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[hyduK]

You never answered my question earlier, but do you think it would be appropriate for a reviewer to knock Gears of War 3 or Uncharted 3 down a few points because they're not Kinect or Move games, respectively? Not just support, but ground up built for those accessories.

No. Not only are move/kinect not the default control methods of the respective consoles (ie. they'd be alienating part of the userbase), but the games have nothing to gain, and would almost certainly be worse using those methods.

 

[oatmeal]

This shit right here is what doesn't fly with me. I hate this "no, seriously, this guy, this guy, he is Zelda man, he knows it" attitude. It means jack shit to me, because I don't give a flying fuck what TSA or anybody thinks, and in the case of TSA (who I have absolutely no beef with on a personal level), I've read enough of his post to disagree with any assertion that he 'knows Zelda', at least from the perspective of what I look for in a Zelda game and what draws me to the franchise.

Different strokes for different folks and all that. If you and others see eye-to-eye, well goody. He posted a lengthy, thought out review that's a great second (or even first) opinion for anybody who wants it. But I don't care what he thinks, anymore than I care what IGN, Eurogamer, Giant Bomb or anybody else thinks.

That's fine.

It's a review thread, I'm discussing a review.

 

[Gino]

I've never understood TSA's elevated status within the Zelda community.

I don't have any beef with him; I just don't get why everyone cares so much about what he thinks.

Who?

No seriously, I think you are seeing something that's not there. Neogaf is not the Zelda community.

 

[crustikid]

Do you need a hug? I need a hug.

Forgot the hug: /hug

 

[BertramCooper]

Just read that EGM review.

Christ.

Basically, the control follows your movements too well, which kills the immersion.

I mean, WTF?

Who?

No seriously, I think you are seeing something that's not there. Neogaf is not the Zelda community.

He obviously has a lot more clout on Zelda fan sites, but I've still seen a lot of attention paid to him on GAF.

 

[Sn4ke_911]

It get's pretty hot in here.

 

[Dr.Hadji]

Item Variety - Complains about using items in every dungeon rather than dungeons focusing on a single item and never use them again

Wat?! *reads impressions* Well.......then. Only a very unique perspective will get you to that conclusion. But that's just how TSA go.

 

[EatChildren]

But the problem is that the points he's listing isn't subjective, most of them are factually wrong statements based off what we know about the game. Saying the areas in the game are empty is factually wrong no matter how you look at it.

Points like hating Ghirahim is subjective yes, but still fanboyish rants that shouldn't knock a game down so hard

Plenty of his points are subjective if just because you haven't played the fucking game. You consistently attempt to directly attack every single opinion he expresses on the game, belittling his stance with a snide, condescending attitude, throwing around phrases like "factually wrong" for content, again, you haven't experienced. The shtick got tiresome a long time ago. If the only way you can engage in discussion with him is through hostile, aggressive behaviour, then you need to stop replying to him and discussing his opinions at all.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

No. Not only are move/kinect not the default control methods of the respective consoles (ie. they'd be alienating part of the userbase), but the games have nothing to gain, and would almost certainly be worse using those methods.

But in the end, is that not the same choice? To make a controller game instead of a motion one?

 

[hyduK]

But it does. Because the enemies are specifically designed to be attacked in certain patterns. Every single enemy revealed so far is designed around MotionPlus and blocking your attacks from certain angles.

You literally couldn't do the first mini-boss, the Stafos fight, without MotionPlus. He blocks your attack unless you attack from the right angle. That's true for every other enemy in the game. It's all about finding their weak points and attacking them from that angle and bypassing their defenses.

So, no, you're objectively wrong on that count.

Is this a joke? Just because Nintendo has previously chosen to ignore everything other than the horizontal and vertical axis doesn't mean they never existed. An analog stick can accomplish any of that.

I suppose no other games have deep (well, I shouldn't call an elaborate game of 'Simon Says' deep, but regardless) combat methods. Since you know, this is the only one on M+.

 

[apana]

Do you need a hug? I need a hug.

Don't cry Zelda gaf, I got you:

 

[hyduK]

But in the end, is that not the same choice? To make a controller game instead of a motion one?

Yeah. It's still a choice, but it's the right choice.

It's like if Company A decided to let you save anywhere in an open world WRPG, and Company B decides to have checkpoints. They both chose to go that way, but Company B chose wrong.

 

[IceDoesntHelp]

PROS:
Excellent controls
Many new weapons
New upgrade system rewards exploration
Plenty of side quests
Wonderful soundtrack
Cool looking Wii Remote

CONS:
Slow beginning
Difficult to find the path to your next objective
No golden Nunchuk
Some of the dialog is painful
Backtracking for quests takes a while

Score 93/100
Source

Skyward Sword is a masterpiece. It raises the bar for the legendary series and is memorable from start to finish. It’s challenging, unpredictable, diverse, thrilling, and endearing. It is the Zelda game you’ve been waiting for.

Score 9.8/10
Source

 

[EatChildren]

That's fine.

It's a review thread, I'm discussing a review.

Right, and that's cool. Just know that for the same reason I cringe at people slobbering over IGN's predictably hyperbolic 10/10, so too do I roll my eyes at TSA being put on a pedestal.

 

[farnham]

didnt TSA get to play zelda phantom hourglass at the e3 press conference ?

just asking

 

[RPGCrazied]

Man.. I can't wait to see this OT! Today or tomorrow you said Animrox?

 

[jarosh]

oh i see the anniversary cd is already on youtube. here's the fairy fountain theme i mentioned earlier. love the last minute:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7JQgyNw068#t=110s

 

[Truth101]

Yeah. It's still a choice, but it's the right choice.

It's like if Company A decided to let you save anywhere in an open world WRPG, and Company B decides to have checkpoints. They both chose to go that way, but Company B chose wrong.

Really you are getting annoying with this.

You don't like Motion controls, we get it. So stop bitching and saying that anything with Motion controls would be better without.

 

[apana]

Wait a minute does the Zelda bundle also come with a nunchuk?

 

[Gino]

I was hoping there would be a system update with this. My system files are corrupt at the moment. I can still play games, and watch netflix which is 90% of what I do on there but I can't get into the system settings at all .

 

[Criminal Upper]

It get's pretty hot in here.

Only one thing we can do...

 

[RPGCrazied]

Wait a minute does the Zelda bundle also come with a nunchuk?

Nope.

 

[Glass Rebel]

Impressions Time!

Alright, writing this with the orchestra CD playing in the background. Stopped playing right at the beginning of the first dungeon so I wanted to share some impressions. Since most of the stuff has probably been already said I just wanted to highlight some of the things that made the biggest impression on me, not a lot since I'm so early in the game but still.

Story/Presentation

Unsurprisingly it's more story heavy than earlier Zeldas and I can definitely see some anime/One Piece inspiration. I'm okay with the series taking such an approach to storytelling but only on the condition that they have good voice-actors. It's just incredibly irritating seeing someone move their lips without saying anything.

Controls

They're almost perfect. The only problem I encountered was that the pointer needs "resetting" from time to time. The problem I mentioned earlier with the game not registering if it was a downward or upward vertical slash was due to me waggling. After getting used to the controls they feel very natural.

Combat

Due to the controls the combat feels slower than TP for example. You have to observe your enemies, position yourself well etc. to stand a chance. The best thing though was when I found out you could do vertical spin attacks. Mind = blown.

Level structure

Wow, this game is really dense. They weren't that far off when they said you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between overworld and dungeon. If they had put just a bit more puzzles and items in the woods it would have easily counted as a smaller dungeon. Can't wait to see more of the maps.

Speed

This is a bit weird. It seems they've done all they could to make the gameplay faster by letting you use potions etc. while walking and giving you a run button just to piss you off with the story/dialogue text. It's putting a bit of a damper on my experience quite honestly. It's not really slow but this is the first time I hate it that they take away control from you to show some text. Dunno, I'll probably get used to it.

So that's it this far.

 

[Big One]

The system, if it is as he claims, sounds broken. Forcing you to return to the sky and then back just to go to another warp spot on land? That's poor design.

How is that either broken or poor design? It's so easy to get to each point in the game that we're lucky to even have a warp system.

It's a pretty similar concept. Removing one large piece of land and replacing it with a larger piece of empty nothing. And when the places to explore are few and far between (and tiny and useless)...it's pretty similar to WW. So no, it's not a big ocean, but the idea is the same.

The thing is however is that the sky isn't really meant for exploration, it's meant to go to each point in the game. Sure there's some islands but those are either for mini-games or treasures you get from Goddess cubes.

with its tiny 'planetoids', he looks right. Small little rocks that have one pointless enemy on it sounds pretty barren.

He isn't talking about the sky he's talking about the land below.

I think ear-bleeding is excessive, however, from the demo and from all of the videos I've seen the dungeon music has been quite bad. And the worst part is, the enemy encounter music is very bad, and that comes up all of the time. The boss music, at least from the Stalfos and Ghirahim battle, is great. But nothing kills the vibe of a good Zelda track worse than the encounter music.

Well there's nothing I can really say against here, only you can decide if you want to have bad taste or not though the encounter music I do agree isn't very good (then again, is it supposed to be?)

I agree with him. From everything I have seen he is quite annoying, and has a terrible design.

Why? Is it because he's gay? There's no reason to think of Ghirahim as being awesome or terrible by this point, his design is pretty standard of Zelda characters

Same thing was said about TP. And while they're not quite N64, they come close quite often. See TWW for how to do simple textures right. Not this.

No just no. TP doesn't fit this crititeria, and SS's textures aren't textures done wrong at all.

 

[Chet Rippo]

Wait a minute does the Zelda bundle also come with a nunchuk?

No, I don't think so.

 

[Alexios]

Is this a joke? Just because Nintendo has previously chosen to ignore everything other than the horizontal and vertical axis doesn't mean they never existed. An analog stick can accomplish any of that.

I suppose no other games have deep (well, I shouldn't call an elaborate game of 'Simon Says' deep, but regardless) combat methods. Since you know, this is the only one on M+.

Really? You wanted to control the sword with an analog stick? What remotely similar game did you play that did this and was so much better? I don't think many games have even done similar combat systems with buttons or any input. Even Mount&Blade on PC for all its deep melee combat shenanigans only has left/right/downward/thrust moves and its depth comes from other factors like the optional manual directional blocking, moving speed affecting damage and what not. Still, that's four directions instead of the 9 needed in Skyward Sword on top of freeform movement. I guess Die by the Sword with its mouse controlled sword had more directions but still, it was pretty damn clunky. You really have no way to know it would be better with an analog stick considering you haven't experienced such a game so you're just putting your dislike for the system as an assumed like for another system. You're just doing some very opinionated guessing and try to push it as fact on top of that with that "the right choice" bullshit. Plenty others loved the combat in Red Steel 2 and Wii Sports Resort and have been itching to get another similar experience. You aren't one of them. Too bad. Get over it, you've had enough time to let it sink and just avoid the game altogether as we've known it is a motion controlled game for a couple years now. What else is new then?

 

[oatmeal]

Right, and that's cool. Just know that for the same reason I cringe at people slobbering over IGN's predictably hyperbolic 10/10, so too do I roll my eyes at TSA being put on a pedestal.

I understand, however, you neglected to take the important part of that sentence:

The guy knows Zelda, and from his previous reviews, his views of the franchise hit closer to home than other reviews I've seen.

My point was that his views reflect mine on more than one occasion.

And my 'The guy knows Zelda'...I mean, come on. It's hard to deny that the guy knows Zelda. I didn't mean that as a point like he's some holy God. But who is Rich? Some kid that dreamt of reviewing a Zelda game in High School?

Like him or not, TSA has been an active part of the Zelda community for years. He knows his Zelda.

 

[Anth0ny]

Just read TSA's review. I usually agree with everything he says, so... yeah.

>_>

Okay, I'm gone til the 20th. Seriously. byebye gaf

 

[hyduK]

Really you are getting annoying with this.

You don't like Motion controls, we get it. So stop bitching and saying that anything with Motion controls would be better without.

I'm more than entitled to my opinion, and I've yet to have been shown anything that makes me think it's wrong.

I'm still going to play and love the game. Honestly, I'll probably love it more than a lot of people in this thread because I won't spend the whole time sulking over the reviewers not liking a design choice.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Yeah. It's still a choice, but it's the right choice.

It's like if Company A decided to let you save anywhere in an open world WRPG, and Company B decides to have checkpoints. They both chose to go that way, but Company B chose wrong.

If you're freely admitting it's a double standard, and that weakens your argument, then fine. I won't press the issue past that.

But if you're going to say "It's okay to dock the game for being foundationally based on motion controls but not okay to dock it for not having motion controls and there's no logical inconsistency there at all," and don't understand why that's being loony, then...well, I'll probably still ignore the rest of your posts, but at least people can do the same and this stupid argument can end.

 

[Woffls]

Wait a minute does the Zelda bundle also come with a nunchuk?

OH god, I didn't think about this. Now I have non-matching controllery bits shhhiiiittttt

 

[brandonh83]

I'm glad we have EatChildren on GAF. It's pretty awesome. He says the things I'm terrified of saying.

 

[MetalGuardian]

I am so ridiculously pumped for this. At first I was slightly disappointed after some of the 8's, but after having time to digest it I'm not too worried about the concerns.

Linearity and only

Spoiler

three

main areas? Better than a huge open empty world like in Twilight Princess

Upgrade system is optional? Better than having the only reward from side quests and treasure chests be rupees and heart pieces

Silent Realm? I have a feeling I'll be on the side of enjoying the intensity of them

Lack of exploration? Better to have a cohesive and well paced experience than throwing in random nooks and crannies just for the sake of it. To be fair, I definitely understand why some people are upset by this, but I'm sure it was an intentional choice, a different direction the creators wanted to experiment with.

Harp is too basic and not as fleshed out as instruments in previous games? The intent then was obviously to not have this be a primary game mechanic. I'm assuming it will primarily serve story purposes, which is fine with me

Backtracking? I love the Metroidvania approach when it's pulled off successfully. It seems like that is the case here

Fetch Quests? Yeah, fuck that

These gripes with the game I understand will frustrate some people, but knowing my own gaming preferences and what I like/dislike, particularly in Zelda games, I don't see these bothering me all that much

So with the flaws that will probably end up being very minor to me anyway being heavily outweighed by all of the outstanding qualities of the game (graphics and art style, soundtrack, combat, story, pacing, length, and a grand sense of adventure) this will seriously give Arkham City a run for its money as my GOTY. And I fucking love the shit out of Arkham City, it immediately became one of my favorite games ever.

As a long-time Zelda fan who owns and has beaten every game in the series, I am most excited about a Zelda game finally feeling "fresh" again. Sure, some of these advances are going to come at the expense of certain franchise staples, but if you want to revisit some of the elements this game doesn't have you can feel free to replay the over two decades worth of games from the series.

Also, none of this is to say that I won't have my own complaints about the game. I have issues with every single Zelda game, and in fact, every video game I've ever played. I've yet to experience a completely "perfect" game that has no room for improvement, yet I know this is because perfection is an abstract ideal that is rarely, if ever, attained by the arts.

So yeah, bring on more 8's, throw some 7's in there too if you must. It doesn't matter; I am thoroughly convinced that I will love the unholy fuck out of this game, moreso than I have with a Zelda game in quite some time.

 

[Regulus Tera]

I will never, ever, ever get the complaints about voice acting. Do people only listen to audio-books nowadays?

I will agree that games without voice acting need to have text speed options!

 

[Truth101]

I understand, however, you neglected to take the important part of that sentence:

The guy knows Zelda, and from his previous reviews, his views of the franchise hit closer to home than other reviews I've seen.

My point was that his views reflect mine on more than one occasion.

And my 'The guy knows Zelda'...I mean, come on. It's hard to deny that the guy knows Zelda. I didn't mean that as a point like he's some holy God. But who is Rich? Some kid that dreamt of reviewing a Zelda game in High School?

Like him or not, TSA has been an active part of the Zelda community for years. He knows his Zelda.

Really this is just sickening.

 

[Goldmund]

Impressions Time!

Alright, writing this with the orchestra CD playing in the background. Stopped playing right at the beginning of the first dungeon so I wanted to share some impressions. Since most of the stuff has probably been already said I just wanted to highlight some of the things that made the biggest impression on me, not a lot since I'm so early in the game but still.

Story/Presentation

Unsurprisingly it's more story heavy than earlier Zeldas and I can definitely see some anime/One Piece inspiration. I'm okay with the series taking such an approach to storytelling but only on the condition that they have good voice-actors. It's just incredibly irritating seeing someone move their lips without saying anything.

Controls

They're almost perfect. The only problem I encountered was that the pointer needs "resetting" from time to time. The problem I mentioned earlier with the game not registering if it was a downward or upward vertical slash was due to me waggling. After getting used to the controls they feel very natural.

Combat

Due to the controls the combat feels slower than TP for example. You have to observe your enemies, position yourself well etc. to stand a chance. The best thing though was when I found out you could do vertical spin attacks. Mind = blown.

Level structure

Wow, this game is really dense. They weren't that far off when they said you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between overworld and dungeon. If they had put just a bit more puzzles and items in the woods it would have easily counted as a smaller dungeon. Can't wait to see more of the maps.

Speed

This is a bit weird. It seems they've doon all they could to make the gameplay faster by letting you use potions etc. while walking and giving you a run button just to piss you off with the text. It's putting a bit of a damper on my experience quite honestly. It's not really slow but this is the first time I hate it that they take away control from you to show some text. Dunno, I'll probably get used to it.

So that's it this far.

Cool. Thanks.

 

[Big One]

Plenty of his points are subjective if just because you haven't played the fucking game. You consistently attempt to directly attack every single opinion he expresses on the game, belittling his stance with a snide, condescending attitude, throwing around phrases like "factually wrong" for content, again, you haven't experienced. The shtick got tiresome a long time ago. If the only way you can engage in discussion with him is through hostile, aggressive behaviour, then you need to stop replying to him and discussing his opinions at all.

You don't have to play the game to know some of the things he said are factually wrong. That's just the way it is. I've already listed exactly what for proof of this so I'm not sure why you're still arguing for this.

I'm not aggressively insulting him I just think his review nitpicks in all the wrong places. He seems to have personal problems with the game rather than the game actually having problems, and that's my problem with TSA. He's done this with every Zelda game in the past on various forums like gamefaqs. He's also lied about shit before too on other forums so I never trust him when it comes to a valid outlook.

You can think I'm trolling all you want but my complaints against his review are perfectly valid.

 

[walking fiend]

Really? You wanted to control the sword with an analog stick? What remotely similar did you play that did this and was so much better? I don't think many games have even done similar combat systems with buttons or any input. Even Mount&Blade on PC for all its deep melee combat shenanigans only has left/right/downward/thrust moves and its depth comes from other factors like the optional manual directional blocking, moving speed affecting damage and what not. Still, that's four directions instead of the 9 needed in Skyward Sword on top of freeform movement. I guess Die by the Sword with its mouse controlled sword had infinite directions but still, it was pretty damn clunky...

Thief had a swordplay that you could theoreically cut in any direction, though it didn't have thrust, etc. It wasn't really that cool though, so they disregarded it finally.

 

[Dr.Hadji]

Speed
This is a bit weird. It seems they've doon all they could to make the gameplay faster by letting you use potions etc. while walking and giving you a run button just to piss you off with the text. It's putting a bit of a damper on my experience quite honestly. It's not really slow but this is the first time I hate it that they take away control from you to show some text. Dunno, I'll probably get used to it.

The first time a read this I thought random text would pop up when you run and drink potions at the same thing. I guess you're saying the text scroll speed is slow?

 

[Zekes!]

/hugs I love you guys t_t

On the topic of reviews, I think the biggest problem is that no one's knocked the game points for apparently not having Tingle in it.

 

[Dreamcast2]

I'm trying to find more video reviews for the game.

There is IGN of course.
Nintendo World Report has one.

Anything else?

 

[Regulus Tera]

Why? Is it because he's gay? There's no reason to think of Ghirahim as being awesome or terrible by this point, his design is pretty standard of Zelda characters

Ghirahim is gay!?

 

[jarosh]

I understand, however, you neglected to take the important part of that sentence:

The guy knows Zelda, and from his previous reviews, his views of the franchise hit closer to home than other reviews I've seen.

My point was that his views reflect mine on more than one occasion.

And my 'The guy knows Zelda'...I mean, come on. It's hard to deny that the guy knows Zelda. I didn't mean that as a point like he's some holy God. But who is Rich? Some kid that dreamt of reviewing a Zelda game in High School?

Like him or not, TSA has been an active part of the Zelda community for years. He knows his Zelda.

it's one thing to say that someone "gets" or "knows" videogames in general, but how prior knowledge of a specific series somehow makes someone an authority on opinion regarding new entries in the franchise is a mystery to me. i understand that you might generally be more inclined to trust someone's opinion if you agreed with them in the past, but that really has nothing to do with the extent of that person's involvement in a particular community or the amount of times he's played through earlier games or the amount of essays he's written on them etc. you're confusing two fundamentally different factors here.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Whose Zelda do I know

 

[Deleted member 81567]

So any breakdowns yet?

 

[hyduK]

If you're freely admitting it's a double standard, and that weakens your argument, then fine. I won't press the issue past that.

But if you're going to say "It's okay to dock the game for being foundationally based on motion controls but not okay to dock it for not having motion controls and there's no logical inconsistency there at all," and don't understand why that's being loony, then...well, I'll probably still ignore the rest of your posts, but at least people can do the same and this stupid argument can end.

It's not a double standard. In one case they chose the better control method, in the other case they didn't.

By that logic every game should just get a 10 because the developer did what they wanted to do, and we're not allowed to complain about that, regardless of whether or not there's better options.

 

[AniHawk]

okay, the eurogamer thing demands my attention. i need to read it.

 

[walking fiend]

The first time a read this I thought random text would pop up when you run and drink potions at the same thing. I guess you're saying the text scroll speed is slow?

Item use doesn't show texts, well it shows 'press A to drink' but that's while you may move, etc; however, you can't skip dialogues.

 

[Big One]

Ghirahim is gay!?

Just a warning but here's some dialogue spoilers from him from the actual text dump (for real):

Spoiler

"My heart is filled with rainbows!"

 

[RPGCrazied]

Just cause he his flamboyant, doesn't make him gay.