Skyward Sword review thread [Newest Reviews - Cubed3 10/10, GC: A, AusGamers: 7/10]

I Push Fat Kids said:
Just would like to say Wind Waker is beautiful to look at but COMPLETELY forgettable. Easily the worst 3D console Zelda.

you spelled twilight princess wrong

all I remember is the snowpeak temple. cause I was like "wtf this is a temple? lol"
 
Feep said:
But there was a world connecting those areas. In Skyward Sword, it is the sky, and it's positively barren.
Yeah but the sky isn't really designed to be explored it's just designed to get to point a to point b
 
I believe that 7.5 is his genuine opinion and I always respect that Gamespot allows their reviewers to give games the scores that they want.

I'll probably disagree with it, but that's fine, reviews are a personal thing.
 
dwu8991 said:
The GS score is BS. The review was more like an 8.5 than a 7.5.
I think the reviewer fails to understand the wii audience and the backlash he is getting is fully deserved.
I think he understands the Wii audience perfectly, at least the ones on the Internet. He's trolling for clicks with that score and that will boost his employer's revenue.

Either that or he is a manbaby who hates motion controls on principle and wanted to make a point, but I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.
 
KaYotiX said:
I'd be all over it if I could just use a regular control scheme and not motion plus. Yes I know that's the whole point of this Zelda but I don't want to waggle for 40 hrs, I love the art style and so far the music is another amazing effort but I dunno if I could handle the waggle sword fighting all game long.
Motion Plus does not equal waggle. Geez people.
 
KaYotiX said:
I'd be all over it if I could just use a regular control scheme and not motion plus. Yes I know that's the whole point of this Zelda but I don't want to waggle for 40 hrs, I love the art style and so far the music is another amazing effort but I dunno if I could handle the waggle sword fighting all game long.

Maybe I'll borrow it from a friend next week and try it.
You don't waggle in sword fighting, you probably waggle less than 1% of the game.
I believe that 7.5 is his genuine opinion and I always respect that Gamespot allows their reviewers to give games the scores that they want.
Broken control is not an opinion.
 
Feep said:
But there was a world connecting those areas. In Skyward Sword, it is the sky, and it's positively barren.

Was Majora's Mask's overworld really that fleshed out either? I remember it being just a big empty circle. And I had absolutely no problem with that game. I love MM.
 
Feep said:
But there was a world connecting those areas. In Skyward Sword, it is the sky, and it's positively barren.
Eh, "the world connecting those areas" was a giant circle with a few chests and caves scattered about, with the town in the middle. The main areas of the games were linear arms extending from that circle with a dungeon at the end of the "arm."
 
Lunar15 said:
Was Majora's Mask's overworld really that fleshed out either? I remember it being just a big empty circle.
It was compact. Each zone was pretty close to the next one. It served its purpose without ever becoming obtrusive.
 
Big One said:
Yeah but the sky isn't really designed to be explored it's just designed to get to point a to point b
Uh, right. Which is a problem. There is NOTHING is Skyward Sword to explore freely, and that sucks. I want to find Fairy Fountains, and hidden caves, and grottos with Heart Pieces, and all kinds of fun stuff. Nothing's there.

And for the record, if Majora's Mask (my least favorite 3-D Zelda) did that, then I didn't like it there, either. I haven't played the game since release, which is unique among the Zelda franchise for me.
 
Lunar15 said:
Was Majora's Mask's overworld really that fleshed out either? I remember it being just a big empty circle. And I had absolutely no problem with that game. I love MM.

You can't be serious.

Clock Town=Overworld

Unless we're talking about fields. In that case, every god damn overworld is barren and empty.


Well, except Majora's Mask cause it's small and you can get around with Goron Link in no time. Damn MM, why you so perfect?
 
Foliorum Viridum said:
I believe that 7.5 is his genuine opinion and I always respect that Gamespot allows their reviewers to give games the scores that they want.

I'll probably disagree with it, but that's fine, reviews are a personal thing.

Jeff Gerstmann would disagree with you regarding reviewers being allowed to give scores they wanted to games and standing behind their editors.
 
Feep said:
Uh, right. Which is a problem. There is NOTHING is Skyward Sword to explore freely, and that sucks. I want to find Fairy Fountains, and hidden caves, and grottos with Heart Pieces, and all kinds of fun stuff. Nothing's there.
That's just wrong. I've been backtracking to old areas and have found tons of secrets like heart pieces and other things I couldn't have gotten at that point in the game. Say all you want but the game does have grottos with Heart Pieces (and other things) and other fun stuff.

Before you say something like that maybe you should attempt to play more of the game
 
hlhbk said:
Jeff Gerstmann would disagree with you regarding reviewers being allowed to give scores they wanted to games and standing behind their editors.
Well we don't know what went on there fully even to this day.

I agree that's a dark time in Gamespot's past, but they have a history other than that of posting reviews that don't always conform.
 
KaYotiX said:
I'd be all over it if I could just use a regular control scheme and not motion plus. Yes I know that's the whole point of this Zelda but I don't want to waggle for 40 hrs, I love the art style and so far the music is another amazing effort but I dunno if I could handle the waggle sword fighting all game long.

Maybe I'll borrow it from a friend next week and try it.

There's no "waggle" swordfighting
 
Feep said:
Uh, right. Which is a problem. There is NOTHING is Skyward Sword to explore freely, and that sucks. I want to find Fairy Fountains, and hidden caves, and grottos with Heart Pieces, and all kinds of fun stuff. Nothing's there.

And for the record, if Majora's Mask (my least favorite 3-D Zelda) did that, then I didn't like it there, either. I haven't played the game since release, which is unique among the Zelda franchise for me.

Yeah, I am sad about the lack of those elements. But seriously, I'm not trying to pick apart your review or anything like that. Your complaints seem entirely realistic, and I could be feeling the same thing upon completion. I'm just so curious because I feel like I had somewhat of an idea of how this game's world worked out, and it seems similar to your description, however I find myself excited by it while you were disappointed.
 
Feep said:
Uh, right. Which is a problem. There is NOTHING is Skyward Sword to explore freely, and that sucks. I want to find Fairy Fountains, and hidden caves, and grottos with Heart Pieces, and all kinds of fun stuff. Nothing's there.
.

That sounds terrible :/
 
Big One said:
That's just wrong. I've been backtracking to old areas and have found tons of secrets like heart pieces and other things I couldn't have gotten at that point in the game. Say all you want but the game does have grottos with Heart Pieces (and other things) and other fun stuff.

Before you say something like that maybe you should attempt to play more of the game
Big One, you've been relentlessly attacking any detractors of the game. Chill out. People are entitled to their differences.

There are scattered (and few) instances of what you describe (
bomb blast and clawshot target in Faron Woods
, for example), but they are almost always in plain sight in normal, required areas of play. There are
two caves in Eldin Volcano
that you can't get to until later, but there's absolutely nothing interesting inside them.

Stop attacking people with bullshit like "You should play more of the game." It's insulting and childish.
 
Big One said:
That's just wrong. I've been backtracking to old areas and have found tons of secrets like heart pieces and other things I couldn't have gotten at that point in the game. Say all you want but the game does have grottos with Heart Pieces (and other things) and other fun stuff.

Are we talking dungeons or the overworld?
 
GameFAQs outrage isn't as big as I expected.

And yes, wth with the score? They either give themselves time to scrutinize the game, or just did it for kicks.
 
scitek said:
I think we should definitely get away from the 7-10 scale in the gaming industry. I wish it were more like Rottentomatoes where a 65% is "Fresh" and not basically 80% like it is currently.
I think that's an opinion everyone feels they need to strongly express at least once in their lifetimes. But if you actually think about it, why do we have to move away from it? What's the alternative?

Where else in life do we use the "full scale" in anything? Certainly not reviews for any other industry, and certainly not in school or in the workplace. So why change it here?

The reality is that it actually makes sense. Somewhere around the 5 or 6 mark there is an invisible line titled "Competent". If a game is in fact competent it is then rated on a 6-10 scale, where 6 is the lowest of low, and 10 means fantastic. Anything less is considered incompetent and not worthy of attention
 
Cygnus X-1 said:
This dude speaks as the past 4-5 iterations of Zelda were all bad, which makes no sense at all. The criticism arose quite from Twilight Princess forward, but till The Wind Waker, hardly one could talk about "bad habits" and "bad controls". He talks about mistakes made in the past: which ones please? Make concrete examples please

Good quotes and breakdown, here's the clunk of things that don't seem to have context or make sense though:

In the 25 years since its inception, the franchise has picked up a few bad habits. Nintendo has kept the elements that have hung like an acidic cloud over past iterations while crafting a new control system to keep it from feeling like the same old game. Unfortunately, the combination is not successful. Inconsistent controls continually torment poor Link, and the predictable structure does little to distract you from these faults. Predictability crops up in the quest structure as well. You repeat the pattern of fetch quest, dungeon, fetch quest, dungeon so many times that it starts to feel like you're just going through the motions.

Repetition exists not only in what you do but also in where you go. There are three main areas in Skyward Sword (a desert, a volcano, a grassy plane), and you visit each of these on three separate occasions. Your objectives do change, but you often have to walk through the same environments you've already visited.However, the formula is beginning to show its age. There just aren't enough new ideas to separate Skyward Sword from its predecessors, and the few additions come with mixed results. Even with many bright spots, Skyward Sword still feels like a nostalgic retread. Those yearning for something new will be disappointed, but anyone thirsty for another exciting adventure will find plenty to enjoy here.

I'm not really understanding the complaint of repetition. Aren't videogames themselves an act of repetition? Aren't almost all series an act of a retread nature sometimes? What is Skyrim doing that was so different than it's predecessor? What is Saints Row doing that was so different? The fundamentals of what the game structure itself is repeats and repeats.

So we get that the game makes you go into areas different times, and the game has you do "fetch quest" which aren't exactly defined as to what is good/bad with them. You can break everything down to the most fundamental level and tear down everything in the same method the review does for Zelda, for any game ever made.

I think the last quote I underlined and everything sums it up though. If you want something not Zelda-ish, then you'll be disappointed. If you want an exciting adventure that is the same structure as what the Zelda series is, then you'll enjoy it.

I'm not really understanding though why a person is reviewing a series who has a problem with the way the series is. Like me for example, I really do not like first person shooters and really do not like RPG's. If I wrote a review stating a big time first person shooter game isn't that good because it relies on shooting things, death, and repeating that over and over then I'm basically just hating on what the type of game is, period. If I say I hate, I dunno, Chrono Trigger or something because it uses menus and I find them tedious and why can't the game let me fight battles without menus, then I'm tearing down the structure of what the game is. It's like playing Madden and hating it, because why isn't the game a baseball game instead?

That's my reviewer rant to last me a while, not just applying to this instance, but what I see often. No concrete example, and a reviewer who already holds a preference against the genre of something they're reviewing.
 
I definitely empathize with the reviewer when it comes to camera control in the Zelda games. I absolutely hated the camera controls in Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess Wii where you constantly have to press Z to align the camera with Link's orientation. Wind Waker and the Gamecube version of Twilight Princess let you use the C-stick to revolve the camera which felt great. To learn that Skyward Sword has the same janky camera interface as Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess Wii is disappointing though not "preorder cancelled" disappointing.
 
Feep said:
Big One, you've been relentlessly attacking any detractors of the game. Chill out. People are entitled to their differences.

There are scattered (and few) instances of what you describe (
bomb blast and clawshot target in Faron Woods
, for example), but they are almost always in plain sight in normal, required areas of play. There are
two caves in Eldin Volcano
that you can't get to until later, but there's absolutely nothing interesting inside them.

Stop attacking people with bullshit like "You should play more of the game." It's insulting and childish.
The problem is that you're stating blatantly false statements here, the amount of secret areas is in the game is relatively similar to any other Zelda game. Telling you you should play more of the game is perfectly valid cause you can't really know this for sure unless you find every nook and cranny where all of these secrets are located.

Jarmel said:
Are we talking dungeons or the overworld?
Both but mostly the overworld.
 
I got the feeling that many reviewers really want Zelda to become Skyrim, or Mass Effect, or Fallout......

The day Zelda turn 'gritty' like that is the day I lose hope in humanity.
 
Feep said:
Stop attacking people with bullshit like "You should play more of the game." It's insulting and childish.

Dude, how many people have to tell you to ignore Big One before you take their advice? Stop trying to reason with irrational Zelda Universe fanatics
 
SirPenguin said:
I think that's an opinion everyone feels they need to strongly express at least once in their lifetimes. But if you actually think about it, why do we have to move away from it? What's the alternative?

Where else in life do we use the "full scale" in anything? Certainly not reviews for any other industry, and certainly not in school or in the workplace. So why change it here?

The reality is that it actually makes sense. Somewhere around the 5 or 6 mark there is an invisible line titled "Competent". If a game is in fact competent it is then rated on a 6-10 scale, where 6 is the lowest of low, and 10 means fantastic. Anything less is considered incompetent and not worthy of attention

I don't know where you come from, but your post doesn't make any sense to me at least. In music and movie reviews, you see one star reviews as often as you see five stars. School grades have nothing to do with entertainment reviewing...
 
Unsure what to think re the GS review as I have yet to play SS.

However, I will most likely still have a fantastic time with this game (being a massive fan of the series and action/adventure games in general).

P.s I don't understand the Spirit Tracks hate. I recently had a fantastic time with ST. The boss battles and dungeon designs were fantastic (although I would agree that some of the optional fetch quests are uninspired).
 
TheNatural said:
Good quotes and breakdown, here's the clunk of things that don't seem to have context or make sense though:



I'm not really understanding the complaint of repetition. Aren't videogames themselves an act of repetition? Aren't almost all series an act of a retread nature sometimes? What is Skyrim doing that was so different than it's predecessor? What is Saints Row doing that was so different? The fundamentals of what the game structure itself is repeats and repeats.

So we get that the game makes you go into areas different times, and the game has you do "fetch quest" which aren't exactly defined as to what is good/bad with them. You can break everything down to the most fundamental level and tear down everything in the same method the review does for Zelda, for any game ever made.

I think the last quote I underlined and everything sums it up though. If you want something not Zelda-ish, then you'll be disappointed. If you want an exciting adventure that is the same structure as what the Zelda series is, then you'll enjoy it.

I'm not really understanding though why a person is reviewing a series who has a problem with the way the series is. Like me for example, I really do not like first person shooters and really do not like RPG's. If I wrote a review stating a big time first person shooter game isn't that good because it relies on shooting things, death, and repeating that over and over then I'm basically just hating on what the type of game is, period. If I say I hate, I dunno, Chrono Trigger or something because it uses menus and I find them tedious and why can't the game let me fight battles without menus, then I'm tearing down the structure of what the game is. It's like playing Madden and hating it, because why isn't the game a baseball game instead?

That's my reviewer rant to last me a while, not just applying to this instance, but what I see often. No concrete example, and a reviewer who already holds a preference against the genre of something they're reviewing.

Thanks for putting into words better than I could in my posts on the last page or so.
 
BY2K said:
I have no idea what Big One is saying, but I can tell Feep is annoyed.
Agreed and from what I've seen, after his shennanigans from earlier today, my upset meter with him is still high.
 
Swifty said:
I definitely empathize with the reviewer when it comes to camera control in the Zelda games. I absolutely hated the camera controls in Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess Wii where you constantly have to press Z to align the camera with Link's orientation. Wind Waker and the Gamecube version of Twilight Princess let you use the C-stick to revolve the camera which felt great. To learn that Skyward Sword has the same janky camera interface as Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess Wii is disappointing though not "preorder cancelled" disappointing.

The problem I have with duel analogue controls is that you have to constantly adjust every time you turn. A well designed game shouldn't need duel analogue controls.
 
Big One said:
The problem is that you're stating blatantly false statements here, the amount of secret areas is in the game is relatively similar to any other Zelda game. Telling you you should play more of the game is perfectly valid cause you can't really know this for sure unless you find every nook and cranny where all of these secrets are located.
At least five reviews have pointed out these flaws. We aren't part of some massive anti-Nintendo conspiracy. We're people who play games. We didn't talk to each other in a secret IRC room before we wrote our opinions. I genuinely feel there is far less of interest to do than in previous Zelda titles.

The overworld is empty and boring. If you disagree, cool. But ad hominem bullshit doesn't belong in this thread, or in civil discussion anywhere, so chill.
 
The constant handholding of this blue creature is driving me insane :(( And the communicates like "You picked up a gem identical to the last ten of them. Let's describe it again in case you forgot this meanigless text. Let's describe it very sloooowlyyyy". And the lack of difficulty. And the controls which aren't that bad but sometimes (when the motion I used doesn't work for some reason) make me really whish for a traditional control scheme. And the slow pacing. And the constant need of 'dowsing'... And the easy puzzles (they will make you feel like an idiot). This game just doesn't feel good at all (I'm at the first dungeon, hope it gets better).
Ehh, even the loading is bad (skyloft).
 
That gamespot reviewer must be feeling pretty good right now.

ZfjjF.gif
 
Feep said:
At least five reviews have pointed out these flaws. We aren't part of some massive anti-Nintendo conspiracy. We're people who play games. We didn't talk to each other in a secret IRC room before we wrote our opinions. I genuinely feel there is far less of interest to do than in previous Zelda titles.

The overworld is empty and boring. If you disagree, cool. But ad hominem bullshit doesn't belong in this thread, or in civil discussion anywhere, so chill.
this sounds like something someone part of a massive anti-nintendo conspiracy would say.
 
AniHawk said:
this sounds like something someone part of a massive anti-nintendo conspiracy would say.
I fucked up

Alpha code 5x746xjs, thread delete

Also, Anihawk, Mirror's Edge (along with The World Ends With You) is like my favorite game in the last five years, high five
 
ZoddGutts said:
That gamespot reviewer must be feeling pretty good right now.

http://i.imgur.com/ZfjjF.gif[IMG][/QUOTE]

are you the one that keeps posting this gif for no reason?

Is there a way to PM a mod to tell this guy to knock it off?
 
Top Bottom