• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword |OT| Home of Punkin' Chunkin' Champion 2011

TheExodu5

Banned
Combat motion is a failure 40% of the time, just slows the pacing down and so far has done little to nothing to actually amplify the quality of non-boss encounters. So maybe they should have done motion+ for bosses only, and reverted to a more standard button combat system or something for general encounters. I hate having to hope a motion is correctly interpreted, else suffer the game's shitty wrath.

Glad to know I'm not the only one struggling with the motion controls. I have no idea why it's so inconsistent for me while others are reporting great results.
 

Dartastic

Member
Glad to know I'm not the only one struggling with the motion controls. I have no idea why it's so inconsistent for me while others are reporting great results.
I wonder this too. I had almost zero problems. The only time I had problems with it was with the stabbing. Hrm.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Glad to know I'm not the only one struggling with the motion controls. I have no idea why it's so inconsistent for me while others are reporting great results.

This is the problem with interpretive controls in general - people who it works for will SWEAR it's perfect and that you hate motion controls or something. But the reality with interpretive controls is that there will naturally be people who simply "do it right", and others whose motion interpretation will be outside of that window - and that's the problem I've always had with motion controls (other than not being 1:1 when they were introduced, and the lag). They're supposed to be this thing that is sort of a natural extension of yourself, that adds to the immersion because you're mimicking real life actions. In actual fact, it's a distraction, consistently pulling me out of the moment as I concentrate REALLY HARD to ensure that the game recognizes the motion as it wants me to do it, which is hit-or-miss to begin with. If I'm going to thrust and the game decides to swipe for me instead, I'm going to get pissed. This is something that never happens with buttons and it's why, for me, buttons will always be superior to this method. I want the most efficient, reliable method of controls - not a sideshow gimmick for those who wished to dress up in green spandex and yelp. I'm not saying the motion+ sword fighting is bad altogether, when it works it can occasionally be satisfying. And the bosses so far have been a treat, particularly with the tools which tend to work great with the motion (a real surprise). But the combat itself, either due to the inconsistent enemy design or the incompatibility of Zelda-style combat with this more methodical approach (which the game doesn't even do a particularly stellar job of recognizing anyway), could have been completely dumped and the game would be superior for it. The only place I've been hesitant to say this is in bosses. So far, about five bosses in, it has worked really well.
 

oatmeal

Banned
This is game is causing just a neverending flow of contradictory feelings. For every one great thing, it's almost always immediately balanced out by another really poor design choice. I'm almost shocked at the amount of ideas in here that such a seasoned development crew like the Zelda team could STILL think is acceptable in this day and age. They half go out of their way to ruin all their clever puzzles by just having people blurt out the answer anyway. I can't tell you the number of times I've had to literally force myself to look away from the screen so as not to have the answer ruined for me. This is sub tier-C development philosophy, not fit even for shovelware devs. They should truly know better, and this is the worst I've ever seen it in a Zelda game not called Phantom Hourglass. I should have expected it - every time Nintendo goes into one of their "experimental Zelda" titles, they see the need to add a billion hints and tutorial segments so as not to offend their shitty subset of casual gamers who must be cripples or mentally handicapped as to really need this much handholding. At least that's who I imagine they're playtesting this with.

Yep. 100%.
 

fernoca

Member
At first, I tried used dowsing whenever I was told to..and I ended been more lost than finding things. For the "second time" you're told to use it to look for some keys; I found them faster...exploring around and only used dowsing as a quick guide to know I was around the right place..and it worked wonderfully. Explored and found areas that strictly using dowsing I wasn't even aware of. :p


So far, so great. Really the most fun I've had this early on a Zelda game (12 hours in, on my way to the 3rd dungeon).
 
Whenever the motion controls act up for me, I start doing less vague, more pronounced actions. Then it works again. As I get used to it working again, my actions get vaguer... until the cycle repeats. :lol
 

Caelus

Member
What are these hints you are referring to Amirox? Fi doesn't give help with puzzles at all, she just tells you obvious stuff like "there is an 85% chance this key will open this door right in front of you" and leaves you alone for the rest of the dungeon.
 

jarosh

Member
This is game is causing just a neverending flow of contradictory feelings. For every one great thing, it's almost always immediately balanced out by another really poor design choice. I'm almost shocked at the amount of ideas in here that such a seasoned development crew like the Zelda team could STILL think is acceptable in this day and age. They half go out of their way to ruin all their clever puzzles by just having people blurt out the answer anyway. I can't tell you the number of times I've had to literally force myself to look away from the screen so as not to have the answer ruined for me. This is sub tier-C development philosophy, not fit even for shovelware devs. They should truly know better, and this is the worst I've ever seen it in a Zelda game not called Phantom Hourglass. I should have expected it - every time Nintendo goes into one of their "experimental Zelda" titles, they see the need to add a billion hints and tutorial segments so as not to offend their shitty subset of casual gamers who must be cripples or mentally handicapped as to really need this much handholding. At least that's who I imagine they're playtesting this with.
yep. it's astounding how this game is consistently trying to sabotage itself.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Whenever the motion controls act up for me, I start doing less vague, more pronounced actions. Then it works again. As I get used to it working again, my actions get vaguer... until the cycle repeats. :lol


What do you mean less vague? I mean, when I swipe a sword, I'm trying my best to bite my tongue and do the lame, exaggerated motions to try to get the game to properly recognize what I'm doing. I'm saying I have a 60% success rate, but if I go too fast the game fails to recognize, and if I go too slow the game starts acting up, and then occasionally it'll just act up or interpret a movement as a separate action altogether. It's infuriating, and actually once it led to my death. I never die in Zelda games.
 

jarosh

Member
What do you mean less vague? I mean, when I swipe a sword, I'm trying my best to bite my tongue and do the lame, exaggerated motions to try to get the game to properly recognize what I'm doing. I'm saying I have a 60% success rate, but if I go too fast the game fails to recognize, and if I go too slow the game starts acting up, and then occasionally it'll just act up or interpret a movement as a separate action altogether. It's infuriating, and actually once it led to my death. I never die in Zelda games.
you might have a better success rate by just randomly waggling. i've at least found that to be the case myself against certain types of enemies.


What are these hints you are referring to Amirox? Fi doesn't give help with puzzles at all, she just tells you obvious stuff like "there is an 85% chance this key will open this door right in front of you" and leaves you alone for the rest of the dungeon.
are you sure you've played this game? "leaves you alone for the rest of the dungeon"? WHAT?
 

Majora

Member
What are these hints you are referring to Amirox? Fi doesn't give help with puzzles at all, she just tells you obvious stuff like "there is an 85% chance this key will open this door right in front of you" and leaves you alone for the rest of the dungeon.

I'm in dungeon 5 and Fi just completely ruined a puzzle for me. At least I assume it was going to be a puzzle, but then someone at Nintendo decided it would be too difficult and had Fi just flat-out tell you the answer.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Huh...odd...holding down the power button on the special edition remote doesn't turn my Wii on.

Also I really can't believe that they didn't consolidate all of the annoying extra help stuff into a super guide system. Maybe if you take more then fifteen minutes without making any progress at all then the Shekah Statue pops up near the entrance to the area with walkthrough vids or whatever.
 
This is game is causing just a neverending flow of contradictory feelings. For every one great thing, it's almost always immediately balanced out by another really poor design choice. I'm almost shocked at the amount of ideas in here that such a seasoned development crew like the Zelda team could STILL think is acceptable in this day and age. They half go out of their way to ruin all their clever puzzles by just having people blurt out the answer anyway. I can't tell you the number of times I've had to literally force myself to look away from the screen so as not to have the answer ruined for me. This is sub tier-C development philosophy, not fit even for shovelware devs. They should truly know better, and this is the worst I've ever seen it in a Zelda game not called Phantom Hourglass. I should have expected it - every time Nintendo goes into one of their "experimental Zelda" titles, they see the need to add a billion hints and tutorial segments so as not to offend their shitty subset of casual gamers who must be cripples or mentally handicapped as to really need this much handholding. At least that's who I imagine they're playtesting this with.

Other than that, I mean, I love the before dungeon segments when they're not getting overly fetchy, and I love the visual design, and the music is great, and the puzzles are starting to get really good (provided I am not getting the answers spoiled for me because of the game's inept hint system), and the bosses are incredible. But boy Nintendo has spoiled a lot of good will with this shito.

Combat motion is a failure 40% of the time, just slows the pacing down and so far has done little to nothing to actually amplify the quality of non-boss encounters. So maybe they should have done motion+ for bosses only, and reverted to a more standard button combat system or something for general encounters. I hate having to hope a motion is correctly interpreted, else suffer the game's shitty wrath.

This is exactly how I feel.

The pre 4th dungeon segments were utter utter wank..

Cut to the pre 5th dungeon part.. god damn amazing!
 

Caelus

Member
are you sure you've played this game? "leaves you alone for the rest of the dungeon"? WHAT?

Yeah, she doesn't really give you any hints.

I've just finished the 3rd one. Maybe she does it later? All she does is say obvious stuff, but she hasn't ruined a puzzle for me yet.
 

Amir0x

Banned
you might have a better success rate by just randomly waggling. i've at least found that to be the case myself against certain types of enemies.

Really? Waggling is going to make a better job of this? Alright I'll give it a shot but if that turns out true I'm going to probably LOL.

are you sure you've played this game? "leaves you alone for the rest of the dungeon"? WHAT?

Yeah I mean, so far it's alarming the number of times the game has tried to grab my attention to give me an extremely obvious answer to something I either already knew or was on route to figuring out myself. The game has so many clever ideas, and then it's immediately subverting them as quickly as it can. It's almost bizarre.

I'm picturing you immediately dropping the controller and coming to GAF to post about this after that death. ;)

Nah, this happened late last night. I was really close to beating a boss, and then the motion control just completely did the opposite of what I wanted and I ended up dead. I was like "Um, ok wow."

I really genuinely never die in Zelda games. It wouldn't have even grabbed my attention, however, if it wasn't the game's fault for the failure. That's the only time death pisses me off in a game.

This is exactly how I feel.

The pre 4th dungeon segments were utter utter wank..

Cut to the pre 5th dungeon part.. god damn amazing!

I'm not up to the 5th dungeon yet. People say it's that awesome, I hope so. There are some really gorgeous areas in the game artistically.
 

Tadale

Member
The 'tombstones' in some of the dungeon puzzle rooms are particularly egregious about giving away solutions.

EDIT: I started skipping them when I realized what was up.
 

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
Been jumping back and forth between this and Saint's Row. Pretty jarring.

Certain other fantasy games aren't getting played at all
 
I just got to play maybe the first hour last night and I love it already, but I'm trying not to spoil myself so I apologize if it's been covered on every page (and I'm sure it has been)... but is there a way to kill the giant Wii remote HUD?
 

bubnbob

Banned
Huh...odd...holding down the power button on the special edition remote doesn't turn my Wii on.

Also I really can't believe that they didn't consolidate all of the annoying extra help stuff into a super guide system. Maybe if you take more then fifteen minutes without making any progress at all then the Shekah Statue pops up near the entrance to the area with walkthrough vids or whatever.

You're in luck, cause you dont have to do a single thing for that Sheikah Stone to appear! Nintendo assumes you are an inept baby who can't figure it out on your own. Maybe Fi is short for Fitarded.
 

Amir0x

Banned
i tried to warn you, amir0x. i tried so many times, but you just wouldn't listen.


i thought you were super hyped about this!

The demo left a really positive impression!

The actual game is something... maybe as good as Spirit Tracks so far. At best :(
 

jarosh

Member
Really? Waggling is going to make a better job of this? Alright I'll give it a shot but if that turns out true I'm going to probably LOL.
well, i'm not gonna spoil anything but there's one segment shortly before the final boss that is basically ASKING for waggling and is pretty much proof that the enemy encounters were designed with little regard for motion plus or "precision" in mind. the whole situation is kind of hilarious actually. you'll see.
 
What do you mean less vague? I mean, when I swipe a sword, I'm trying my best to bite my tongue and do the lame, exaggerated motions to try to get the game to properly recognize what I'm doing. I'm saying I have a 60% success rate, but if I go too fast the game fails to recognize, and if I go too slow the game starts acting up, and then occasionally it'll just act up or interpret a movement as a separate action altogether. It's infuriating, and actually once it led to my death. I never die in Zelda games.

By less vague, I mean changing from a wrist flick in the appropriate direction to basically slicing across my whole body with my arm. That usually works fine. You're still spot-on with the controls being dicey, that's for sure, but the success rate for me is quite high nonetheless.
 
you might have a better success rate by just randomly waggling. i've at least found that to be the case myself against certain types of enemies.

I found the 1st enemy (Bogoblin?) to be built for waggle, but the ones after
(I'm up to the 3rd dungeon) it doesn't really work for me.

are you sure you've played this game? "leaves you alone for the rest of the dungeon"? WHAT?

Does she get worse? Up until now she just repeats what other people say.
 

fernoca

Member
Yeah. On Dungeon 2 I expected Fi to appear and help me after me sucking (at first) to find the "buried items"...but all she did was "Master, the keys are buried..use dowsing to find them"...and nothing else...well except to remind me that I was sucking and had few hearts. :p

But as I said, I like her. Every time she wants to say something, I let her..I call her also to tell me about each characters I'm targeting and, the bosses and the overall analysis. Like how she says my bag is 90% survival right now (pre-3rd dungeon) so I'll be fine.

She didn't helped me at all neither during this pre-3rd part. :p
All those rocks..and bombs close to it, and I didn't realized until I bomb one pile of rocks to see if there was any cool item. Before that, I was running back and forth through the same areas and all she said was about the "life forms" in there and their job.

(Tired to be as vague as possible to not use spoiler tags :p)
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Yeah I mean, so far it's alarming the number of times the game has tried to grab my attention to give me an extremely obvious answer to something I either already knew or was on route to figuring out myself. The game has so many clever ideas, and then it's immediately subverting them as quickly as it can. It's almost bizarre.

I don't even mind that necessarily, so much as I mind that there's no option to turn it off
 

Wurst

Member
[Near endgame spoilers]

Dat
Backtracking. I'm in the Faron Woods AGAIN. With another collecting quest to do. (For the Song of the Hero) I'm just not sure what to make of this game. You could either say it's brillant level design or it is totally lazy.

What really, really pisses me off still: enemy recycling. Fight Gahnanim or whats-his-name AGAIN? Would be OK outside of a dungeon but I was so looking forward to a real boss encounter using the digging mitts. And then just now: Fighting the Imprisoned AGAIN.

I still enjoy this game greatly but holy shit, Nintendo is lazy in this game. Holy Hylia.
 
Nah, this happened late last night. I was really close to beating a boss, and then the motion control just completely did the opposite of what I wanted and I ended up dead. I was like "Um, ok wow."

I really genuinely never die in Zelda games. It wouldn't have even grabbed my attention, however, if it wasn't the game's fault for the failure. That's the only time death pisses me off in a game.
Yeah man, I gotcha, I was just imagining it that way because it would have been funny.

So far I've found the motion controls to be decent but I definitely get where you're coming from about buttons always being the superior method of input. The only thing that has really bothered me in my short time with Skyward Sword so far is the way the game distinguishes between a slash and a normal movement of the sword. I feel like I always have to be thinking about how fast I'm moving the sword in order to avoid slashing when I don't want to. For example, sometimes I'm trying to move my sword from the center to the left so I can then perform a left-to-right slash, but the game interprets my original movement as a right-to-left slash. The only way to avoid this is to make slow, deliberate movements, and the moment I'm concentrating on that I feel like the motion controls are failing somewhat.

Still, it's a minor issue for me at this point in the game and hopefully I will gradually develop the muscle memory necessary to perform desired actions without such deliberate thought.

I'm hoping the issue you mentioned about hints doesn't bother me as well, but I can definitely see the potential for some annoyance.
 

Evlar

Banned
I just got to play maybe the first hour last night and I love it already, but I'm trying not to spoil myself so I apologize if it's been covered on every page (and I'm sure it has been)... but is there a way to kill the giant Wii remote HUD?

Once you get (very early spoiler)
the Goddess Sword
you can press 1 to go to the Item screen, then click on the "Interface" button near the bottom left (it says "Beginner" or something) to change the HUD. "Intermediate" removes the bottom half of the Remote image, "Pro" removes the whole thing.
 
Can someone please tell me why my facebook is full of "Skyrim vs Skyward Sword" posts?

This is ridiculous.

Please excuse me for this GAF but...this charming individual said "Skyward Sword looks gay", and it led with a bunch of fanboy fueled pro Skyrim posts from other people. Did he even try the game? No, he says it looks gay because it's too colorful....wow. Using the term is already offensive, and now I see why he doesn't like it...

Now, i'm not bashing Skyrim at all, it looks great but i'm loving Skyward Sword much more so far. What can I say to help enlighten these ignorant people on my facebook, GAF?
 

fernoca

Member
Can someone please tell me why my facebook is full of "Skyrim vs Skyward Sword" posts?

This is ridiculous.

Please excuse me for this GAF but...this charming individual said "Skyward Sword looks gay", and it led with a bunch of fanboy fueled pro Skyrim posts from other people. Did he even try the game? No, he says it looks gay because it's too colorful....wow. Using the term is already offensive, and now I see why he doesn't like it...

Now, i'm not bashing Skyrim at all, it looks great but i'm loving Skyward Sword much more so far. What can I say to help enlighten these ignorant people on my facebook, GAF?
As you said, is YOUR Facebook..is not like there's a global agenda. :p
Just block the posts of those people and there, no more lame arguments.Both are great games; but of course many can't recognize simple stuff as that.
 

jarosh

Member
i thought you were super hyped about this!

The demo left a really positive impression!

The actual game is something... maybe as good as Spirit Tracks so far. At best :(
the dungeons get really really good and so do the bosses. and the fetch quests and the spoiling of puzzles actually get worse before they get a tad better towards the end. it'll make you even MORE conflicted about the whole thing. i was ready to call it a pretty mediocre game before the 4th dungeon...

hell, i'm STILL conflicted about it now. somehow skyward sword manages to incorporate all of (modern) nintendo's best and worst qualities and design philosophies into one game. it's quite remarkable actually.
 

Medalion

Banned
Wow Eldin Volcano level was quite the ordeal... I got lost and ended up backing track through paths I'd already been through because of curiousity...

but I finally snagged all 5 pieces of the key, now I am apparently in not the Fire Temple but they call it the Earth Temple.
 

SephCast

Brotherhood of Shipley's
I just got to play maybe the first hour last night and I love it already, but I'm trying not to spoil myself so I apologize if it's been covered on every page (and I'm sure it has been)... but is there a way to kill the giant Wii remote HUD?

They give you the option to turn it off after about 2 hours.
 

marc^o^

Nintendo's Pro Bono PR Firm
the dungeons get really really good and so do the bosses. and the fetch quests and the spoiling of puzzles actually get worse before they get a tad better towards the end. it'll make you even MORE conflicted about the whole thing. i was ready to call it a pretty mediocre game before the 4th dungeon...

hell, i'm STILL conflicted about it now. somehow skyward sword manages to incorporate all of (modern) nintendo's best and worst qualities and design philosophies into one game. it's quite remarkable actually.
Mediocre game before the 4th dungeon? I couldn't disagre more with you Jarosh, bodes well for how I feel about the game towards the end :)
 

Jocchan

Ὁ μεμβερος -ου
The hints and overall handholding are, by far, the worst issue I had with the game.
In second place,
some boring filler and parts of the backtracking
.

Can someone please tell me why my facebook is full of "Skyrim vs Skyward Sword" posts?

This is ridiculous.

Please excuse me for this GAF but...this charming individual said "Skyward Sword looks gay", and it led with a bunch of fanboy fueled pro Skyrim posts from other people. Did he even try the game? No, he says it looks gay because it's too colorful....wow. Using the term is already offensive, and now I see why he doesn't like it...

Now, i'm not bashing Skyrim at all, it looks great but i'm loving Skyward Sword much more so far. What can I say to help enlighten these ignorant people on my facebook, GAF?
You have the power to hide their updates.
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
Skyrim needs more gay, if you ask me. Dude has a point.
 
How is there already youtube videos of songs from the game? Is there a place to download all of them at once? If there is PM a link or something.. I need this game's soundtrack on my zune! the 25th anniversary symphony is just simply not enough..
 

Divvy

Canadians burned my passport
Haha, if you roll into a wall in Groose's room, you can knock his self-portrait off-angle.

Also, Piplup's snappy animations are awesome.
 

jarosh

Member
Mediocre game before the 4th dungeon? I couldn't disagre more with you Jarosh, bodes well for how I feel about the game towards the end :)

maybe it was before the 3rd one or just after the 3rd one. i can't remember. granted, that was a good dungeon, but everything up to that was a bit of a disappointment and the bad parts were still keeping a balance with the good parts.
 
Top Bottom