entering the world of Hyrule through Link as your avatar. For some, motion controls are definitely going to get in the way of that process.

Some find that motion controls make them constantly aware of their bodies in a way that button controls do not. Button and stick controls have become second nature for most "diehard" gamers. For them, button and stick controls work as the most direct and non-intrusive connection between our world and the game world. Just as they don't have to think about moving each muscle in their body when going for a walk, they don't even have to think about what button to press on the controller when playing a game. For these players, the standard controller truly is an extension of themselves.

For "casual" gamers, the roles are reversed. Button controls are typically strange and disorienting to them. Twelve buttons, two analog sticks, and a D-pad are just as intimidating to them as being presented with the controls for a 747 and asked to "just fly it a round a bit." Constantly looking down at the controller to figure out which button to press takes them right out of the game, and the frustration of not being able to just "get the game to do what they want" can be enough to turn them off to gaming for good. Motion controls have been such a revelation to these gamers, allowing them to play games by using actions and motions that are already second nature to them in real life and destroying the barriers that once existed between them and the game world.

This brings us to Skyward Sword, a game that seems to try to have it both ways but isn't quite willing to go the extra mile to get there. According to certain reviews, the game's motions controls have clearly taken at least one person out of the game. Now, as the video from TheBitBlock above clearly demonstrates, to fault the game's controls for your inability to play it properly is an inaccurate assessment. That would be like giving a bad review to a perfectly good basketball because, every time you try to get it in the hoop, it bounces off the backboard. Good reviewers would know when it's their fault, not the game's, for their inability to enjoy it. That's often not true of reviews of motion-controlled games. A lot of reviewers fail to understand that if a motion-controlled game works some of the time, then that means that it would work all the time if they were playing it properly. I could go on about that topic, but I'll save it for another time.

In addition to being able to differentiate between personal flaws and a game's flaws, it's also their job to speak from their heart as well as their head. Though I felt like Skyward Sword was a perfect 10, I thought that the game was too potentially alienating to be considered flawless from a design perspective. To get a 10/10, the game has to give all players everything they could possible want or expect out of a title. The forced motion controls are just enough to keep Skyward Sword from getting there.

Legit counter on motion control

It would be one thing if it were impossible to adapt the game for standard controls, but that's definitely not the case. Anyone who has played the Ape Escape series will tell you how the second analog stick can work to control swords, remote-controlled vehicles, and other Zelda-like items. It would be different, though not unheard of, for a game to have both classic and motion controls; the practice is becoming more and more common as gaming moves forward. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, Monster Hunter Tri, No More Heroes 2, Conduit 2, Punch-Out!!, GoldenEye 007, and many others on the Wii give us that option. The same can be said of No More Heroes: Heroes' Paradise and Dead Space: Extraction on the PS3. Even Twilight Princess gave you the option to play with standard or motion controls. Nintendo may have required players to buy a separate game for that option, but it was still possible. Players who aren't interested in the prospect of a motion-controlled Zelda have every right to feel disappointed that Skyward Sword doesn't allow us to play it the way they want.

It seems even stranger that Nintendo would make this call when you consider that the Wii U is potentially less than a year from launch. The upcoming console's main input device is basically a Wii classic controller with a touch screen. Wouldn't it have been great to have the option to play Skyward Sword on that controller, on your own private screen without the shackles of motion controls, while the rest of the family uses the TV for other purposes? Maybe Nintendo built in the option to play the game that way, or maybe the company will release a Wii U edition later on. Either way, it's strange that the company is moving towards making dual-analog controls and motion controls part of the core experience with the Wii U on that end, while completely abandoning the idea with Skyward Sword on the Wii.

http://www.zeldainformer.com/2011/11/should-skyward-sword-have-offered-multiple-control-options-should-the-next-wii-u-title.html

The world is now divided along body aware and thumb aware player

[Bandages]

@Atnas: thanks for your response, that gives me some good insight onto why things were going so poorly for me, and why I've been having a hard time. If I still feel discontented with the graphics on an HD TV, I'll move the system to a big ol color box TV in a different room of the house.

@Gimmy: yeah I definitely feel that disconnect between my chumbly form flailing the controller and the character of Link. I guess it's just something that will come with time, but I do prefer buttons. There's a reason I grew up playing video games instead of sports: I have no coordination at all. I can run, and that's about as athletic as I get. It's almost cruel for a video game company to force its players to have hand-eye coordination and good motor skills. It'd be like only hiring anorexics to work at a bakery.

But I guess it's time to get over my motion control anorexia and eat a fucking practice cake already.

Maybe after I beat Uncharted 3 :p

[Atnas]

The game was marketed as "holy shit 1:1 swordplay" so I don't think that anyone is forcing anyone to do anything they didn't sign up for by buying the game.

[Gimym JIMBERT]

yep it's also market as holy shit zelda (and i'm a motion control slut, but I already explore the in and out of that part of the debate we have the best so far to look at)

[Bandages]

The game was marketed as "holy shit 1:1 swordplay" so I don't think that anyone is forcing anyone to do anything they didn't sign up for by buying the game.

Every since Spore was released, I've consciously avoided caring about marketing and hype for any and all video games. Features are the only thing that matters, and even then, they only hint at the potential of the gameplay, not how it actually functions.

I pray to Beelzebub every night that Spore be unmade and that anyone who had a hand in marketing it be taken to a special corner of hell reserved for people who make other people waste like $50 or however much it cost.

[Gimym JIMBERT]

The only instance the hype was true you didn't look



EDit:
Zelda Timeline is officially LOST

[Atnas]

How's the timeline lost btw? Only 3 dungeons in, I haven't seen much that says timeline is lost. Also: Kikri elder is huge and has Deku Tree's moustache.

[BlueSweatshirt]

Because this game has elements from just about every single game.

And your clothes aren't "hero clothes of legend", but rather just a simple knight outfit.
But if it's an origin story then how is everything connected since there's elements from most major past games in here?!?!


I'm a fan of the "Nintendo doesn't try to make a timeline but just wants to keep making more Zelda games" theory. All evidence says it's true.


Also has anyone noticed how many reused sound effects from past games are in here? I've noticed a ton from Wind Waker, TP, and even recognized one from Majora's Mask.(when the seal comes loose at Sealed Grounds)

[Gimym JIMBERT]

not lost, LOST the series, you won't know until the end and only if you pay attention of the event order, knowledge about the lore required

@Jakman, except it's not true, they have a timeline, THEY SAID IT!

Yes there is a master timeline but its confidential document! The only people to have access to that document are myself, Mr. Miyamoto and the director of the title (Skyward Sword). We cant share it with anyone else!"

- Eiji Aonuma

[BlueSweatshirt]

Spoiler:
It's entirely possible that Japanese people may have a sense of humor.

[Gimym JIMBERT]

Have been confirm multiple time in multiple interview across many game. Some game have explicit reference too.

It's constantly refined with each game too, so it's not a set in stone timeline either. They explain that every times they fuck up (gameplay take precedent so of course story "lost") somewhere which create more retrofitting in the next games BUT it also generate new idea. Actually on a in game basis the story is also fuck. This zelda have some mindfuck (pay attention to details) because gameplay fight with the story and these was created to patch it, introducing new speculation hole for both dev and fan. Also translation in incredible at conveying these details, sometimes the english version is the best version, sometimes the french version trumps them all (oot). Translator have unique relation with the dev and sometimes propose thing to enhance things.

TW ganon was victim on in game timeline fuck (divine prank) they tried to explain in this one (which has is own fuck too because gameplay deviate from simple storyline and event had to be retrofit, pay attention too the hylia thingy), OOT generate WW saga, OOT is when the start caring about continuity and thematic coherence across game (that's why in WW when hyrule is flood you hear a serenade of water remix), skyward is obviously before them all.

[Conker534]

Mario.

[[RM8]]

Of course.