It's been a good five years since Link's last major console outing, and being that Twilight Princess was a Wii port, a true Zelda adventure for the Wii was conspicuously absent from Nintendo's roster. Of course, since Skyward Sword was "announced" in 2009, it's not like that absence wasn't payed back in full. Presented in its true form at E3 2010, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword pulled a Wind Waker and boasted a stylized visual look. Given that Wind Waker had, after seven years, been vindicated by history, you'd think that Nintendo's choice to utilize a cel-shaded style would be accepted right off the bat. Oddly enough, some fans were still split.
I felt a little bit like it was a cop out, trying Adult Link in the cel-shaded style, but looking back, it was really a brilliant idea. Playing Twilight Princess, you notice a whole lot of imperfections in the realistic style...a lot of it coming from the fact that the world is huge, and thus covered by miles and miles of the same texture. It didn't look back, but on occasion, it did look muddy or dirty. What really gave Nintendo away about their partiality to the stylized looks of Wind Waker and its kin was the fact that, despite being realistic, the characters in Twilight Princess still looked very odd, with exaggerated features and expressions.
So what did I think of the game itself? Well, I don't know about it being the best game of the generation or anything like that, but it's still, undeniably and incontrovertably, one hell of an adventure. It certainly mixes up a good few things from previous Zelda adventures in a style reminiscent of Wind Waker. If you ask me, Skyward Sword is kind of getting the recognition that Wind Waker never could. That's not a bad thing, since it certainly deserves it.
Aside from the unique visual style, the main attraction of Skyward Sword is the gameplay, which employs the Wii Motion Plus to improve the sword based combat. The effectiveness of this approach is deceptive. Once you face your first Boko Babas and Bokoblins, you realize that this approach is ALL about the six or so ways you can swing your sword. You have to watch your enemy to see if they're holding their weapon to the right or left, horizontal or vertical. It seems very very simple, and it kind of is except it's something players are not used to dealing with. While the controls are indeed imperfect and some of my shots were most definitely read incorrectly as I input them, there are were a good few times I had to catch onto things too.
Oh sure, but how you get him to DO that first?
The battle system in Skyward Sword feels a lot like playing Portal. The only reason you really suck at Portal is because you tend to forget what you can do, or as the game puts it "you're not thinking with portals." Skyward Sword is much the same way. You're fighting an enemy, they're winning, and it's only because you're not thinking about everything you can do. This becomes evident the first time you encounter a Skulltula. Anyone who's played Skyward Sword knows precisely what I'm talking about. This game truly makes you think like a swordsman, or better yet a warrior, not only forcing you but allowing you to deal opponents as you see fit. One of my favorite parts about this game is how I have my own little ways of defeating enemies. Teknoblins come to mind. Since their specialty is using an electricity-infused sword, I either take them out with a sword beam from afar, or better yet, place a bomb near their inanimate remains, only awakening them when it's just about to explode. Neither of those things are particularly necessary, as I could just pay attention to where he's holding the sword.
One of the other major changes in the Stamina Meter, borrowed from Shadow of the Colossus. Link can now run and perform more acrobatic feats for a limited time before the meter runs out and he must huff and puff to get his breath back. This was something I wasn't unfamiliar with, since the same thing was put to brilliant use in Shadow of the Colossus. The problem I had with it, however, was that it was not implimented quite as brilliantly. In SotC, the Stamina Meter grows over the course of the adventure, while Link's stays the same. It is, quite simply, a missed opportunity to show Link's growth, which happnens to be a major theme of the story.
Speaking of which, let's talk about that. The story is, much like the game itself, somewhere between Wind Waker and Twilight Princess in tone, and it does work very well. While I couldn't help trying to liken everything back to Back to the Future, the story fares fine on its own, giving us a typical Zelda story with a few nice perks. The characters tend to be very good at falling on the side of likeable rather than annoying, as was in the case in the past. Gone are the whiny brats of Ordon Village, and here are the residents of Skyloft, more specifically the Knights-in-Training. While some of the charcters were a little obtrusive (seriously, Faron, again with the proving?), things are generally strong here.
There's one character here that stands out for me, and I can't talk about him without spoilers, but we'll get to that. Ghirahim is a perfectly delightful villain. He clearly acts an apology for Zant, who really really wanted to be THIS villain, but couldn't pull it off in Ganondorf's shadow. No, Ghirahim is truly an enigma, getting into Link's personal space, and by extension, the players. While he doesn't quite get to follow up on his promises to Link (and boy what promises they are!), he does do an excellent job of making the player feel uncomfortable against him, especially when he opens the first boss fight in the game by yanking your sword out of your hands if you're not quick enough. Fighting him was always a blast, and his personality blew every other Zelda villain out of the water. At every turn, he's taunting Link to come and stop him, all the while never quite revealing what you're stopping him from...reviving some master sure, but how?
Okay, so the elf with the skin tight bodysuit and wacky tongue just grabbed my sword- oh shit!
It's no secret that this is the first game chronologically in the franchise, and that basically everything that happens in it is meant to link to future events. In some places it's done very well, and in others it just kind of seems like nothing special. For example, the story itself opens like another Zelda game: some calamity happened several thousands of years ago, the goddesses ended it, and inevitably, it's going to come up later in the storyline. Granted, the games makes a few concerted efforts to support the decision to have an ancient foe, there's still a depressing amount of history missing, and thus this still doesn't feel like the beginning of thousands of years of legends. Maybe I'm jumping the gun and another playthrough is needed for me to get all the subtle connections, but for now I'm standing by the fact that Link should have been facing a developing evil that no one had fought before.
SPOILERS AHEAD as I talk about the further plot.
One thing that bugged me about this plot was the sheer amount of "proving" Link had to do. The only other game where Link had the arduous task of proving his worth to the Gods was in the Wind Waker, and that infamously took the form of a tedious quest to find eight Triforce shards. While Skyward Sword does better on the gameplay end up things, the tedium remained for me in the plot. Three prayer dungeons, three flame dungeons, three Silent Realm trials, and three smaller quests later, and Link STILL has not proven himself worthy of the power to beat his destructive enemy, even with the endorsement of a Goddess. When I realized I had to go through a FOURTH Silent Realm and an entire dungeon (brilliant and tough yes, but...) to get the Triforce, I was pissed. This is not to mention I'm still getting scolded by "full-fledged" knights every time I accidentally walk off the edge of Skyloft...which has no railings around the places you're not supposed to dive off of. And Link? He does all of this with a goddamn smile on his face. You aren't just a LITTLE pissed that you've only not helped your friends because the Gods still don't find you worthy, as opposed to a giant mouth with about six hundred teeth?
Now I know Zelda games aren't the most plot heavy games out there, but this one was a little overzealous with its motivations. Sure, Zelda herself is someone you want to save more than ever, but if Nintendo really wanted to go the extra mile for characterization, he might have shown a little more disgust when Fi told him it would be longer until Zelda could re-awaken (WHY did she put herself to sleep anyway?), or have him grip his sword when Faron told him he'd have to do yet ANOTHER fetch quest for her. It's kind of sad when the character that makes the most sense is the villain. Ghirahim is the only one who reacts to things properly. He throws a tantrum every time Link manages to get within ten feet of him, culminating in one of the most awesome and climactic fights in the game, wherein he coats his whole body in black steel and goads you into knocking his ass down a couple stories onto platforms below.
This brings me to the ending. Ghirahim still completely steals the show for me. He IS the villain of this story. Everything from the point where he zips in and calls Link out on giving him the means to undo everything Link has worked for, taking advantage of the heroes' genre blindess (not the player's mind you, who can see him coming form a mile away) to the point where Demise shows his ugly, awesome, flaming head are made of pure, concentrated awesome. Ghirahim's final boss fight was both epic and satisfyingly difficult, and the thought of his heavy body slamming into a platform below knocks the wind out of me still, kind of like imagining one spin attack mowing down about 20 Bokoblins in that God of War sequence just prior. Demise was everything I wanted from an ultimate enemy: he was ten feet tall, had a really awesome design, and his sword was a Satan version of yours made out of the game's main villain.
His battle, however, was a little underwhelming. I think it will be much better when I do it again, but the first time through I wondered how in the hell he gave a goddess so much trouble. His first phase was fairly simple, although he does hit like a truck, and I wouldn't have lived if I hadn't been Crazy Prepared. His second phase, while epic, irked me due to the use of a simple but devastating element from earlier in the game. Sure, it was tough, and the music was epic, but I was really expecting him to bust out the stops after that, assaulting me with half his body being in dragon mode or something. I'd heard he was hard as hell, so I expected a noob like me to die several times, but instead I made it through, and once I found out his gimmick, he could barely touch me.
We're gonna END THE SPOILERS there.
Suffice to say that most of my qualms with the ending and the plot will be subdued once I'm not so busy waggling my Wiimote all over the place figuring out what to do. I look forward to playing the game through again for this reason.
Moving on, the only thing really left to talk about is the music, well, that and scope/presentation, but we'll hit music first. We don't really need to talk about music. It's excellent as always. While some bits could use a bit more melodyor heroicism a la Twilight Princess, the soundtrack is a perfect example of why all Zelda music should be handled by an orchestra or damn near close. Voices are absent again, but Nintendo fans won't miss them. In all honesty I'm kind of glad there aren't full voices, since a) Link's screams of pain in this game are TERRIFYING, and b) I could not stand Ghirahim's voice actor.
That brings us to the presentation of the game as a whole. It's not like other Zelda games, and I have mixed feelings on that. On one hand, you're never just wandering in an area waiting to get to the next dungeon, but on the other, all of the environments you visit seem hostile and sad, particularly the desert. Each of the three main surface areas is just different and interesting enough to not be something to complain about, but I still wish that there were still a few traditional villages or something within them. Skyloft was the biggest town in the game, and it was unlocked right off the bat. The shock of seeing something as grand and full of secrets as Hyrule Castle Town or Windfall Island was lost, and that's kind of sad. Still, I can't complain, since the sky was a very cool overworld. Just take a minute out and think about how cool it is to casually be flying through the air from place to place. It was the same deal as the Wind Waker, only streamlined and perfected.
As I've said, Skyward Sword is an excellent game that deserves much of the praise it garners. While the plot is weak in some points, and a few series mainstays are now missing, making this Zelda lack some of the feelings that made the others great, it offers plenty more on its own to make up for it. When talking about Skyward Sword, the description that comes to mind first for me is simply "well-crafted." In many ways, there are things in this game that could not have been done better, and so in those same ways it reaches perfection.
Is this the best Zelda game there is? Well, I can't answer that, since I don't think such a thing exists. I just think that of the Zelda games, this one was very well thought out and put together. The developers took a few risks here and there, making sections that would appeal to all audiences. They made a game that looked very good on the Wii, and gameplay that worked even better. I will agree that Skyward Sword is a prime example of what developers should have been striving for all along when developing on the Wii. In many ways, it's certainly a triumph, and addresses a good few of the things that were apparently wrong with Twilight Princess. In that way...no...in it's very own way, Skyward Sword has indeed set itself apart from other games in the series in a fantastic manner. Nintendo could have once again gone the way of Twilight Princess and given us a great Zelda game that simply expands the scope of its successors, but instead they took the best of all the games and compacted them into an ultimately smaller, but just as potent game.
Yours is the sword that will pierce the heavens- Just who the hell do you think I am?
Ultimately, this iteration of Zelda manages to build on the franchise's experience while at the same time offering something very very different. As far as gameplay and presentation goes, it takes the series in all the right directions. It's easily one of the best games for the Wii, standing firm alongside the Mario Galaxy series as proof the Wii is home to some of the most creative, refreshing ideas that gaming has ever seen. Link's sword has really pierced the heavens with this one...from BOTH directions, which is, of course, no negligible feat.
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