I beat this game on release and, except the Demise fight, I´ve never come back to it. I loved it and I wanted to let all memories fade so I could enjoy it more when I eventually replayed it.
Recently I started playing it with my girlfriend. She´s not a gamer, the only games she´s ever played are MK8 (which she loves), SM3D World and NSMBU. She didn´t like 3DWorld and NSMBU as she had too many problems with the controls and didn´t get far in either. NSMBU was too chaotic for her and it didn´t help that our characters would often bump and disturb each other. So she has almost no basic gaming skillset like being able to quickly map the pad buttons mentally, maneouvering in 3D, using all the range of an analog stick instead of just pressing it to the endzone...Really guys, there are a lot of skills we take for granted and you can´t appreciate until you handle a controller to someone who hasn´t played a game before. Skyward Swod is an easy game and everything is introduced slowly, so I thought that she might give it a try.
DAWN OF THE FIRST DAY
The game´s start is too slow. I remember it taking it´s time but god, the first 3-4 hours really are a drag. She complained a lot and had a lot of trouble doing the simplest stuff. She was also mad at the game constantly interrupting with cutscenes and people telling you seemingly useless stuff. She was really hating the game. We agreed that if she still felt this way after the first dungeon I wouldn´t ask her to play again. We kept playing until we got the sword.
SECOND DAY: BIRTH OF THE GRASS SLAYER
She complained quite a bit when I asked her to play a bit 2 days later, but ultimately agreed. She started to get better with maneouvering but still, the first forest zone when you have to find those plant things using the sword radar was a drag. Too much running around and going through the same places time and time again. But this zone helped her get a better grasp on movng around and using the sword. It was this day that she discovered that slashing bushes would sometimes give you rupees, and this was the way The Grass Slayer was born. Seriously, from this point onwards she wouldn´t leave a single bush alive XD
By the time we reached the dungeon´s entrance she was a bit invested in the game, so before entering she even suggested going back to Skyloft to get some potions and repair the shield. Once up there we went to the pumpkin island and broke the lamp to get a piece of heart. When the owner complaint and asked of us to pay him back, she said to screw him and was very mad that the guy wouldn´t let us leave until we agreed to pay for it. All the character sounded stupid to her and only wanted to waste her time. So we stock up on potions, visit Terry´s flying shop and go back to the dungeon. We stopped playing here. The bush population was severely decimated in this day.
3RD AND 4TH DAYS: SHIELDS ARE FOR PUSSIES
2 days later I asked her to play again and this time she didn´t complain. She couldn´t find the solution to the first puzzle (the eye that follows your sword´s tip) so I helped her, she said it was random and there was no way anyone could figure that out. But as we went deeper into the dungeon she started to get more into puzzles and was very pleased when she solved them by herself. At one point she even started using the map to plan in advance instead of rushing from room to room and when we got the beetle she enjoyed a lot looking for holes to make it fly through and collect secrets. The Stalfos fight was a big highlight for her, but it was the Ghirahim fight which actually got her to leap into the air with excitement. We stopped playing at the half of the temple and restarted the next day, with no complaining this time
We reached Ghirahim with full health, no potions and no shield...no more hiding behind our reliable piece of wood, she needed to attack! She had no potions left and used all the hearts in the room, but Ghirahim still managed to kill us. Except that we had a fairy in a bottle and it revived us! At this moment she screamed in surprise and instantly got extremely focused in following Ghirahim´s movements...and she managed to beat him with only half a heart left! Oh yeah, she commented that she thought that Ghirahim was going to turn into a snake and it was funny as hell to listen to her calling him all kind of names when he stopped her attacks with the tips of his fingers...when he took her sword away and used it himself she was freaking out! XD
After leaving the temple, I was surprised that she said that, instead of continuing with the main quest, we needed to go back to Skyloft to buy a shield, stock up on potions and visit the pumpkin guy. When we returned to the pumpkin island she slashed one of the pumpkins outside and I asked her why did she do that...her reply was: "OMG it´s true these guys need the pumpkins to make the soup, I´m so sorry!!". She has started caring about the characters instead of thinking of them as "stupid time wasters". I told her we should go down to the new region we had just unlocked, but she wanted to explore the sky to see if there were more people around like the pumpkin guy. We found the bamboo minigame and she played it 6 times straight lol. I had to insist to just leave it and continue with the game, but she said that she´ll be back. From there we checked Skyloft and met some people, rescued the kidnapped girl, captured some bugs, discovered other islands...She commented that we must help the girl in the academy hook up with Cooker whenever we can. At this point she´s really getting interested in the people´s affairs and in the secondary quests.
So we went dow to the Eldin region and her evolution was evident compared to her first steps on the forest. She went out of her way to talk to any friendly character we found, used the sword on her own to track Zelda, regularly checked the map to look for secrets, changed between items regularly depending on the situation and spent 15 minutes in the first flower bomb room throwing bombs around and checking everything. When we stopped playing, she said that she actually likes the game!
It´s cool to see her getting better and enjoying the game. Her favorite part is the combat by a mile, but she´s also enjoying the puzzles now that she understands how to interpret the hints the game gives you and how everything is more or less item focused. Those parts are almost as good as slaying grass. She´s gone from a passive attitude of complaining that the objectives aren´t clear, to cutting every piece of grass, throwing seeds with the slingshot to anything suspicious, using the map and flying beetle to check her surroundings and making her own agenda of activities.
About the game, I think the start is much slower than I remembered...The game really starts to pick up a nice pace in the first dungeon, we´ll see how it goes from here. I have huge expectations for the timestone puzzles, I remember those being a highlight of the game for me and I hope they blow her mind
5TH DAY (11 hours): DEMOLITION WORKS IN ELDIN
We had just started exploring the Eldin region, learnt how to use bombs and we now had a huge area opening before us. So we started walking around, unlocking the way forward through the minipuzzles we found: she could find the solution to some of them on her own (rock lizards which require you to throw a bomb at them form above) but she needed help with others (rolling a bomb through the bridge to blow up a hole in a wall so the lava would escape and open the way forward). It really showed that she hadn´t played in 2 days and some stuff she had no problems with at the end of the previous play session had suddenly become harder to do. Specially dealing with enemies, she totally forgot all the focus she got in the Ghirahim fight and how she moved around him and just wailed like crazy without moving or even ZTargetting (still, she managed to take out more than 10 enemies in a single encounter and even used the slingshot to stun them). She loved throwing bombs around and blowing stuff, except when she pressed A instead of waggling the wiimote and dropped the bomb right at her feet just before it exploded. She was getting scared of bombs, until she noticed a crack in the wall, blew it up and found a chest containing a silver rupee (worth 100 rupees). From there on, she started carefully exploring every corner and trying stuff. We also got the digging mitts, so now between cutting grass, bombing walls, capturing bugs and digging holes she was really entertained and effortlessly explored all the region. She has a natural gift for capturing bugs, I stepped on 2 beetles and killed them, while she was effortlessly snatching them with a single wiggle even in pairs! We found the 5 key pieces to enter the temple without having to scan for them (except the last one), thanks to this detailde exploration. Highlight of the session was finding the digging minigame, again I had to insist to continue with the main quest after she played it for the 5th time. Oh, and blowing up a tower with an enemy on top to use it as a bridge, she thought that was awesome. It was cool that we were low on health so she decided to sit next to the minigame owner and talk to him, exhausting all dialog options and got very excited when he told us a little trick to gain rupees from the minerals in the walls. In this session we´ve found a lot of materials, bugs, Goddess cubes and rupees (we have more than 500 now!) and have opened the gate to the Earth Temple. As we had a potion and the shield is in good state we saw no need to go back to Skyloft and entered the temple right away. Oh yeah right before entering Impa appeared on top of the temple and told us that Zelda was inside and to hurry up. My GF´s reaction was to be indrecibly suspicious and tell me "yeah, sure, that one´s surely going to attack us later" lol. She´s in for a big surprise
And for the first time, it was me who had to say to stop playing, as it was already pretty late and we had to go to bed!
She started the session playing a bit sloppy, but got better as time went by. By the time we reached the Temple she was fully invested into the game world, looking everywhere for secrets, talking with everyone and going out of her way to snatch collectibles. She´s gotten much better with switching and using items. On the next session we´ll tackle the Earth Temple and face our fist Lizalfos, I intend for her to learn how to move around and dodge with this enemy...and to try to control her nerves and stop waggling like crazy until she runs out of energy!
She seems to be enjoying more exploration than combat now, but what she absolutely adores above everything else are the minigames!
The game has really stepped up from the first region, there are a lot of secrets and stuff to try thanks to now having bombs, the bug net, the flying beetle and the digging mits. The puzzles to advance in the overworld were great and added a lot of value to the map, but I didn´t like that we had to slide down the mountain 4 or 5 times to get all the key pieces, Goddess cubes and other collectibles :S
6TH DAY (13 HOURS): THE RETURN OF THE SHIELDLESS BADASS
When I got home from work my GF told she was going to play the game in the morning by herself, but in the end other stuff popped up and she had no time. She´s really into it!
Ok, so we had just entered the Earth Temple, we had one life potion and the shield was in good state, we were ready. To get through the first room we had to cut some ropes of a geared device to lower a bridge, the first two were close and could be cut with the sword but the last one was in a wall out of reach. After some initial confusion, she was able to deduct that using the beetle we could cut that last rope and open the way forward. This brought us to a huge room filled with lava, with many doors, treasure chests, enemies and secrets. But right after entering the room we got attacked by a Lizalfos...I thought it would give her a hard time and she would need to learn how to move...man, was I wrong. The Lizalfos got into a vertical defensive stance and she instantly releashed a flurry of horizontal attacks which got through it´s guard and killed it in an instant. I was very surprised because really, it was over in a just moment, so I asked her if she had seen that the Lizalfos wasn´t blocking horizontal attacks (or if she just wiggled like crazy) and she replied "of course!". So we started going around the room, easily got rid of a group of 4 or 5 Bokoblins and got the Bomb Bag. This was a game changer for her, now she could use bombs without having to worry of them blowing up on her hands. So she started to use bombs in many ways: to blow up rocks, to kill enemies from a distance, to solve puzzles...She reached a place where a Bokoblin was waiting on a platform over lava and a fire spitting monster was waiting to ambush her. So what did she do? She threw a bomb to the platform, the Bokoblin freaked out and ran into the lava, killing itself. It was really funny! next she stepped on the platform and got rid of the monster with another bomb. She even used the flying beetle to seize the heart the monster dropped before it touched the lava! We found a fairy and successfully put it into a bottel (seriously, her skills with the bug catching net are crazy!). We had to blow a statue in the middle of the lava to release a stone ball to move around the dungeon and she instantly associated the bombs in the statue with the bombs she had close, grabbed one and blew the statue away. When the ball fell in to the lava she was very surprised and said "I had no idea that would happen". So I asked her, "then why did you throw the bomb to the statue?". And she replied "It seemed the right thing to do, it had bombs and there was a bomb close to me on the floor so it was obvious I had to use it for something". She isn´t even aware of the awesome evolution she´s been through, where some days ago she would just block and complain that she didn´t know what to do, puzzle solutions are now coming naturally to her without even having to think for a second.
Later we entered a room here 2 Lizalfos were waiting for us. She handled me the controllers, so I tried to deal with them. I started showing off, blocking attacks and jumping around them with A...and got my ass kicked pretty badly, to the point that the shield broke and I had to be resurrected by the fairy. At this point she started saying that her "flurry of death" combat style was much better than myne. We got through some rooms solving most puzzles rather easily, until we found a room where lava propels a platform upwards to a higher place where 3 or 4 Bokoblns are guarding a chest. She repeated the fear instilling strategy of throwing a bomb at them, they freaked out but had enough place to run this time so the bomb exploded and noone died. I had advised her that this would happen, but as I was telling her "I told you" one of the Bokoblins inexplicably threw himself into the lava. We both bursted into laughter and I told her "they´re so scared of you they preffer to kill themselves!".
We made our way through the rest of the dungeon, she easily took care of any enemies she would come against. I´m specially impressed by how easily she dispatched all the Lizalfos that dared crossed her path. Remember that I had broken the shield some while ago. She still doesn´t move around much when fighting, just runs up to the enemy and gives them her "flurry of death" attack...and it works.
So we reached the boss of the dungeon. Right before it there´s a run sequence where you get the key and a giant rock chases you, she had some problems with the camera changing right after the cutscene and couldn´t properly adjust to that. BTW, this was and awesome instance of good game design: this section is meant to prepare you for the final boss battle. But also, the geometry is laid in a way which easily allows you to return to the door where you need to use the key you get in this challenge. We entered the room, got some much needed hearts and bombs and met Ghirahim. The whole sequence until you meet him is awesome: a lone silent corridor which made my GF freak out and expect the worst, she was really feeling that something big was coming and told me "they are going to kick my ass". When she got to a platform where you could refill hearts and bombs she said "OMG...they are giving me all this stuff...they are really going to kick my ass" XD The boss appeared, and she really freaked out in the intro section when the rock started to grow arms resembling a spider (she had panicked in the first temple with the giant Skulltulas) but when it stood up she got over it and prepared to face him. It took her some time to realize bombs weren´t doing anything to the boss so with a little help she finally realized she had to feed him the bombs. She did it a few times, always running back to the safety of the topmost platform after every attack. But when the boss started to get up there she freaked out. And when she had to chase the boss down the ramp and throw the bombs, she started getting too nervous and messing the controls, laying bombs at her feet, taking out the sword instead of the bombs...She used the life potion but died in the end. She was too nervous so she handled me the controls and I beat the boss (after dying 1 or 2 times as well).
We watched the cutscenes, got the last litography, explored a bit outside the temple to get some chests we´d left behind and called it a day. The Earth Temple is done, we maxed out rupees at 800, captured a lot of bugs, found a lot of new materials, unlocked some Godess Cubes and have a bunch of stuff to buy and collect in the sky, so in the next session we´ll explore the sky further and gear up!
She has no problem with navigation now, she´s changing between running and small, precise movements with no problems and can use and switch between items with no problems...but she still doesn´t move much when fighting and freaks out a bit when things get intense. Still, her flurry of death combat style is giving her very good results. She´s already getting into the "Zelda" mindset of relating items and puzzles, has learned to check the map to look for secrets and where to go next and whenever she can she tries to end fights quickly and in creative ways by using items, mostly bombs and the slingshot.
I liked the dungeon, found it a bit short and small, with everything concentrated around the main room, but it´s only the second dungeon in the game so it´s to be expected. The final boss was a bit too hard, I had no problems with it until it started to raise it´s legs and run above you, I think she would´ve had a really hard time trying to beat it on her own.
7-8-9-10th DAYS: ONE OF US
We went on holiday for the week, one thing we did was watch the Symphony of the Goddess concert, which she actually enjoyed a lot! She jumped on her sit when the Earth Temple boss appeared on the screen at one moment and told me in excitement: "That´s the bastard which killed me!" XD After returning from holidays we´re playing the game everyday for 2-3 hours. She´s enjoying a lot hunting for materials, rupees and bugs to upgrade our equipment. We discovered that groups of butterflies show the location of statues and magic walls and anytime we find one she´s really excited. She´s become MUCH better at moving Link around and fighting, she uses Z-targetting to attack and releases it to quickly move around, is using directional slashes more reliably and other techniques like the coup de grace. She also enjoys using items in different ways to kill enemies, like feeding bombs to Deku Babas (I had no idea you could do this), cutting their heads with the beetle, throwing rocks at them, using the vaccuum cleanear to push enemies around or the slingshot to stun them...We had a big laugh when she found two Deku Babas close to each other, threw a bomb at them and watched´em fight for it until it exploded and killed both lol.
She has no problem with regular enemies and could even prevail in a 3 Stalfos ambush, but she still freaks out against enemies when things don´t go her way and bosses intimidate her too much, so I´ve had to deal with the dungeon bosses myself.
We´ve beaten Lanayru´s mining facility, she enjoyed the puzzles there A LOT and came up with some creative solutions I´d never had thought of. We´ve also beaten the Ancient Cistern, she didn´t like much all the side quests leading to it about having to find the song of the hero and the part up to the water dragon... We were running errands and not getting any worthy rewards. The first Spirit Trial was a really tense moment and she finally made me do it, I wonder if she´ll try the other 2 herself. However she liked a lot the Ancient Cistern and the new items we´re adding to our inventory: the whip and the air vaccuum. Finally upgrading the sword was a BIG highlight...specially because the guy in the Bamboo Island had told us that we needed a longer sword to get better scores. She doesn´t really care about the main plot much, but she loves the sidequests in Skyloft and related minigames.
Before rushing to the Bamboo Island it actually surprised me that she asked to go to the bazaar to upgrade our equipment, do some sidequests (for some of them she actually snatched the Wiimote from my hands because she couldn´t resist the urge to do them herself!) and check what materials and bugs we were missing for upgrades...to the point of going back to the forest after upgrading the Bug Net to see if we could finally catch some birds...then go to the desert to get some materials we were missing for the shield...then grind for rupees to upgrade the shield...then go BACK into the Ancient Cistern because we´d left 2 silver rupees inside...then open all the chests we´d unlocked with the Goddess Cubes...it was 1:30 when she exclaimed "this fucking game is so addicting!". We eventually had to stop playing, but she´s really eager to get some materials we need to further upgrade the shield and beetle, resolve some sidequests and most of all, to go back to the Bamboo Island and play a million rounds of the bamboo cutting minigame!
She is becoming one of us XD
GAME BEATEN - 70+HOURS
More info on the thread´s posts.
Recently I started playing it with my girlfriend. She´s not a gamer, the only games she´s ever played are MK8 (which she loves), SM3D World and NSMBU. She didn´t like 3DWorld and NSMBU as she had too many problems with the controls and didn´t get far in either. NSMBU was too chaotic for her and it didn´t help that our characters would often bump and disturb each other. So she has almost no basic gaming skillset like being able to quickly map the pad buttons mentally, maneouvering in 3D, using all the range of an analog stick instead of just pressing it to the endzone...Really guys, there are a lot of skills we take for granted and you can´t appreciate until you handle a controller to someone who hasn´t played a game before. Skyward Swod is an easy game and everything is introduced slowly, so I thought that she might give it a try.
DAWN OF THE FIRST DAY
The game´s start is too slow. I remember it taking it´s time but god, the first 3-4 hours really are a drag. She complained a lot and had a lot of trouble doing the simplest stuff. She was also mad at the game constantly interrupting with cutscenes and people telling you seemingly useless stuff. She was really hating the game. We agreed that if she still felt this way after the first dungeon I wouldn´t ask her to play again. We kept playing until we got the sword.
SECOND DAY: BIRTH OF THE GRASS SLAYER
She complained quite a bit when I asked her to play a bit 2 days later, but ultimately agreed. She started to get better with maneouvering but still, the first forest zone when you have to find those plant things using the sword radar was a drag. Too much running around and going through the same places time and time again. But this zone helped her get a better grasp on movng around and using the sword. It was this day that she discovered that slashing bushes would sometimes give you rupees, and this was the way The Grass Slayer was born. Seriously, from this point onwards she wouldn´t leave a single bush alive XD
By the time we reached the dungeon´s entrance she was a bit invested in the game, so before entering she even suggested going back to Skyloft to get some potions and repair the shield. Once up there we went to the pumpkin island and broke the lamp to get a piece of heart. When the owner complaint and asked of us to pay him back, she said to screw him and was very mad that the guy wouldn´t let us leave until we agreed to pay for it. All the character sounded stupid to her and only wanted to waste her time. So we stock up on potions, visit Terry´s flying shop and go back to the dungeon. We stopped playing here. The bush population was severely decimated in this day.
3RD AND 4TH DAYS: SHIELDS ARE FOR PUSSIES
2 days later I asked her to play again and this time she didn´t complain. She couldn´t find the solution to the first puzzle (the eye that follows your sword´s tip) so I helped her, she said it was random and there was no way anyone could figure that out. But as we went deeper into the dungeon she started to get more into puzzles and was very pleased when she solved them by herself. At one point she even started using the map to plan in advance instead of rushing from room to room and when we got the beetle she enjoyed a lot looking for holes to make it fly through and collect secrets. The Stalfos fight was a big highlight for her, but it was the Ghirahim fight which actually got her to leap into the air with excitement. We stopped playing at the half of the temple and restarted the next day, with no complaining this time
We reached Ghirahim with full health, no potions and no shield...no more hiding behind our reliable piece of wood, she needed to attack! She had no potions left and used all the hearts in the room, but Ghirahim still managed to kill us. Except that we had a fairy in a bottle and it revived us! At this moment she screamed in surprise and instantly got extremely focused in following Ghirahim´s movements...and she managed to beat him with only half a heart left! Oh yeah, she commented that she thought that Ghirahim was going to turn into a snake and it was funny as hell to listen to her calling him all kind of names when he stopped her attacks with the tips of his fingers...when he took her sword away and used it himself she was freaking out! XD
After leaving the temple, I was surprised that she said that, instead of continuing with the main quest, we needed to go back to Skyloft to buy a shield, stock up on potions and visit the pumpkin guy. When we returned to the pumpkin island she slashed one of the pumpkins outside and I asked her why did she do that...her reply was: "OMG it´s true these guys need the pumpkins to make the soup, I´m so sorry!!". She has started caring about the characters instead of thinking of them as "stupid time wasters". I told her we should go down to the new region we had just unlocked, but she wanted to explore the sky to see if there were more people around like the pumpkin guy. We found the bamboo minigame and she played it 6 times straight lol. I had to insist to just leave it and continue with the game, but she said that she´ll be back. From there we checked Skyloft and met some people, rescued the kidnapped girl, captured some bugs, discovered other islands...She commented that we must help the girl in the academy hook up with Cooker whenever we can. At this point she´s really getting interested in the people´s affairs and in the secondary quests.
So we went dow to the Eldin region and her evolution was evident compared to her first steps on the forest. She went out of her way to talk to any friendly character we found, used the sword on her own to track Zelda, regularly checked the map to look for secrets, changed between items regularly depending on the situation and spent 15 minutes in the first flower bomb room throwing bombs around and checking everything. When we stopped playing, she said that she actually likes the game!
It´s cool to see her getting better and enjoying the game. Her favorite part is the combat by a mile, but she´s also enjoying the puzzles now that she understands how to interpret the hints the game gives you and how everything is more or less item focused. Those parts are almost as good as slaying grass. She´s gone from a passive attitude of complaining that the objectives aren´t clear, to cutting every piece of grass, throwing seeds with the slingshot to anything suspicious, using the map and flying beetle to check her surroundings and making her own agenda of activities.
About the game, I think the start is much slower than I remembered...The game really starts to pick up a nice pace in the first dungeon, we´ll see how it goes from here. I have huge expectations for the timestone puzzles, I remember those being a highlight of the game for me and I hope they blow her mind
5TH DAY (11 hours): DEMOLITION WORKS IN ELDIN
We had just started exploring the Eldin region, learnt how to use bombs and we now had a huge area opening before us. So we started walking around, unlocking the way forward through the minipuzzles we found: she could find the solution to some of them on her own (rock lizards which require you to throw a bomb at them form above) but she needed help with others (rolling a bomb through the bridge to blow up a hole in a wall so the lava would escape and open the way forward). It really showed that she hadn´t played in 2 days and some stuff she had no problems with at the end of the previous play session had suddenly become harder to do. Specially dealing with enemies, she totally forgot all the focus she got in the Ghirahim fight and how she moved around him and just wailed like crazy without moving or even ZTargetting (still, she managed to take out more than 10 enemies in a single encounter and even used the slingshot to stun them). She loved throwing bombs around and blowing stuff, except when she pressed A instead of waggling the wiimote and dropped the bomb right at her feet just before it exploded. She was getting scared of bombs, until she noticed a crack in the wall, blew it up and found a chest containing a silver rupee (worth 100 rupees). From there on, she started carefully exploring every corner and trying stuff. We also got the digging mitts, so now between cutting grass, bombing walls, capturing bugs and digging holes she was really entertained and effortlessly explored all the region. She has a natural gift for capturing bugs, I stepped on 2 beetles and killed them, while she was effortlessly snatching them with a single wiggle even in pairs! We found the 5 key pieces to enter the temple without having to scan for them (except the last one), thanks to this detailde exploration. Highlight of the session was finding the digging minigame, again I had to insist to continue with the main quest after she played it for the 5th time. Oh, and blowing up a tower with an enemy on top to use it as a bridge, she thought that was awesome. It was cool that we were low on health so she decided to sit next to the minigame owner and talk to him, exhausting all dialog options and got very excited when he told us a little trick to gain rupees from the minerals in the walls. In this session we´ve found a lot of materials, bugs, Goddess cubes and rupees (we have more than 500 now!) and have opened the gate to the Earth Temple. As we had a potion and the shield is in good state we saw no need to go back to Skyloft and entered the temple right away. Oh yeah right before entering Impa appeared on top of the temple and told us that Zelda was inside and to hurry up. My GF´s reaction was to be indrecibly suspicious and tell me "yeah, sure, that one´s surely going to attack us later" lol. She´s in for a big surprise
And for the first time, it was me who had to say to stop playing, as it was already pretty late and we had to go to bed!
She started the session playing a bit sloppy, but got better as time went by. By the time we reached the Temple she was fully invested into the game world, looking everywhere for secrets, talking with everyone and going out of her way to snatch collectibles. She´s gotten much better with switching and using items. On the next session we´ll tackle the Earth Temple and face our fist Lizalfos, I intend for her to learn how to move around and dodge with this enemy...and to try to control her nerves and stop waggling like crazy until she runs out of energy!
She seems to be enjoying more exploration than combat now, but what she absolutely adores above everything else are the minigames!
The game has really stepped up from the first region, there are a lot of secrets and stuff to try thanks to now having bombs, the bug net, the flying beetle and the digging mits. The puzzles to advance in the overworld were great and added a lot of value to the map, but I didn´t like that we had to slide down the mountain 4 or 5 times to get all the key pieces, Goddess cubes and other collectibles :S
6TH DAY (13 HOURS): THE RETURN OF THE SHIELDLESS BADASS
When I got home from work my GF told she was going to play the game in the morning by herself, but in the end other stuff popped up and she had no time. She´s really into it!
Ok, so we had just entered the Earth Temple, we had one life potion and the shield was in good state, we were ready. To get through the first room we had to cut some ropes of a geared device to lower a bridge, the first two were close and could be cut with the sword but the last one was in a wall out of reach. After some initial confusion, she was able to deduct that using the beetle we could cut that last rope and open the way forward. This brought us to a huge room filled with lava, with many doors, treasure chests, enemies and secrets. But right after entering the room we got attacked by a Lizalfos...I thought it would give her a hard time and she would need to learn how to move...man, was I wrong. The Lizalfos got into a vertical defensive stance and she instantly releashed a flurry of horizontal attacks which got through it´s guard and killed it in an instant. I was very surprised because really, it was over in a just moment, so I asked her if she had seen that the Lizalfos wasn´t blocking horizontal attacks (or if she just wiggled like crazy) and she replied "of course!". So we started going around the room, easily got rid of a group of 4 or 5 Bokoblins and got the Bomb Bag. This was a game changer for her, now she could use bombs without having to worry of them blowing up on her hands. So she started to use bombs in many ways: to blow up rocks, to kill enemies from a distance, to solve puzzles...She reached a place where a Bokoblin was waiting on a platform over lava and a fire spitting monster was waiting to ambush her. So what did she do? She threw a bomb to the platform, the Bokoblin freaked out and ran into the lava, killing itself. It was really funny! next she stepped on the platform and got rid of the monster with another bomb. She even used the flying beetle to seize the heart the monster dropped before it touched the lava! We found a fairy and successfully put it into a bottel (seriously, her skills with the bug catching net are crazy!). We had to blow a statue in the middle of the lava to release a stone ball to move around the dungeon and she instantly associated the bombs in the statue with the bombs she had close, grabbed one and blew the statue away. When the ball fell in to the lava she was very surprised and said "I had no idea that would happen". So I asked her, "then why did you throw the bomb to the statue?". And she replied "It seemed the right thing to do, it had bombs and there was a bomb close to me on the floor so it was obvious I had to use it for something". She isn´t even aware of the awesome evolution she´s been through, where some days ago she would just block and complain that she didn´t know what to do, puzzle solutions are now coming naturally to her without even having to think for a second.
Later we entered a room here 2 Lizalfos were waiting for us. She handled me the controllers, so I tried to deal with them. I started showing off, blocking attacks and jumping around them with A...and got my ass kicked pretty badly, to the point that the shield broke and I had to be resurrected by the fairy. At this point she started saying that her "flurry of death" combat style was much better than myne. We got through some rooms solving most puzzles rather easily, until we found a room where lava propels a platform upwards to a higher place where 3 or 4 Bokoblns are guarding a chest. She repeated the fear instilling strategy of throwing a bomb at them, they freaked out but had enough place to run this time so the bomb exploded and noone died. I had advised her that this would happen, but as I was telling her "I told you" one of the Bokoblins inexplicably threw himself into the lava. We both bursted into laughter and I told her "they´re so scared of you they preffer to kill themselves!".
We made our way through the rest of the dungeon, she easily took care of any enemies she would come against. I´m specially impressed by how easily she dispatched all the Lizalfos that dared crossed her path. Remember that I had broken the shield some while ago
. She still doesn´t move around much when fighting, just runs up to the enemy and gives them her "flurry of death" attack...and it works.So we reached the boss of the dungeon. Right before it there´s a run sequence where you get the key and a giant rock chases you, she had some problems with the camera changing right after the cutscene and couldn´t properly adjust to that. BTW, this was and awesome instance of good game design: this section is meant to prepare you for the final boss battle. But also, the geometry is laid in a way which easily allows you to return to the door where you need to use the key you get in this challenge. We entered the room, got some much needed hearts and bombs and met Ghirahim. The whole sequence until you meet him is awesome: a lone silent corridor which made my GF freak out and expect the worst, she was really feeling that something big was coming and told me "they are going to kick my ass". When she got to a platform where you could refill hearts and bombs she said "OMG...they are giving me all this stuff...they are really going to kick my ass" XD The boss appeared, and she really freaked out in the intro section when the rock started to grow arms resembling a spider (she had panicked in the first temple with the giant Skulltulas) but when it stood up she got over it and prepared to face him. It took her some time to realize bombs weren´t doing anything to the boss so with a little help she finally realized she had to feed him the bombs. She did it a few times, always running back to the safety of the topmost platform after every attack. But when the boss started to get up there she freaked out. And when she had to chase the boss down the ramp and throw the bombs, she started getting too nervous and messing the controls, laying bombs at her feet, taking out the sword instead of the bombs...She used the life potion but died in the end. She was too nervous so she handled me the controls and I beat the boss (after dying 1 or 2 times as well).
We watched the cutscenes, got the last litography, explored a bit outside the temple to get some chests we´d left behind and called it a day. The Earth Temple is done, we maxed out rupees at 800, captured a lot of bugs, found a lot of new materials, unlocked some Godess Cubes and have a bunch of stuff to buy and collect in the sky, so in the next session we´ll explore the sky further and gear up!
She has no problem with navigation now, she´s changing between running and small, precise movements with no problems and can use and switch between items with no problems...but she still doesn´t move much when fighting and freaks out a bit when things get intense. Still, her flurry of death combat style is giving her very good results. She´s already getting into the "Zelda" mindset of relating items and puzzles, has learned to check the map to look for secrets and where to go next and whenever she can she tries to end fights quickly and in creative ways by using items, mostly bombs and the slingshot.
I liked the dungeon, found it a bit short and small, with everything concentrated around the main room, but it´s only the second dungeon in the game so it´s to be expected. The final boss was a bit too hard, I had no problems with it until it started to raise it´s legs and run above you, I think she would´ve had a really hard time trying to beat it on her own.
7-8-9-10th DAYS: ONE OF US
We went on holiday for the week, one thing we did was watch the Symphony of the Goddess concert, which she actually enjoyed a lot! She jumped on her sit when the Earth Temple boss appeared on the screen at one moment and told me in excitement: "That´s the bastard which killed me!" XD After returning from holidays we´re playing the game everyday for 2-3 hours. She´s enjoying a lot hunting for materials, rupees and bugs to upgrade our equipment. We discovered that groups of butterflies show the location of statues and magic walls and anytime we find one she´s really excited. She´s become MUCH better at moving Link around and fighting, she uses Z-targetting to attack and releases it to quickly move around, is using directional slashes more reliably and other techniques like the coup de grace. She also enjoys using items in different ways to kill enemies, like feeding bombs to Deku Babas (I had no idea you could do this), cutting their heads with the beetle, throwing rocks at them, using the vaccuum cleanear to push enemies around or the slingshot to stun them...We had a big laugh when she found two Deku Babas close to each other, threw a bomb at them and watched´em fight for it until it exploded and killed both lol.
She has no problem with regular enemies and could even prevail in a 3 Stalfos ambush, but she still freaks out against enemies when things don´t go her way and bosses intimidate her too much, so I´ve had to deal with the dungeon bosses myself.
We´ve beaten Lanayru´s mining facility, she enjoyed the puzzles there A LOT and came up with some creative solutions I´d never had thought of. We´ve also beaten the Ancient Cistern, she didn´t like much all the side quests leading to it about having to find the song of the hero and the part up to the water dragon... We were running errands and not getting any worthy rewards. The first Spirit Trial was a really tense moment and she finally made me do it, I wonder if she´ll try the other 2 herself. However she liked a lot the Ancient Cistern and the new items we´re adding to our inventory: the whip and the air vaccuum. Finally upgrading the sword was a BIG highlight...specially because the guy in the Bamboo Island had told us that we needed a longer sword to get better scores. She doesn´t really care about the main plot much, but she loves the sidequests in Skyloft and related minigames.
Before rushing to the Bamboo Island it actually surprised me that she asked to go to the bazaar to upgrade our equipment, do some sidequests (for some of them she actually snatched the Wiimote from my hands because she couldn´t resist the urge to do them herself!) and check what materials and bugs we were missing for upgrades...to the point of going back to the forest after upgrading the Bug Net to see if we could finally catch some birds...then go to the desert to get some materials we were missing for the shield...then grind for rupees to upgrade the shield...then go BACK into the Ancient Cistern because we´d left 2 silver rupees inside...then open all the chests we´d unlocked with the Goddess Cubes...it was 1:30 when she exclaimed "this fucking game is so addicting!". We eventually had to stop playing, but she´s really eager to get some materials we need to further upgrade the shield and beetle, resolve some sidequests and most of all, to go back to the Bamboo Island and play a million rounds of the bamboo cutting minigame!
She is becoming one of us XD
GAME BEATEN - 70+HOURS
More info on the thread´s posts.
