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This account is officially an archive.

This is my last post using this account.

This is pretty weird. I’ve had this account for almost four years, ain’t that odd.

It’ll always be here for memories, but I’m done posting. Time for my old blog to rest.

That being said, Thank you to all of the people who have followed me on this blog. Thank you to all of the friends who helped make such good memories on this blog. Thank you to those who have been there since the beginning and to those who just got here. Thank you to those who have been here since 2017 too and stayed, I mean my art was so bad yet you stayed.

Thank you guys, here’s to new endings.

#Final post.

Final Thoughts on Skyward Sword

So let's start with the obvious question: Did I like the game? Answer: Yes. It was a fun game, and I have a feeling that I'll replay it someday.

However, there's a few things that I think I'd like to address about my thoughts on the game overall. Most of the things I'm going to point out are things that I consider to be flaws with the game. But just because I'm mostly pointing out flaws doesn't mean that I didn't like the game. I really did like it, and I feel like there were more good points to the game than bad. But here's just a few things that I hope are addressed in the Wii-U game.

Fi: Link's companion in this game. If Midna was one step forward as a companion character in this series, then Fi was two steps back. Don't get me wrong, I loved Fi's design, and her farewell speech was great, but her implementation in gameplay and story was just frighteningly bad.

Let's cover Navi and Midna really quick. Navi, your fairy in OoT, was notorious for being annoying. She had little to do with the story, and would consistently stop you from whatever you're doing to force you into dialogue. She had some use to her, and it's forgivable since she was the first companion character in the series I believe, but essentially, Navi should be the prime example of what NOT to make another companion like. Midna, your companion in TP, was notable in that she hardly ever came off as annoying, she had baring on the story, and she had character development. And while it's true that the story may have been too focused on her story rather than Zelda's, I feel that she provides a good benchmark on how a companion character should be.

They should not feel annoying. One quote I always think of when dealing with companion characters is what Lionhead studios said in interviews for Fable 2. If you have a companion character that spends the entire game following the main character around, they should be two things: One, they should never be annoying. Two, they should be likable enough that the player gets attached to them.

Fi is annoying. For two reasons. One, she beeps at you. She beeps at you when she changes your dowsing target, she beeps at you when your batteries are low, and worst of all she beeps at you when your hearts are low. And it's an annoying beep. And it doesn't stop until you answer her. The other reason is because too often she jumps out of your sword just to give you an all too obvious hint.

Also, Fi is a boring character. She has little personality and little character development, until the very last cutscene in the game. This is at stark contrast to her evil equivalent Ghirahim, who has perhaps the most personality out of any Zelda villain. It's really sad that all Fi does in the cutscenes throughout the game is just dance and spin in circles. I hope that the next companion has a bit more personality.

Motion Controls: They didn't feel that great. Not to the point that it ruined the game, but by the end it was definitely becoming an area for frustration for me. First of all: How the hell are you supposed to hold the Wiimote? Everyone online seems to say "don't hold it at the screen, hold it like the hilt of a sword." Okay, I tried that. And when I did, instead of Link holding the sword straight out in front of him like a dummy, he just held it straight up into the sky and charged skyward strikes constantly. Like a dummy. And besides, if the wiimote is the hilt of my sword, then when I swing it I should point the tip of the sword toward where I'm slashing right? AKA the screen.

I bring this up because, while I was able to easily get horizontal and vertical strikes to work, I never got the hang of diagonal strikes. Any enemy that required me to do a diagonal strikes would surely take out quite a few of my hearts before I could land a hit. Why is it so hard!? Also, skydiving. No matter what I did, the motions controls on that stuff always felt wrong. Just at its core, wrong.

I feel like this must be similar to how gamers in the late 80's felt as they had to start making the switch over to 3D controls. It's a change that will inevitably happen, but it just feels unfair. That said, I always liked the motion controls in TP much more than SS. It's something about how off they feel in SS that bugs me to no end.

Here's hoping the that the new hardware in the Wii-U will make the next Zelda game feel more natural to control.

Music: :( Once again, don't get me wrong. There were some great tracks in this game. But... The majority of the time you spend in the game is accompanied solely by a sort of instrumental ambiance. Despite having a full orchestra and four composers, every time you're in the field between temples, inside temples and in silent realms the soundtrack is just sort of a few instruments hitting a few notes every once in a while. The exception to this is Eldin Volcano, which has a very catchy string section (and Faron Woods that has a flute thing going on, though not very memorable.)

The boss music felt a bit disappointing as well. Besides Ghirahim's theme, the Stalfos is the only other song I can remember well enough to hum to myself. Which, is generally how I grade music in Zelda. If it's memorable enough and has enough of a catchy tune, I should be able to hum it to myself by memory.

On the other hand. Ghirahim's theme, Groose's theme, Song of the Goddess, Fi's theme and of course Zelda's Lullaby are all great songs. But they only play during specific moments in the story. Given that I was playing the game for about 50 hours by the time I beat it, I probably only heard those songs about 1-2% of the time I spent playing the game. They're great songs, but there's literally no way to hear them (besides Ghirahim's theme) without replaying the game entirely. You can't even replay ANY of the songs you learned on the harp for their musical value. I find that very sad. Especially so in that probably my favorite song in the game was Fi's theme. Which I thought was going to play pretty often, considering she's my companion. After all, I heard Midna's theme pretty often in TP. But no, Fi's theme plays two, or maybe three times over the entire game. It reminds me of N's Castle Bridge in Pokemon Black/White. It was my absolute favorite song in the game, but it only plays for 30 seconds or so, then it's lost forever until you replay up to that part again.

Temples: They were fun. There was no temple where I thought "I just want it to be over." But they were short. Very short. For reference, lava based dungeons in the past 3D console games: OoT WW TP

and now SS

It's kind of hard to tell since you can't see the difference in scale with the maps alone, but honestly, it felt like just as soon as I was getting into a temple's groove, it was over. I understand that what Nintendo was trying to do was add more of the puzzle elements to the section between temples, and therefore they added the time you spend getting to the temple to the time it should take the beat it. But I didn't find that very satisfying at all.

Even more odd is that they added save points all throughout the temples now. While in previous games they expected you to try and go through the long temples in one sitting unless you want to backtrack through it again, in SS they made short temples that can be completed in half the time, but made sure to give you a save point every other room in case your mom is calling you for dinner or something. Strange choice. Honestly, I just loved places like the Sandship and the Ancient Cistern, and wish that I could have spent longer in them.

Bosses: Okay. Koloktos was awesome. Let me get that out of the way. But I have a few complaints with the rest of the bosses.

1: Usually the formula for a Zelda temple is, beat the miniboss and get the new item, then use that new item to find the trick to damaging the main boss. And it felt like that wasn't really the case most of the time. The exception being Koloktos. But more often the strategy to beat the boss was actually "swing your sword a certain way" or "use a skyward strike." Yes, you have sword motion controls. Yes, the game is about the Master Sword in general. No, I don't like being constantly required to use my sword to solve every trick an enemy can throw at me. It's okay a few times, but there's a reason why Zelda games started making you use your new items to defeat new bosses. It's because it's makes the game seem less monotonous. It's a change of pace.

2: I'm back and forth on whether or not I liked fighting Ghirahim and the Imprisoned three separate times each. It seems kind of excessive to use the fights that many times, but then again it also also for the fights to involve more strategies over time. Rather, what I didn't like, was the Ghirahim was the boss for two temples. I felt like I was not given the bosses I deserved for the Skyview and Fire temples.

3: Bosses felt small after Twilight Princess. Even the largest boss, the Imprisoned, felt small. Even though he's huge, all you did was slap at his toes and hit a little column into his head. I loved the feel of TP's bosses. There was a giant eel that I rode on, and a giant skeleton that I destroyed, and a giant spider that I squashed with giant statues. Even Wind Waker's bosses were bigger on average than Skyward Sword. That being said, I am very much aware that Big Boss =/= Good Boss. But without the big scale of the fights, it feels generally less epic.

So, I realize that's a lot of criticisms for a game that I said I liked, but I really did genuinely have fun playing it. And everything I pointed out was just my own opinions and maybe I'm being too nitpicky. I will probably play the game again sometime, and I'll probably sing of its praises in a few years looking back on it, but right now those were just a few things that I'm hoping are fixed in the next installment of Zelda.

#Jorwil plays Skyward Sword #final post.