next »

[Falmil]

Is the combat really that clever?  I'd wager that at least half of all battles come down to "Hey I'm blocking in this really awkward way that leaves me completely open to you swinging the sword in a specific way. What are you gonna do about it?"

Well, its definitely more clever than it would be with normal button controls, which would just be you button mashing your sword attack on every enemy instead. The game would definitely be "clever" if the detection was more accurate. Those electric enemies really make you hesitate about which direction to slash.

[SirNiko]

Yeah, the downside is that the slashing is still a little inaccurate (Especially for the electric foes since it's normal for you to slash and have the game detect you slashing again as you move back to neutral). You have to kind of guess where the different slashes are in the space in front of you. Still, you have several kinds of attacks available to you (including the stab, the different spin attacks and shield bashes) and several of the bosses are designed so that you have to identify the gap in their defense and exploit it. The first boss also features some defensive situations where you can flub the move and take damage, but that doesn't prevent you from damaging the foe. It isn't until the final few bosses where you have to chain together proper strikes to make any progress at all.

I think it's a heckuva lot more clever than 3d Zelda combat up to this point, which consisted of blocking everything until there was an opening and then slashing like a lunatic. Now you absolutely must learn how to do the combat special moves or you take unnecessary damage until you die (or for early bosses, waste a pile of rupees on cheater potions).

[phubans]

Hey all.  Yeah, for those who didn't read my Skyward Sword review, I essentially say the the game is for babies.  This is of course hyperbole for joke purposes, as in reality I think the game is actually just for very young children.

Essentially, I think if we weren't raised with "Zelda" games and if videogames didn't have this sort of rock-star status, there's no way in hell anybody over the age of 18 would waste their time with something like Skyward Sword.  There is simply nothing there for an adult mind.  The puzzles are all no brainers, the quests are all busy-work, the dialogue and story are flat and uninteresting, and in between it all is a bunch of holding UP or mashing A to win (sorry, waving your hands around instead, now).

I'm sorry, but in addition to sounding pretentious, this sounds like an utter crock of shit that sounds like it was written by an over-compensating 19-year-old struggling to sound sophisticated. A true "adult mind" is mature enough to appreciate simplicity and simply enjoy the experience of something without having to feel the need to prove an "intellectual capacity" for solving problems. That said, the puzzles feel just right; they often make you stop and think, but don't go overboard to the point of feeling tediously complex. I'm 30 and I've spent over 24 hours playing Skyward Sword so far and I've thoroughly enjoyed it up to this point, feeling compelled to come back for more, and by no means feel that I've wasted my time with it. But if you find the game too callow for your "adult mind" then perhaps you should stick to Sudoku or Crosswords.

[C.A. Sinner]

fwiw i was playing "complex" strategy games like civ and anno at age 10 and so did most of my friends.

i found skyward sword boring too, but not because the puzzles are too easy or w/e. i don't expect zelda to challenge me.

[DavidCaruso]

A true "adult mind" is mature enough to appreciate simplicity and simply enjoy the experience of something without having to feel the need to prove an "intellectual capacity" for solving problems.

Maybe his "experience" was worsened by, like, the very things he mentioned in his post? I mean, maybe that's why he wasn't able to just "simply enjoy" it? Just putting the possibility out there!

[phubans]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx69cL52e3s

[alastair]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za82JLKU0a0

[Fallsburg]

I think it's a heckuva lot more clever than 3d Zelda combat up to this point, which consisted of blocking everything until there was an opening and then slashing like a lunatic. Now you absolutely must learn how to do the combat special moves or you take unnecessary damage until you die (or for early bosses, waste a pile of rupees on cheater potions).

It's probably just a semantics thing, but I don't see it as being more clever than combat in the past. Sure, you have to learn how to swing your sword in the required directions (the only time special combat moves are necessary, they are also displayed on the screen, so that really doesn't require a lot of work), but thats it. 
In Zelda games past (at least post LttP), the bosses were often puzzles onto themselves.  Typically, you had to figure out the proper way to use the item that you received in the dungeon to defeat the boss (obviously, there are exceptions, but I'd wager this was true for more than half of the bosses).  I'm not saying that this was complex, but it was at least as complex as the pattern recognition required in SS (as mentioned before, "He's blocking all attacks except from the left, I should swing from the left.").  SS is more demanding physically, but that's mostly a control issue.

[C.A. Sinner]

not necessarily related to "cleverness" or w/e but i think (not 100% sure) ocarina of time started the "lock-on + circle strafing" style of melee combat for 3d games.

[Fallsburg]

Great article about how the Zelda series has lost its way.

[C.A. Sinner]

Almost everything in Zelda has a discrete purpose, a tedious teleology.  When it all snaps into place, some call this good design.  I call it brittle, overdetermined, pale.  It’s the work of a singleminded god, a world bled of wonder.

This would fit well in the "overpolish/overdesign" thread in the Design forum.

I agree with what he says about the dungeons feeling like busy work as well. I initially thought the larger rooms in Skyward Sword were a cool idea but later found that I was now running huge distances just to press a couple switches to complete a puzzle I'd already figured out minutes ago.

Tbqh though, Skyward Sword is first Zelda where I'm really feeling these things. I didn't notice them in Ocarina, Majora, Wind Waker etc at all. Also I think Zelda 1 is actually kind of an anomaly in the series. Its REAL (spiritual) successors are games like King's Field, La Mulana and other "hardcore exploration games" (for lack of better term), not Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time.

[J-Snake]

fwiw i was playing "complex" strategy games like civ and anno at age 10 and so did most of my friends.

i found skyward sword boring too, but not because the puzzles are too easy or w/e. i don't expect zelda to challenge me.

I think some serious pc-gamers coming from a real rpg-background like baldur's gate and gothic cannot even understand how zelda can be called a game. It is a primitive untasty cake for them at best, nothing more. I live with one such person.

[Fallsburg]

Almost everything in Zelda has a discrete purpose, a tedious teleology.  When it all snaps into place, some call this good design.  I call it brittle, overdetermined, pale.  It’s the work of a singleminded god, a world bled of wonder.

This would fit well in the "overpolish/overdesign" thread in the Design forum.

I agree with what he says about the dungeons feeling like busy work as well. I initially thought the larger rooms in Skyward Sword were a cool idea but later found that I was now running huge distances just to press a couple switches to complete a puzzle I'd already figured out minutes ago.

Tbqh though, Skyward Sword is first Zelda where I'm really feeling these things. I didn't notice them in Ocarina, Majora, Wind Waker etc at all. Also I think Zelda 1 is actually kind of an anomaly in the series. Its REAL (spiritual) successors are games like King's Field, La Mulana and other "hardcore exploration games" (for lack of better term), not Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time.

I think Link to the Past is more of a transitional game.  It shows movement towards the OoT-style Zelda philosophy, but still keeps a fair amount of open ended exploration (IMO).  That being said, I think you are right that the spiritual successors keep a lot more of that flavor.

[C.A. Sinner]

i guess youre right but i last played lttp when the gba remake came out so yeah

[phubans]

Cool, I finished it. The ending was good, like the rest of the game, but not epic or breathtaking, etc. The game overall was good; I'd rate it around 4/5 stars, or a solid 8/10, not nearly as horrible as many made it seem. Sure, it's not classic Zelda, but it's a pretty good update to the 3D Zelda games (Ocarina, etc, which I never really liked as much to begin with.) I opted out of Hero Mode, because there was really no motivation for me to play through the whole game again when I have a pretty big backlog of other games I'd like to finish. I didn't complete the game in terms of finding all of the heart container pieces or gratitude crystals, but with this game I'm not too particularly arsed.

The Legend of Zelda: Skywrard Sword - 8/10
Great installment but far from the best; doesn't capture the spirit of the classics.