Written by: Alex

 

 

 

With so many instalments of the franchise having had significant impact on me through my gaming life my sentimentality from the series is hard to avoid. Fortunately, and to ease my issues of objectivity, the franchise has been uniformly good, with even weaker titles raising above their piers, delighting all with their familiar fantasy tales. But for all of the series history, the clash between ever complicating gameplay and a desire to keep the game’s broad appeal work in tandem to undermine game flow with long tutorials becoming an increasingly significant part of the experience.

 

"The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword" marks the first Wii exclusive launch and my hopes are high, but going in with a more critical lens it will be interesting to see if it holds up to the Zeldas of my youth. 

 

 

To long time fans of the franchise there is very little shocking about main tale of Skyward Sword (despite some interesting late twists). A young boy coming of age and chasing down his love as the both adventure to save the world. As always there are a number of changes to the main tale, in this case the entire human race living above the clouds on the floating town of Skyloft, but the basic story beats remain the same. It maybe familiar, but it remains a charming vehicle for the personality of the world and its inhabitants have long been the main focus of Zelda games.

 

Any issues with Zelda are rooted far from its overarching story, with the pace of the game causing a problem. A long opening area is key among the offenders as it moves a depressingly slowly, teaching the basic gameplay and introducing core characters along the way. Hero Link is a trainee knight and is about to undergo a trail of his 'piloting' abilities, taking his huge bird (every resident of Skyloft has one) on a race through the skies to graduate him to the next stage of his training. But before this happen however he is forced to hunt down his giant bird that is inexplicably missing. This set up allows the game to introduce the majority of the core mechanics, along with the characters of Skyloft, but all at a torturously plodding pace that will frustrate players with any experience.

 

After the core game controls have been introduced with the near pointless opening the real story begins as Link's childhood friend Zelda is knocked from her own bird and plunges below the clouds. The pace at least picks up at this point putting all of the abilities Link acquired during the intro as he chases down a spirit that turns out to be the Sky Sword of prophecy. After finding the powerful and (annoyingly) sentient Sky Sword, Link follows down to the mythical 'surface' to find his friend, setting in motion events of prophecy.

 

 

It is all typical Zelda, but with enough changes to keep details uncertain enough to be interesting when the story is moving and not bogged down with tutorial and lengthy exposition.

 

 

The whole opening section suffers painfully slow tutorials to many of the basic game mechanics that have to be completed to continue. In trying to make Zelda both more complex and more accessible Nintendo tied their own noose. While I felt frustrated being taught the intricacies of 'z targeting' and movement. I do concede that such a tutorial is necessary for many gamers who maybe less familiar with the controls (and indeed the flying mechanic does need some explanation), but Skyward Sword protracts this process so greatly that it becomes detrimental.

 

Tutorial elements persist through most of the game and thankfully their execution improves. New weapons and skills are gifted constantly throughout the game and each time they come with a necessary explanation and safe area to practice in before allowing them to be used in open play. True their inclusion is never seamless, but it greatly improved and at least feels relevant.

 

 

As the last sections rant on opening tutorials will no doubt reveal, long time Zelda fans will find the majority of Skyward Sword very familiar in both play style and basic structure. After all exploring the world, targeting enemies and slashing them while moving from area to area and defeating dungeons is now a twenty-five year old mechanic.

 

There are a few shifts however and one of the main ones is the implementation of a far more apparent hub world. Previous titles saw very definite key areas but Skyward Sword takes it one step further with the above-cloud over world tying together the three disparate surface areas. Each area is large with a unique look and play mechanic, but their distinctiveness also marks their eventual issues.

 

 

With the majority of life on the surface hostile the jungle, volcano and desert areas of the surface world fairly empty in terms of NPCs. Small quest giving characters are scattered through out each of the three, but never in a density to bring personality leaving it to the look and feel of the world itself provide a hook. Fortunately the art style does quickly set a tone, but the nature of gameplay as you enter each environment causes issues, with the need to hunt down a number of hidden objects before a door will unlock proving a quickly overused mechanic.

 

To speed things up a little Link’s newly acquired Skyward Sword is able to divine for specific elements in the world. Switching to first person an on screen compass lead me in the right direction, but it still requires extensive exploration and scouring of each area to find each of the required objects. This structure greatly over extends the time spent in the world that could otherwise easily be navigated, and more importantly makes the required repeat visits to each area feel like a chore.