me.letsPlay(SkywardSword).getPart(1);
So the thing is, I've been playing Skyward Sword a fair amount these last couple of days, and I already have enough material for this post and four six and a half more. So basically, these updates will be coming along as soon as I have time and motivation for them. Probably no more than one per day, but you never know, I might co crazy. -er.
In any case, let's get started on...
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: Part 1
When we last left our hero his girlfriend (after several attempted homicides) had been kidnapped and taken to the surface world. In spite of this, Link had decided the best possible course of action would be to gear up and chase after her. On his journey, he will be guided by Fi, a robot artificial intelligence spirit in his sword, the Master Goddess Sword. His next step is to go skydiving. No, I'm not kidding; in this game, Link goes skydiving. With nothing more than a tiny Sailcloth for a parachute. What could possibly go wrong?
So yeah, we take a running leap off of the continent... and learn that you can only actually dive off of the piers on the main island. Whoops. Lucky, any time you accidentally fall off of the main island (during the daytime, anyways), a knight on a Loftwing swoops in to save you. And chews you out. Which gets really tedious in certain areas where it's really easy to fall off. Or run and have Link automatically jump over a fence to his doom. Trust me, I know.
... ahem.
The second time around Link manages to successfully dive off of the island and call his bird, at which point he flies to and skydives down the giant pillar of green light (seriously, no one else noticed or bothered to comment on it? Really?). Furthermore, in doing so he leaves his bird behind, because apparently Loftwings won't go beneath the cloud barrier, period. Man, these birds are super finicky. So of course, that means I'll have to walk everywhere once I hit the ground, which honestly is fine because (as previously mentioned) I hate the flying controls in this game. I suppose it also prevents sequence breaking, but it does feel like a bit of a cop-out, literary-wise.
Our hero lands on the outer edge of a large pit, with a spiral pathway down to the bottom along the outer edge. At the top of the pit, Link gets another vision of the giant black worm with teeth coming out to swallow him whole. Since there doesn't seem to be anything else to do, we make our way down to the bottom of the pit, where something speaks to Link, telling him to use the Goddess Sword to break the seal on the evil aura beneath the ground. This is obviously a bad idea. It is also the only way to progress the plot. Huzzah for plot induced stupidity.
Once that's taken care of, several places along the path start shooting air jets out of the ground, allowing for a much faster path back up to the top of the pit, where a door that was previously sealed is now open. Fi also reveals another of the sword's abilities: Link can use the sword as a dowsing rod to find certain things; in this case, it can track Zelda's aura. Unsurprisingly, it leads to the newly unlocked door. Link follows the trail into a small temple.
Inside, Link meets an old woman who seems to exist only to exposit that Zelda has been through here and has headed deeper into Faron Woods. Once we walk outside, Fi informs Link how to place a beacon on the map, allowing him an easier way to keep track of his bearings. This takes the form of a giant blue pillar of light on the spot where the beacon is placed. How? Why? It makes no sense, and isn't really ever explained. It's just a thing Link can do now. Or rather, a thing the player can do for Link.
Just outside, we run into our first classic Zelda series creatures: a goron with a backpack surrounded by bokoblins. Link, being the hero that he is, fights all of them off and rescues the out-of-place goron. The goron is in the process of traveling the world, studying various surface myths, all of which relate to the sky world that Link came from. This includes the bird statues on the surface, which act as save points for Link, as well as places that he can take off from and land at when returning from the sky. Strangely, the goron has no reaction to Link taking off and landing right in front of him again.
Link leaves the goron behind and continues on his way, dowsing for Zelda's aura some more. This eventually leads him to a strange creature surrounded by more bokoblins. Unsurprisingly, Link once again dives into the fray and beats the ever-loving crap out of the enemies. The creature, however, is more terrified instead of grateful, and swiftly runs off. Fi notes that she detected a high concentration of Zelda's aura around the creature, and that therefore it probably saw and spoke to Zelda. As such, Link gives chase, eventually cornering the creature. It turns out that this is a Kikwi, and it's name is Machi.
Seriously? You couldn't have stuck with the Deku?
Machi apparently saw another creature that looked like Link (keeping in mind that there are apparently no humans on the surface) but pinker talking with the Kikwi Elder. Link and Fi quickly realize that this must be Zelda (of course) and ask him where to find the Kikwi Elder. He tells them, and Link is off again. It doesn't take long to reach him, and not long to find him, either; he's a giant version of the other Kikwi, standing at three times Link's height, while the other only came up to his knees. The Elder would like to help Link, but requires that he first finds the other three Kikwis in the woods and verifies their safety. In order to facilitate finding them, Fi offers an option to dowse for Kikwis.
After much scrambling around the forest, Link eventually finds the Kikwis and reports back to the Elder, given that none of them particularly want to move from their safe spots. Upon completing this task, the Elder gives Link a slingshot and points him in the direction of the Forest Temple. Link, being the good hero and boyfriend that he is, immediately gets sidetracked by returning to Skylof- wait what?
Yeah, so at this point I returned to Skyloft, because the slingshot allowed me to get into Beedle's Air Shop. Beedle is a recurring character in the series, appearing first in a set of boat shops in Wind Waker. In this game, he runs an Air Shop that flies in circles above Skyloft during the day. Hanging underneath the shop is a giant bell, which you must some how hit if you want him to stop and lower a rope for you. With the slingshot, Link can now manage to do so, allowing him to grab the rope and be pulled up to the entrance to the shop.
Inside, we find that the shop (shaped like the least aerodynamic house imaginable with two propellers sticking out of the top) is kept afloat by Beedle's furious peddling. He has a handful of interesting (read: expensive) things for sale, as well as a bed that he presumably sleeps in at night, when he lands. It also turns out that if you try to leave without buying anything, Beedle gets irritated at you and opens a trap door, dropping you to the ground. The second time I visit, I make sure to pick up the bug-catching net, because that seems like a useful thing to have.
After that side trip, Link heads back to Faron Woods, and towards the temple. After he crosses a chasm that separates him from the temple, he runs into the adventuring goron again. This time the goron informs him about Goddess Cubes. Apparently, these are rumored to do... something... when struck by the light of the Goddess. This, of course, means hitting it with a Skyward Strike, i.e. the sword-beam attack of the game. This causes the cube to turn into a ball of light and shoot into the sky. And... that's it? Yeah, that's it, for now.
And all that brings us to the front door of the Forest Temple. I'll go ahead and stop here. Next time: the first dungeon!
First | Previous | Part 1 | Next | Last
In any case, let's get started on...
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: Part 1
When we last left our hero his girlfriend (after several attempted homicides) had been kidnapped and taken to the surface world. In spite of this, Link had decided the best possible course of action would be to gear up and chase after her. On his journey, he will be guided by Fi, a robot artificial intelligence spirit in his sword, the Master Goddess Sword. His next step is to go skydiving. No, I'm not kidding; in this game, Link goes skydiving. With nothing more than a tiny Sailcloth for a parachute. What could possibly go wrong?
So yeah, we take a running leap off of the continent... and learn that you can only actually dive off of the piers on the main island. Whoops. Lucky, any time you accidentally fall off of the main island (during the daytime, anyways), a knight on a Loftwing swoops in to save you. And chews you out. Which gets really tedious in certain areas where it's really easy to fall off. Or run and have Link automatically jump over a fence to his doom. Trust me, I know.
... ahem.
The second time around Link manages to successfully dive off of the island and call his bird, at which point he flies to and skydives down the giant pillar of green light (seriously, no one else noticed or bothered to comment on it? Really?). Furthermore, in doing so he leaves his bird behind, because apparently Loftwings won't go beneath the cloud barrier, period. Man, these birds are super finicky. So of course, that means I'll have to walk everywhere once I hit the ground, which honestly is fine because (as previously mentioned) I hate the flying controls in this game. I suppose it also prevents sequence breaking, but it does feel like a bit of a cop-out, literary-wise.
Our hero lands on the outer edge of a large pit, with a spiral pathway down to the bottom along the outer edge. At the top of the pit, Link gets another vision of the giant black worm with teeth coming out to swallow him whole. Since there doesn't seem to be anything else to do, we make our way down to the bottom of the pit, where something speaks to Link, telling him to use the Goddess Sword to break the seal on the evil aura beneath the ground. This is obviously a bad idea. It is also the only way to progress the plot. Huzzah for plot induced stupidity.
Once that's taken care of, several places along the path start shooting air jets out of the ground, allowing for a much faster path back up to the top of the pit, where a door that was previously sealed is now open. Fi also reveals another of the sword's abilities: Link can use the sword as a dowsing rod to find certain things; in this case, it can track Zelda's aura. Unsurprisingly, it leads to the newly unlocked door. Link follows the trail into a small temple.
Inside, Link meets an old woman who seems to exist only to exposit that Zelda has been through here and has headed deeper into Faron Woods. Once we walk outside, Fi informs Link how to place a beacon on the map, allowing him an easier way to keep track of his bearings. This takes the form of a giant blue pillar of light on the spot where the beacon is placed. How? Why? It makes no sense, and isn't really ever explained. It's just a thing Link can do now. Or rather, a thing the player can do for Link.
Just outside, we run into our first classic Zelda series creatures: a goron with a backpack surrounded by bokoblins. Link, being the hero that he is, fights all of them off and rescues the out-of-place goron. The goron is in the process of traveling the world, studying various surface myths, all of which relate to the sky world that Link came from. This includes the bird statues on the surface, which act as save points for Link, as well as places that he can take off from and land at when returning from the sky. Strangely, the goron has no reaction to Link taking off and landing right in front of him again.
Link leaves the goron behind and continues on his way, dowsing for Zelda's aura some more. This eventually leads him to a strange creature surrounded by more bokoblins. Unsurprisingly, Link once again dives into the fray and beats the ever-loving crap out of the enemies. The creature, however, is more terrified instead of grateful, and swiftly runs off. Fi notes that she detected a high concentration of Zelda's aura around the creature, and that therefore it probably saw and spoke to Zelda. As such, Link gives chase, eventually cornering the creature. It turns out that this is a Kikwi, and it's name is Machi.
Seriously? You couldn't have stuck with the Deku?
Machi apparently saw another creature that looked like Link (keeping in mind that there are apparently no humans on the surface) but pinker talking with the Kikwi Elder. Link and Fi quickly realize that this must be Zelda (of course) and ask him where to find the Kikwi Elder. He tells them, and Link is off again. It doesn't take long to reach him, and not long to find him, either; he's a giant version of the other Kikwi, standing at three times Link's height, while the other only came up to his knees. The Elder would like to help Link, but requires that he first finds the other three Kikwis in the woods and verifies their safety. In order to facilitate finding them, Fi offers an option to dowse for Kikwis.
After much scrambling around the forest, Link eventually finds the Kikwis and reports back to the Elder, given that none of them particularly want to move from their safe spots. Upon completing this task, the Elder gives Link a slingshot and points him in the direction of the Forest Temple. Link, being the good hero and boyfriend that he is, immediately gets sidetracked by returning to Skylof- wait what?
Yeah, so at this point I returned to Skyloft, because the slingshot allowed me to get into Beedle's Air Shop. Beedle is a recurring character in the series, appearing first in a set of boat shops in Wind Waker. In this game, he runs an Air Shop that flies in circles above Skyloft during the day. Hanging underneath the shop is a giant bell, which you must some how hit if you want him to stop and lower a rope for you. With the slingshot, Link can now manage to do so, allowing him to grab the rope and be pulled up to the entrance to the shop.
Inside, we find that the shop (shaped like the least aerodynamic house imaginable with two propellers sticking out of the top) is kept afloat by Beedle's furious peddling. He has a handful of interesting (read: expensive) things for sale, as well as a bed that he presumably sleeps in at night, when he lands. It also turns out that if you try to leave without buying anything, Beedle gets irritated at you and opens a trap door, dropping you to the ground. The second time I visit, I make sure to pick up the bug-catching net, because that seems like a useful thing to have.
After that side trip, Link heads back to Faron Woods, and towards the temple. After he crosses a chasm that separates him from the temple, he runs into the adventuring goron again. This time the goron informs him about Goddess Cubes. Apparently, these are rumored to do... something... when struck by the light of the Goddess. This, of course, means hitting it with a Skyward Strike, i.e. the sword-beam attack of the game. This causes the cube to turn into a ball of light and shoot into the sky. And... that's it? Yeah, that's it, for now.
And all that brings us to the front door of the Forest Temple. I'll go ahead and stop here. Next time: the first dungeon!
First | Previous | Part 1 | Next | Last