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Ohmi's Skyward Sword review:
Claimed to be "Not only the best Zelda on the Wii, but the best Zelda ever made" - IGN
The Beginning:
Man the intro is slow paced. There is some important stuff in there like Zelda playing the part of the Goddess, Link being her chosen hero etc. But I feel like it could've been done in a more expedient way.. The introduction/tutorial part of the game lasts about an hour and that's way too long for a Zelda game (or in fact any video game I'd argue). Something I've always liked about older games - Their immediacy.
Let's think back to Zelda 1, Zelda 2.. or Zelda: Link to the Past. The first game obviously has no "intro" built into it unless you decide to wait around on the title screen for a while.. Zelda 2 dispenses with the "intro" in a similar manner and gives you a real obvious hint even if you skipped that with the sleeping Zelda up on the pedestal. Zelda: LttP is quite a bit more lengthy with its intro but rather than talk at you for a while like Skyward Sword does... it puts you straight into the action. You're playing as Link at all times and not buttoning through dialog more than is absolutely necessary. I'll admit Zelda 1's method was too obscure.. I was honestly confused by the game when I tried it at a kiosk before it came out. There's nothing to give you hints or guide you at all. LttP does a good job of introducing a player to the game in a concise way that doesn't hinder the advancement of the game - let the player learn the game through level-design; show don't tell. Miyamoto is a master of this brand of design.. I guess Hidemaro Fujibayashi isn't and that's unfortunate.
Characters:
Man.. this game is such a mixed-bag in terms of what I think about the characters. Not all of the characters were created equal on an art or a writing perspective.
Link is Link.. he's not mute but he seems to be and he's basically an avatar for you to embody. Unfortunately art-wise he doesn't look like the concept art version and they drew in his lips which is an art no-no so he ended up being slightly uglier (girlier) than he should be.
Zelda: wow she's the most attractive/adorable Zelda ever. They also went so far as to pair her up with Link from the very start.. they tie the two to eachother emotionally I couldn't help but like her so good job! I guess the oddest thing about she and Link being paired up at this point in their life is how platonic their relationship seems to be - held at arms length - friend-zone infatuation but clean and wholesome.
Groose: Okay so I understand that he's supposed to come off as a character the audience will dislike at first.. but uh, you could at least write him as a well done character so I have a better reason to dislike him than, "Hi I'm an incredibly cliche' bully!".. Yeah this guy needed to be cut from the game I don't care how they try to make him important/redeemable later. He's a terrible character on so many levels. Oh and he has painted-in lips too.
Ghirahim: I didn't like him either but again for the wrong reasons.. He's too overly-flamboyant for no explained reason, I think his art design is completely unattractive and yes again he's very cliche' in his actions/writing. Come on guys we know you can do better than this! There are so few games with villains worth their salt it's shameful. Unfortunately I have to lump Skyward Sword in with the rejects in this regard.
Fi: The sword spirit that resides in the Goddess Sword - Man if you thought Navi was annoying (I actually don't), Fi is worse but not because of being vocal like Navi "HEY LISTEN" is not the issue.. however, when Fi talks what she says is usually something unnecessary and lengthy that I just want to skip, but I can't!! (see system) She also sounds like a computer which IMO doesn't fit the world/theme of the game.
Other than that the rest of the cast is pretty inconsequential. I do like the Item-Check girl and her "story" though. A lot of the townspeople had some fun stories that you could participate in and I enjoyed a lot of that.
The Controls:
I totally called it. (Certain parts of) Wii Sports Resort were the prototype for this game's control scheme. Obviously tailored to the experience needed in Zelda but.. yeah. Saw that coming from a mile away.
Obviously it's a motion-controls only game and IMO Twilight Princess' scheme was upsetting and I didn't actually play the Wii version because I gave it a shot w/ the wiimote and hated it. I played the GameCube one since it didn't just replace buttons with "waggle". The good news is that I didn't mind Skyward Sword's motion controls that much. It is a little frustrating if you can't get Link to swing his sword in exactly the right direction and you lose a heart because of it.. but when I got used to it, it wasn't bad at all. I'm very glad that "waggle" is pretty much nonexistent as a tactic in this game. I feel like the biggest thing the controls of the game did was to make the game much more "twitch" than most Zelda games. The combination of having to hit enemies precisely from a certain angle and the incorporation of parries to open up an enemy's guard make this game much more action-oriented than previous incarnations. I liked that aspect as it reminds me a lot of Zelda2's sword combat where you have to hit enemies where they're not guarding. I know other people will have trouble with it though and a lot of those people are probably long-time Zelda fans so I wonder if it was the best idea? Skyward Sword easily has the best motion-controls since Metroid Prime 3 though, so let's move along.
System (sorry this is sort of a catch-all for all sorts of game design):
Here's where it gets dicey at times.. And I guess this section is just a place for me to rant about things that don't belong in a Zelda title.. Like destructable shields. They have no place in a Zelda title. Yes, I know that you could lose a shield in previous games.. that's not what I mean. The fact that A: Shields have HP and are breakable and B: the fact that shields are upgradeable with "rare items" create a vicious circle of badness that needs to be addressed. So here we go - I can buy a shield from a merchant, I can upgrade a shield 2 times by using collected (sometimes rare) items as well as rupees, if I block attacks too many times it will break and I will have to START OVER buying a level 0 shield. There are a couple of things you can do to prevent this such as: going back to Skyloft and repairing it which is almost never convenient at the time or: use a fix-it potion.. This requires bottles so you may or may not have much of that lying around. In any case why is this even in a Zelda game? Using a shield should not be a penalty. There was one point when I was playing the game and PURPOSELY put away my shield so that I wouldn't break it.. because dying and re-starting the section would've been a better option.. and that's just dumb. PS- Shields are required if you want to parry attacks.. parrying causes no damage to the shield but standard blocking does. WTF?
The next thing that bugs me to no end is that when you acquire a "rare item" the game will pop up the inventory and tell you what you've just picked up. It won't pop up the message again if you pick up the same item........... IF IT'S STILL THE SAME GAME SESSION... what this means is that if you turn off the console/reset and then start playing again.. and you pick up an item you've already collected it'll show you the message AGAIN! This is highly unnecessary.
I guess last but not least is that you can speed up dialog but only just a little bit. There were many times where I wanted to button through dialog because I'd either read it, knew what the message was going to say, and the like.. slow text is always frustrating and there's not even an option to speed it up like in old FFs.. This helps to compound the pain of the intro section as well as the darn item pop-ups..
The "Overworld/Getting Around":
Unlike most Zelda games that have an expanse of Hyrule to explore this game setting puts you high in the sky.. The sky is essentially the overworld and it's pretty sparsely populated as if it's a highly miniature version of the Great Ocean in Wind Waker and even less interesting. Replacing what used to be the rest of the overworld in previous Zelda games are 3 precursory lands (Woods, Desert, Volcano) which are not so much lands to traverse but lightweight Zelda style "dungeons" in themselves - and that's a good thing. The areas are interesting and require you to figure out quite a few things before you even get to the actual dungeons. They keep you on your toes and have a lot of secrets to discover. That being said, I do actually miss having a connected overworld like Zeldas of the past - Jumping up into the sky just to get over to the next area is filled with load times and a couple minutes of flying which seemed like a time waster. You cannot warp around with music like you could before.. and you also cannot warp between save points which would've been very useful.
Easter Egg: Oh yeah did I mention Link rides on a red Loftwing bird? Did you notice how the bird on the Hylian Shield is a red bird? Okay.. I was really impressed by that one Nintendo. Good stuff!
Dungeons:
This is where the game comes alive.. most of the time the best part of any Zelda game. The dungeons are expertly designed, very well themed and decked out with interesting enemies, challenges and puzzles to solve. I know this comment is short but it's because it really doesn't need much explaining THIS IS WHY YOU PLAY THIS GAME!
I also want to mention Lanaryu and the Time Shift crystals.. maybe one of the most inspired mechanics in a game I've seen recently. It can be a little bit cumbersome at certain points but overall it's incredibly creative.. especially the Sand Sea.. omg so cool! How did they do that on a Wii!?
The Phantom World Trials/Mario Galaxy Disease:
I'm sorry but I can't stand these. They're not interesting, they're not that challenging, and they involve re-running the same patches of land you've already been treading on for quite a while already (which is important so that you know the landscape of the challenge). I feel like they're unnecessary though and would be better as an added challenge mode if anything at all. There are also other tasks that certain characters send you on that require you to re-tread slightly remixed stages a-la Mario Galaxy. It worked better in Galaxy.. here it just seems like a cop-out that no other Zelda game had to stoop to in order to extend the game. Some are at least a little bit cool like the stealth section 'course love it or hate it, that was already explored in Wind Waker.
Game Progression Structure/Items:
There is always a progression structure in any Zelda.. typically involving the collection of crystals, maidens, Triforce pieces, or some sort of currency that allows Link to progress on his quest and obtain the Master Sword before going toe-to-toe with Ganon. I guess I never really thought about it.. or how predictable/unpredictable it could be.. but for some reason I noticed it a lot more this time and how predictable it was. First- gain a stone that opens an area, beat the dungeon located at the end, learn a song, do a trial in the area, repeat. It ends up changing a bit after a long while but for some reason it bugged me how easily I noticed the structure of the progression. Even more odd since previous Zeldas that I completely enjoyed had similar repetitive structures. I feel like there was a problem here but it's so subtle I can't describe it properly.
I'm happy to say that in the case of items they did it right this time. I felt like Twilight Princess failed to properly incorporate the Zelda tradition of items opening up new parts of the overworld to explore and that's definitely not the case here. Skyward Sword has many opportunities for the player to see areas they can't yet reach and once they have the proper item they can come back to that area and explore something new. It's a Zelda staple and it's well executed here. I guess it's a bit of a bummer there's no real overworld so I don't feel like I'm discovering a brand new area/secret just a "roped off section" of the same space. It's not too bad though.
Bosses in general in Zelda games are great fun! The majority of them are still great fun and still use the Zelda formula (Since LttP) of being defeatable by whatever the special item Link found in their respective dungeon was.. there are a couple of bosses that break this tradition and I want to go into that for a bit. The first is Ghirahim. His main challenge centers around being able to "fool" him with the Wiimote. Put your sword in one direction and slash from the other side.... ?! Wait, you can't do that.. or can you? It practically breaks the fiction of the game because yes, as a player you can do that if you think about it.. it just doesn't make any sense from a "realism" standpoint.
The Imprisoned - I didn't like the inclusion of a recurring boss who changes only slightly.. How many times do I have to beat essentially the same boss? The answer is: TOO MANY! I know it serves a story purpose but it's not fun and it's not interesting.. so let's not do this again please? It's also really annoying if you play the "boss rush" section because this guy comes up way too often.
Closing Thoughts:
This game came along at the right time.. had great art and music and truly got me hyped up to play another Zelda! Overall I quite enjoyed it and would rank it probably somewhere in the middle of the Zelda games. There were some obvious downsides for me and saying that it's "The best Zelda of all time" or even saying it's better than Ocarina or LttP is way overrating it IMO seeing as those games had so much attention to game flow and expertly built mechanics that set the bar for all the other Zelda games to come.. no not even close. But that's not saying it's bad.. far from it. Skyward Sword on the whole is a joy to play and deserving of the Zelda title as well as your time and attention. If you have a Wii that's sitting around collecting dust - please.. do yourself a favor and fire it up one last time.