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

TSA said:
You can do either but you get an immediately different quest line based on your decision
. I made two save files and did both and got rewards for each.
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Woah, first off, thanks for the reply. Second of all, that's completely unexpected. Guess I'll need to do the same!
 
Wait... just for demographical purposes in what seems to be our de facto Zelda OT for now:

a) How many people have spoiled a large amount of the game?
b) How many people have spoiled only little bits?
c) How many people haven't spoiled anything and are still theorising about the original concept art?

... and why? Is this what you usually do for other games?

(By the way, I heard that (b) is the master race [Gorons])
 
Damo Yoshi said:
Wait... just for demographical purposes in what seems to be our de facto Zelda OT for now:

a) How many people have spoiled a large amount of the game?
b) How many people have spoiled only little bits?
c) How many people haven't spoiled anything and are still theorising about the original concept art?

... and why? Is this what you usually do for other games?

(By the way, I heard that (b) is the master race [Gorons])
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i think I went to media blackout after e3 2011. I did not watch the romance trailer and whatever was coming with it
 
AniHawk said:
kinda, yeah. art is sorta this catch-all for something big and important that demands respect. so people who are enthusiasts of video games, critics of video games, and (unfortunately, sometimes) creators of video games chase this idea. the closest thing video games appear to resemble is film, but the process is different. films are usually about telling a story or some sort of expression of an idea, while games are about solving problems.

i think that calling a video game art demeans the work of the designers, as if their design work isn't important. it doesn't help that people who don't like or appreciate video games disagree with game enthusiasts on the subject while also holding art up in the same sense. the demand for respect from those people is what riles people up.
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I know this isnt a response to my post, but it does answer my question :)

I think the problem is that so-called artists have transformed the notion of what is and is not art to match their own self-absorption. All art is a service. All art, essentially, becomes a product. This idea of scale, of importance and of respect is artificial, and I completely agree with you that chasing these ideals, chasing film demeans the work of the people behind the game, and belittles their efforts.
 
It's just the officially endorsed media avalanche and the leaks have been gargantuan in the lead-up period to the magic that is Skyward Sword.

I don't think I've ever seen a lead-up, both by Nintendo and the fanbase, this idiosyncratic ever before.

...

FIVE YEARS and personally, Skyward Sword looks beyond worthy of the wait.
 
Damo Yoshi said:
Wait... just for demographical purposes in what seems to be our de facto Zelda OT for now:

a) How many people have spoiled a large amount of the game?
b) How many people have spoiled only little bits?
c) How many people haven't spoiled anything and are still theorising about the original concept art?

... and why? Is this what you usually do for other games?

(By the way, I heard that (b) is the master race [Gorons])
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B. Stopped after the Miyamoto talk at TGS. And nah, I only do this for Zelda. There's just something special about it being fresh on first playthrough.

Mario is my second favourite franchise of all time, yet 3D Land spoilers don't bother me at all.
 
ThoseDeafMutes said:
I don't understand what you're saying here. Are you just saying "videogames aren't art" or is there something more nuanced here?

The implication that "works of art" and "works of design" are mutually exclusive things is quite head-scratching (particularly given the example of a motion picture).
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design isn't art, but that doesn't mean designers can't be artful about their work. rayman origins, for instance, could actually work exactly as it does now with just brown blocks and extremely basic shapes for the platforms. instead there's a lot of embellishment, which is great! but it's mostly just embellishment, and even then, adheres to what the design needs it to be (for instance it could be gorgeous, but if the platform gets mixed up with the background, then it becomes frustrating and bad design).

i have a couple examples, so bear with me. the first is a story i heard from a professor a year ago. he was an artist majoring in graphic design, in a class with a bunch of other artists majoring in graphic design, save for this one girl who was taking the class for a g.e. requirement. the first week, the class was assigned to bring in something that explained who they were.

so my professor went home, spent a week on this kickass painting. there was a happy face because he was a happy guy, and a skateboard because he liked to skate, and a bunch of other stuff that he liked to do. he hung it up on the wall for critique along with everyone else in the class, and at the very end of the room, the non-artist pinned her varsity goggles and swimcap to the wall. my professor and his artist buddies kinda snickered about it because she obviously fucked up the assignment and panicked, while all their stuff was this awesome art.

the professor of the graphic design class goes around, and she comes to my professor and asks to tell the class what it means. he does, describing the happy face and all the objects and stuff he put in there. afterward she says something along the lines of 'well thank you for explaining the piece.'

then it comes to the non-artist. the professor of the class looks at the goggles and swimcap, turns to the girl and says, 'so, you're a swimmer?'
'yep'
'on the varsity team?'
'yep'
and that's all that needed to be said. the assignment was to bring in something that explained who they were. all the artists who had to talk about their work failed, because they had to explain the piece itself. she was the only person who solved the problem.

the other example is a guy in particular- lanny sommese. he's a graphic designer from penn state, and my professor's main professor. the guy is known for a couple famous designs from the 80s, and he can illustrate well, but he refuses to call what he does illustration. he only does it because it's what solves the problem. it's part of the design.

Peru said:
ridiculous
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well i mean, that's what it has become for many people. all they want to do is to be taken seriously, for their thing they put so many hours into to be respected, so 'art' has become this big important word for them.
 
Never thought I would get to this level of hype for a game again. I thought those days were behind me. Thanks, Nintendo, for always somehow being able to draw out my inner child.
 
Sinoox said:
I've been playing the game (11 hours in); it's a huge departure from previous game and a near perfect direction for the series. Coming from Twilight Princess to Skyward Sword, I just never want to go back. The controls are part of that, and then just the fact that there's always something crazy to find and a puzzle to solve. You won't have any ginormous muddy desolate fields of nothing to do, and while the places are quite big there just always seems to be something at every turn.

No idea what was up with that critic on GT. I mean after listening to their podcast regularly; if Shane was the one who did this review don't even bother acknowledging it; that guy is a total jackass. He constantly brings up the most pointless arguments and makes tons of errors all the time (more so than anyone else I listen to). But Skyward Sword not having as much of variety as other Zelda games is downright false and there are more side quests in this game than ever before; I can't believe they said that in the review.
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Good to hear. Anyway I still remember Majora's Mask's average on gamerankings is 92.93%. Reviewers sometimes fail quite badly.
 
Cygnus X-1 said:
Good to hear. Anyway I still remember Majora's Mask's average on gamerankings is 92.93%. Reviewers sometimes fail quite badly.
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mirror's edge being a 79% or something on gamerankings is an example of reviewers failing quite badly. majora's mask (or anything, really) getting 93% is a really damn good average.
 
Anihawk, your rant only proves what is widely known. You need an artist to create art. If someone IS making art through videogames, it is art. This is very simple.
 
Cygnus X-1 said:
Anyway, I really hope the criticism will reach Aonuma- and Miyamoto's ears. This series needs a change comparable to the step between Mario Sunshine and Mario Galaxy.

I reserve any final judgement once I play it, but I have the impression that Skyward Sword is a bit what Sunshine was back. And it was that feeling of overused and slightly broken that made Galaxy appear. Let's hope something similar will happen now with the next Zelda. HD is further a good opportunity to make it even visually groundbreaking.
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This as to be a joke post has to be...
If you had read some of the more praised reviews you would find that they call it a game changer...
 
Shurs said:
So sick of people whining about spoilers in video reviews.

It's a fucking video review; of course it's going to have spoilers.
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I fucking know that there are spoilers in the GT reviews as always, but if you would read my post carefully you would have seen the word "Lots".

Oh and whining? It was just a question.
 
Sn4ke_911 said:
I fucking know that there are spoilers in the GT reviews as always, but if you would read my post carefully you would have seen the word "Lots".
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How could one produce a video review that didn't have "lots" of spoilers in it?

A seven minute loop of the title screen, perhaps?

Holding footage to the first fifteen minutes of the game?
 
AniHawk said:
mirror's edge being a 79% or something on gamerankings is an example of reviewers failing quite badly. majora's mask (or anything, really) getting 93% is a really damn good average.
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Mirror's edge being at 79% is not failing badly. It is an insult.
 
Shurs said:
How could one produce a video review that didn't have "lots" of spoilers in it?

A seven minute loop of the title screen, perhaps?

Holding footage to the first fifteen minutes of the game?
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Look at the IGN video review. Rich pretty much only showed parts of the official trailers and tv commercials. I've seen all of them.

GT likes to spoil the ending. That's why i asked.
 
Sn4ke_911 said:
Look at the IGN video review. Rich pretty much only showed parts of the official trailers and tv commercials. I've seen all of them.

GT likes to spoil the ending. That's why i asked.
Click to expand...

Which is why IGN video reviews are terrible. There is no point to them. They often say, "read the full review" at the end. Why not just read the review in one window while watching the trailer in another?

Give me three examples of GameTrailers spoiling the endings of games.
 
I'm with Shurs on this one. If you're gonna talk about the important aspects of the game in a video review (which is what you're supposed to do), you gotta show some actual examples of those aspects, otherwise it's just gonna be a written review read out loud, accompanied by mostly unrelated footage.

I'll just watch the reviews once I'm done with the game.
 
I haven't played Skyward Sword, but I find it amusing that some of these websites are docking points for Skyward Sword being the "same-old thing" while giving Uncharted 3 praise for it.

If you haven't played the Uncharted series, basically what you need to know is that Uncharted 2 is fricken amazing and Uncharted 3 is it's Hangover 2; almost exactly the same game but not as good. I dont think I have ever had so many Deja Vu moments in a first-time playthrough before.......
 
Bluemercury said:
REally but yet you're already condeming zelda before even playing it.
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No. As stated and re-stated I reserve myself every right to change idea once I play the game.

I'm just taking what I read and make some conclusion.

Concretely, the problem is that it seems editors are divided in two parts: people who consider motion plus and the change in the formula a fantastic thing that make everything else irrelevant, and people who move some critics to the consistency of the game, how good these changes are really and the awkward gameplay.

Not being an HD game is, again, a ridiculous motivation to sustain an idea. It's like saying that every GB game was shit, because it hadn't a color palette.
 
Damo Yoshi said:
Wait... just for demographical purposes in what seems to be our de facto Zelda OT for now:

a) How many people have spoiled a large amount of the game?
b) How many people have spoiled only little bits?
c) How many people haven't spoiled anything and are still theorising about the original concept art?

... and why? Is this what you usually do for other games?

(By the way, I heard that (b) is the master race [Gorons])
Click to expand...

I'm firmly in Group C. I don't kow who the secondary characters are, what items are/aren't in the game, what areas are on the map(s), what dungeons there are, etc.

This is the first time I've done a blackout for a Zelda game. I was in Group A for Twilight Princess - watching live plays online, viewing very possible video available, reading as many threads/articles as possible, etc - and found that I knew too much while playing through it.

For Wind Waker, I knew bits and pieces about it, and loved loved loved it - especially the music. I'm on ALttP right now, but am kinda hurrying to get to WW. So gooood..
 
Shurs said:
Which is why IGN video reviews are terrible. There is no point to them. They often say, "read the full review" at the end. Why not just read the review in one window while watching the trailer in another?

Give me three examples of GameTrailers spoiling the endings of games.
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Resident Evil 4

Yes they showed the endboss. That's a ending spoiler in my book.
 
Sn4ke_911 said:
Resident Evil 4

Yes they showed the endboss. That's a ending spoiler in my book.
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Which version?

Gamecube?

Wii?

PS3/360?

As someone who hasn't played the game -- though I do own the HD version on 360 -- I'll watch it and see if I can pick out who the last boss is.
 
Skiesofwonder said:
I haven't played Skyward Sword, but I find it amusing that some of these websites are docking points for Skyward Sword being the "same-old thing" while giving Uncharted 3 praise for it.

If you haven't played the Uncharted series, basically what you need to know is that Uncharted 2 is fricken amazing and Uncharted 3 is it's Hangover 2; almost exactly the same game but not as good. I dont think I have ever had so many Deja Vu moments in a first-time playthrough before.......
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In fairness Zelda has had near a dozen main games in it, you're talking about one similar sequel.
 
Shurs said:
How anyone consider that a spoiler, is beyond me.

Only after beating the game would anyone know that was the end boss.
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Yes. An image out of context is not a spoiler. No one would know what it means.
 
Shurs said:
How anyone consider that a spoiler, is beyond me.

Only after beating the game would anyone know that was the end boss.
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Just depends on the context of the game. It's like... if hypothetically you watched the MGS4 review and the final boss of the game was Raiden or something and they showed the fight. You would know what context that was and you would be mad. It just so happened in this case you didn't know the boss from previous installments.

This is still tacky and they pretty much don't need to be using scenes from the final part of the game in any review.
 
Phenomic said:
Just depends on the context of the game. It's like... if hypothetically you watched the MGS4 review and the final boss of the game was Raiden or something and they showed the fight. You would know what context that was and you would be mad. It just so happened in this case you didn't know the boss from previous installments.
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I see what you're trying to say here, but this really makes no sense.

So I asked for three examples of GameTrailers reviews spoiling the endings of games.

Anyone else have any real examples?
 
Shurs said:
How anyone consider that a spoiler, is beyond me.

Only after beating the game would anyone know that was the end boss.
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So you think it's ok showing the endboss without saying it's the endboss?
 
Sn4ke_911 said:
So you think it's ok showing the endboss without saying it's the endboss?
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With your example, no one would know it's the end boss.

Nothing is spoiled.

A spoiler would be:

-- Revealing how the game ends.

-- Telling you ahead of time about plot twists.
 
Sn4ke_911 said:
So you think it's ok showing the endboss without saying it's the endboss?
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As long as it's not obviously the end boss, yes. No one who watched that RE4 gt review would come away from it thinking they had spoiled the game. It's not an actual spoiler, like saying Goofy dies in Kingdom Hearts 2.
 
Sinoox said:
What are the negative parts of Skyward Sword? Seriously? I want to know. Because I have yet to find any moment of the game where I haven't completely enjoyed myself. I was all over Twilight Princess because it didn't evolve the series in any major way and had some completely boring segments (like forcing you to collect bugs in the Twilight) and I tore it apart while playing it. Great game, but it had issues and I could see them at the time. This game you collect things; but its not just stupidly wandering around areas doing nothing, there are major puzzles you need to solve to collect the things you need, that's why it hasn't bored me like Twilight Princess. In fact, I hadn't even thought of the dousing segments in the same light as the boring bug fetch quests in Twilight Princess till now, it's completely different. That's another thing from the GT review that is completing illegitimate; the part about dousing. You don't even need to douse in this game; it just helps speed up the process of finding out where you need to be.

When you guys get your hands on this game you're going to look back on all this negative talk and just giggle... well, most of you I'm sure. It's a really good game; I'm super happy that Nintendo has finally decided to allow the series to just go crazy. And the level of polish is unheard of in this series. Instantly one of my favorite Zelda games; if not THE best; but I'm not quite done! Thank god, hope it never ends!
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Now you've done it. My hype was already bad. It has now reached dangerous levels and I'm going pretty nuts. when I personally get hyped for something it almost always lives up to my personal standard and I'm already 99% sure this will from just the small bit I have seen/heard of it. 6 days of work, 7 days total and this game will be here.
 
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