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

weeaboo

Member
Spanish Wrath said:
In Spain it's on sale since yesterday.

Yes, i bought mine yesterday.

I'm a little disappointed with the music. I was expecting Mario Galaxy level of orquestal epicness, this is good but.... mmmm... nothing mindblowing :\
 
oatmeal said:
Also, the game needs to cut it out with the hints...
I'm really having a love/hate with this game sometimes. When it's exploration and dungeons, it's amazing. But there's so many stupid things in between that serve to annoy.
I think, being able to turn on/off a hint system in Zelda would benefit most players. Or at least not have the side-kick to be as obtrusive as Fi when it comes to hints.
 

Gregorn

Member
Damn, the post hasn't come and I've got to leave for work, I was hoping to at least hold the box in my hand before leaving.
 

dwu8991

Banned
Metroid Killer said:
I think, being able to turn on/off a hint system in Zelda would benefit most players. Or at least not have the side-kick to be as obtrusive as Fi when it comes to hints.

The problem with Zelda games in general is that most people don't finish the games!
I think that's why Nintendo keeps insisting on providing a guiding hand.
 

BowieZ

Banned
czk said:
You forgot the wall of text every time you pick up a gem, a bug, a skull, a claw, a butterfly, a ladybird, an ore, a bubble etc. Every. Single. Fucking! Time. And there are tons of this shit in SS. It drives me nuts, just like this blue chick :(

Also: red rupees in treasure chests. Seriously, who the ffffuuu would want to hide them in treasure chests? I could bang my head into two trees and aquire as much.

The situation is really sad because in it's core (when you slash away all the filler text and fetch quests) this game is really good.
I've been watching an online playthrough and have not seen any wall of text about pickups like that..?

An icon of what you've collected flashes above you...

The blue chick seems to be annoying though. Would prefer an option to turn her off
 

zoukka

Member
dwu8991 said:
The problem with Zelda games in general is that most people don't finish the games!
I think that's why Nintendo keeps insisting on providing a guiding hand.

This is a unversal problem for all games and the longer your game, the harder it gets to finish it I guess.

I've been watching an online playthrough and have not seen any wall of text about pickups like that..?

An icon of what you've collected flashes above you...

Yeah this is like it was in WW. Which is it?
 
dwu8991 said:
The problem with Zelda games in general is that most people don't finish the games!
I think that's why Nintendo keeps insisting on providing a guiding hand.
Yes I think that they are doing a good effort to comfort new players to the series, however I feel that it comes at the expense of the veterans and honestly it wouldn't be that difficult to differient between a Fi giving hints and advice rather often, to a Fi who only gives crucial hints (perhaps only when you ask her).


And I don't even think it's the difficulty which makes most player abandon the game before beating it. I think it's mostly due to the length, it is a rather big time investment for 1 game.
 

dwu8991

Banned
BowieZ said:
I've been watching an online playthrough and have not seen any wall of text about pickups like that..?

An icon of what you've collected flashes above you...

The blue chick seems to be annoying though. Would prefer an option to turn her off

I think people are annoyed by the fact that the game stops every time you pick up a gem, a bug, a skull, a claw, a butterfly, a ladybird, an ore, a bubble etc.. It would've been much better if it showed up like a PSN trophy.
 

Haunted

Member
Are item descriptions from in-world pickups (not treasure chests) shown once per play session or once per save?

Should really be the latter, former is a huge pain in the ass.
 

Mistle

Member
BowieZ said:
I've been watching an online playthrough and have not seen any wall of text about pickups like that..?

An icon of what you've collected flashes above you...
I think somebody said it resets whenever you exit out of the game.
 

ASIS

Member
oatmeal said:
G.O.O, after the first couple of hours you can remove it (Press 1 and you can change it in there).

I finally got back over to my friends house and put in like 5 hours today (up to 20).

He's finished it, but I told him not to say anything.

The game is really frustrating. So many bullshit 'side quests' for everything.

Without spoiling anything and making up my own story path...

My mom goes "oatmeal, go to the store and buy some milk."

So I go outside, short cutscene showing outside (the road, the lawn, etc.) and then right when I'm about to take a step, a fucking blue woman pops out of nowhere and starts giving me facts about the probability of the grocery store having milk. She's slow and annoying.

Finally, I am able to walk.
This is really weird that people are complaining about this NOW. Zelda games always been this way, and i think they way they included it here is actually very fun. It's not fluff because you actually explore new areas while doing so.
 

MEATER

Member
Mistle said:
Generally Zelda games pick up after the initial 2 hours so it's worth going back to. Though I doubt you've really abandoned it.

I know, that's what I kept telling myself... But I really feel the amount of text doubled compared to TP and let's be honest - the writing never was the strength of any Zelda game. Just can't see why they had to put in MORE text and dialogues :(

I'll keep playing for sure though. At least through 3 dungeons...

dwu8991 said:
Skyrim probably isn't a game for everyone compared to Zelda.

Well, they will probably sell about the same amount of units (Zelda on Wii only vs. Skyrim on all 3 plattforms combined). So I'm not sure if one game is more "for everyone" than the other...
 

Haunted

Member
Mistle said:
I think somebody said it resets whenever you exit out of the game.
tumblr_lr5tbqFPOA1qzaxefo1_500.jpg
 

Amir0x

Banned
Little annoying things like not being able to turn off hints or item descriptions is just something Nintendo has to seriously fix at this point. It doesn't ruin the game, but Zelda fans are getting tired of it.
 

AniHawk

Member
MEATER said:
Well, they will probably sell about the same amount of units (Zelda on Wii only vs. Skyrim on all 3 plattforms combined). So I'm not sure if one game is more "for everyone" than the other...

skyrim's already shipped 7m. that's just .6m off from the best-selling zelda ever.

skyward sword would do well to sell 5m in its lifetime. that's the high end of the average for the series anyway.
 
Amir0x said:
Little annoying things like not being able to turn off hints or item descriptions is just something Nintendo has to seriously fix at this point. It doesn't ruin the game, but Zelda fans are getting tired of it.
I definitely agree with this.
 

Haunted

Member
Amir0x said:
Little annoying things like not being able to turn off hints or item descriptions is just something Nintendo has to seriously fix at this point. It doesn't ruin the game, but Zelda fans are getting tired of it.
They allow us to fix the HUD... but then remove the toggle/hold option for Z-targeting.

*sigh*
 

dwu8991

Banned
Amir0x said:
Little annoying things like not being able to turn off hints or item descriptions is just something Nintendo has to seriously fix at this point. It doesn't ruin the game, but Zelda fans are getting tired of it.

Won't be a problem on Wii U! Or dare I say, shouldn't be a problem.
 

Haunted

Member
Metroid Killer said:
Damn... I honestly thought it was a bug that was forgotten when I played TP... ffs it was perfect as it was in Wind Waker.
BUT WHAT IF YOU FORGET HOW MUCH A RED RUPEE IS WORTH, HUH?

That rupee counter in the upper left could tick up from "15" to "35" and you'd have NO idea how much that red rupee was worth just now.
 
AniHawk said:
skyrim's already shipped 7m. that's just .6m off from the best-selling zelda ever.

skyward sword would do well to sell 5m in its lifetime. that's the high end of the average for the series anyway.
7m doesn't even include Steam, right? They were some insane stats being post of it some days ago

I guess the game has already sold 7m.
 

Dascu

Member
Haunted said:
BUT WHAT IF YOU FORGET HOW MUCH A RED RUPEE IS WORTH, HUH?

That rupee counter in the upper left could tick up from "15" to "35" and you'd have NO idea how much that red rupee was worth just now.
Well, at least that's fixed in SS.
 
Haunted said:
BUT WHAT IF YOU FORGET HOW MUCH A RED RUPEE IS WORTH, HUH?

That rupee counter in the upper left could tick up from "15" to "35" and you'd have NO idea how much that red rupee was worth just now.
So what you are saying is... that its thanks to Nintendo that I will be able to pass my next Math exam?
 

hirokazu

Member
1. The text boxes are waaaay too slow. Holding down A barely makes it go faster. Some cutscenes are skippable by pressing 2, most are not? What.

2. There are some brilliant motion control implementations, but I feel as if the controls are designed around motion controls first and foremost regardless of whether it benefits or detriments UI experience. In other words, some of the control design decisions are dumb as shit.

3. I like the massive surface areas, but the sky overworld is so barren and boring to fly around in. It's like Wind Waker sailing all over again! Even though Twilight Princess' overworld was too big for its own good, it still feels much better riding the land than sailing a barren sea or sky.

Apart from that, feels good man. Mostly.
 

Mistle

Member
When people say the sky is barren, do they mean in the same way that WW's ocean barren? Or is there even less? (relative to size, and taking into account that all the "main" areas are under the sky is SS. Im referring more to optional and smaller landing areas)

I enjoyed the ocean for what is was. I have fond memories of it.
 

weeaboo

Member
Mistle said:
When people say the sky is barren, do they mean in the same way that WW's ocean barren? Or is there even less? (relative to size, and taking into account that all the "main" areas are under the sky is SS. Im referring more to optional and smaller landing areas)

I enjoyed the ocean for what is was. I have fond memories of it.

Even less content. Apart from city and a pair of islands with stuff there is practically nothing in the sky.
 

jarosh

Member
oatmeal said:
Also, the game needs to cut it out with the hints...for example:
[spoiler text removed]
yeah, unfortunately there's lots of this in the game.

here's a spoiler-free example from the 5th dungeon:

there's this really neat series of puzzles surrounding one particular mechanic and object. the implementation of this mechanic is quite clever. but you are completely robbed of the satisfaction of discovering it on your own, which is usually at least half the fun in puzzle solving. instead of subtly guiding you towards the solution - hell, i would have been fine with a quick camera pan in the direction of the object needed to solve the puzzle - fi outright tells you what to do once you're in the promixity of said object. she doesn't just tell you to do SOMETHIHNG with it, she tells you to do WHAT precisely. i actually did get somewhat angry when that happened. it made me feel bad for the guy who designed the puzzle and i was mad to have been robbed of the satisfaction of figuring it out on my own. and in this case the first step of the puzzle, which reveals the mechanic and the object needed to solve it, is actually the most clever part about it, so it's particularly infuriating.

sadly, the above is just one of many examples of poor design that insists on spoon-feeding solutions and beating the player over the head with not-so-subtle hints. this is the kind of bad design that exceedingly stands out and is especially annoying because it sits directly on top of GOOD design. you have these clever mechanics and frequently ingenious puzzles, but too often they're ruined by nonsense that was clearly added after the fact under the guise of accessiblity. i had to laugh when someone posted a quote from one of the many 10/10 reviews in the other thread: "this game treats the player with respect!" i'm not sure i'd call this respect.
 

dwu8991

Banned
Mistle said:
When people say the sky is barren, do they mean in the same way that WW's ocean barren? Or is there even less? (relative to size, and taking into account that all the "main" areas are under the sky is SS. Im referring more to optional and smaller landing areas)

I enjoyed the ocean for what is was. I have fond memories of it.

Yeah, the ocean was fantastic! WW would not be the same without the sailing.
 

Dascu

Member
Mistle said:
When people say the sky is barren, do they mean in the same way that WW's ocean barren? Or is there even less? (relative to size, and taking into account that all the "main" areas are under the sky is SS. Im referring more to optional and smaller landing areas)

I enjoyed the ocean for what is was. I have fond memories of it.
It's like a smaller WW overworld. There's the big Skyloft island, which seems a notch bigger than Windfall. Then there's a few mini-game islands. Some empty rocks that you can't land on. And a bunch of small islands that have treasure chests on them.

I'm not sure what people were expecting. Heck, this game has two overworlds, sky and surface, you couldn't realistically expect each to be the size of WW's and TP's respectively. From the looks of it, the surface does look pretty big and not TP's amalgam of empty fields and narrow corridors.
 

marc^o^

Nintendo's Pro Bono PR Firm
jarosh said:
yeah, unfortunately there's lots of this in the game.

here's a spoiler-free example from the 5th dungeon:

there's this really neat series of puzzles surrounding one particular mechanic and object. the implementation of this mechanic is quite clever. but you are completely robbed of the satisfaction of discovering it on your own, which is usually at least half the fun in puzzle solving. instead of subtly guiding you towards the solution - hell, i would have been fine with a quick camera pan in the direction of the object needed to solve the puzzle - fi outright tells you what to do once you're in the promixity of said object. she doesn't just tell you to do SOMETHIHNG with it, she tells you to do WHAT precisely. i actually did get somewhat angry when that happened. it made me feel bad for the guy who designed the puzzle and i was mad to have been robbed of the satisfaction of figuring it out on my own. and in this case the first step of the puzzle, which reveals the mechanic and the object needed to solve it, is actually the most clever part about it, so it's particularly infuriating.

sadly, the above is just one of many examples of poor design that insists on spoon-feeding solutions and beating the player over the head with not-so-subtle hints. this is the kind of bad design that exceedingly stands out and is especially annoying because it sits directly on top of GOOD design. you have these clever mechanics and frequently ingenious puzzles, but too often they're ruined by nonsense that was clearly added after the fact under the guise of accessiblity. i had to laugh when someone posted a quote from one of the many 10/10 reviews in the other thread: "this game treats the player with respect!" i'm not sure i'd call this respect.
When she speaks I keep pressing A while watching neogaf on the iPhone :p
 

ASIS

Member
Mistle said:
When people say the sky is barren, do they mean in the same way that WW's ocean barren? Or is there even less? (relative to size, and taking into account that all the "main" areas are under the sky is SS. Im referring more to optional and smaller landing areas)

I enjoyed the ocean for what is was. I have fond memories of it.
NO no no, the sky is much different, it's huge but you can really go through it really fast. It's much smaller than the great sea and has less content. But I still love it for what it is.
Regulus Tera said:
About how much time would you say you have to travel to get from Skyloft to
each one of the three main areas
?
about a minute? maybe even less.
 

weeaboo

Member
Regulus Tera said:
About how much time would you say you have to travel to get from Skyloft to
each one of the three main areas
?

1/2 minutes. You can fly through the sky reaaaaally fast.

I have no problems with the barren sky but with five or six islands with actual content could have been much much better.
 

Mistle

Member
Dascu said:
It's like a smaller WW overworld. There's the big Skyloft island, which seems a notch bigger than Windfall. Then there's a few mini-game islands. Some empty rocks that you can't land on. And a bunch of small islands that have treasure chests on them.

I'm not sure what people were expecting. Heck, this game has two overworlds, sky and surface, you couldn't realistically expect each to be the size of WW's and TP's respectively. From the looks of it, the surface does look pretty big and not TP's amalgam of empty fields and narrow corridors.
Yeah, this is more like what I was expecting. Some people say there is NOTHING up there but I don't feel that's fair when there are some minigames and a "bunch" of smaller islands with chests. Do these islands at all require some item use/puzzle solving or is it land -> open chest -> fly away?

Sure, it doesn't exactly sound amazing and it's far from packed with content, but if randomly coming across an island and exploring it (no matter how little it holds) feels as good as it did in WW, then I'm happy.
 

Regulus Tera

Romanes Eunt Domus
Uh, that's not bad. That's not bad at all.

It sounds like this Zelda is the most streamlined in terms of level design. Too bad about all the superfluous text!
 
Had the game for a few hours.

Unless it opens up, the Sky isn't "massive". It takes about a max of 60 seconds to get from side to side. Hopefully it opens up though.
 

ASIS

Member
Mistle said:
Yeah, this is more like what I was expecting. Some people say there is NOTHING up there but I don't feel that's fair when there are some minigames and a "bunch" of smaller islands with chests. Do these islands at all require some item use/puzzle solving or is it land -> open chest -> fly away?

Sure, it doesn't exactly sound amazing and it's far from packed with content, but if randomly coming across an island and exploring it (no matter how little it holds) feels as good as it did in WW, then I'm happy.
Some of them use items, but not too many and not too cleverly, also some of them have more than one treasure chest so you're going to have repeated visits.
 

Dascu

Member
Mistle said:
Yeah, this is more like what I was expecting. Some people say there is NOTHING up there but I don't feel that's fair when there are some minigames and a "bunch" of smaller islands with chests. Do these islands at all require some item use/puzzle solving or is it land -> open chest -> fly away?
From what I hear, you sometimes need to get creative while skydiving/landing on the island, and sometimes you need to climb around or use bombs or hookshot or digging gloves to reach the chest. The puzzle element is mostly for unlocking the chests, by finding and reaching the Goddess Cubes on the surface.
 

weeaboo

Member
Mistle said:
Do these islands at all require some item use/puzzle solving or is it land -> open chest -> fly away?

.

open chest -> fly away but
you should "activate" the chests in the underworld
 
Mistle said:
And I can't speak for SS as I'm yet to play it, but NPCs actually having something to say is a plus for me. Some people may see it as intrusive but I see it as character building, livening up the world a little.
Except many, many times there's not such character building, it's just the companion barking the same fucking shit time and time again or pointing out the obvious.
Mistle said:
Same goes with entire Zelda intro-sequences (first 2 hours or so). Sure, again I understand why some may not like it, but I enjoy getting familiar with the games setting before being thrown into a dungeon.
Except (lol again) this goes for almost the hole duration of the game, Nintendo threads you like a person incapable of learning.
BowieZ said:
I've been watching an online playthrough and have not seen any wall of text about pickups like that..?

An icon of what you've collected flashes above you...
Every time you resume a playthrough the collectable message is reset. I.E., you resume your game, pick a horn, game pauses, you collected so and so shit, game switches to item screen, animation of shit getting added. Same with chests, no matter if its a red rupee or a trivial thing already in your inventory the animation plays. In those cases it would suffice to display said item above your head and done.

It's like you guys like to say, Nintendo being the ultimate trolls :)
 

Mistle

Member
Thanks for all the answers. To be honest it doesn't sound as bad as some people are making it seem. It seems a lot like WW but on a smaller scale, which is balanced out by the 3 surface areas. The only true way to know if I like it or not is to play it of course, but it's good to hear some impressions. Feel free to add more if there's anything else worth mentioning.

Here's a smaller and nitpicky question- in the demo when you jump off and land on the Loftwing, it cuts to a quick white screen transition, then you can fly around. Is this just because of the minigame? Or is transitioning from sky to land & vice-versa not seamless?

Refreshment.01 said:
Except many, many times there's not such character building, it's just the companion barking the same fucking shit time and time again or pointing out the obvious.

Except (lol again) this goes for almost the hole duration of the game, Nintendo threads you like a person incapable of learning.
I'm talking about my personal experiences and opinions on previous Zelda games, not SS. EDIT: Sorry. I originally said something more here but removed it as I misread what you said (got confused with threads/treats and came to the wrong conclusion. thought you were accusing me of being a person incapable of learning, lol)
 

Dascu

Member
Mistle said:
Here's a smaller and nitpicky question- in the demo when you jump off and land on the Loftwing, it cuts to a quick white screen transition, then you can fly around. Is this just because of the minigame? Or is transitioning from sky to land & vice-versa not seamless?
There's a transition from Skyloft <-> Sky, but not for the rest. Jumping from and landing off a random sky island is seamless.
 
Mistle said:
I'm talking about my personal experiences and opinions on previous Zelda games, not SS. EDIT: I originally said something here but removed it as I misread what you said (got confused with threads/treats and came to the wrong conclusion lol)
Yes i know, np. Im just pointing out a potential problem with SS and how its even worse (in this case) than in previous games.
 

ASIS

Member
Mistle said:
Thanks for all the answers. To be honest it doesn't sound as bad as some people are making it seem. It seems a lot like WW but on a smaller scale, which is balanced out by the 3 surface areas. The only true way to know if I like it or not is to play it of course, but it's good to hear some impressions. Feel free to add more if there's anything else worth mentioning.

Here's a smaller and nitpicky question- in the demo when you jump off and land on the Loftwing, it cuts to a quick white screen transition, then you can fly around. Is this just because of the minigame? Or is transitioning from sky to land & vice-versa not seamless?
this only happens between skyloft>sky and sky>skyloft, the rest is all very very fluid.

I do have one thing to add, the sky is absolutely gorgeous. you see, it's the same as WW's overworld. You hear people nitpicking about how it takes too long to travel, how there's not much to the islands, etc. But what they don't mention is just the sheer joy of using a method of transportation.

Trust me, even if the sky doesn't seem like there's much to do you will still spend sometime there, and just traveling with your loftwing is the best method of transportation of any Zelda game to date (which says a lot).

I do have ONE thing I don't like about the sky, but play the game first before we can discuss that (it's nothing major).
 

Mistle

Member
Dascu said:
There's a transition from Skyloft <-> Sky, but not for the rest. Jumping from and landing off a random sky island is seamless.
Ah yeah, that's no problem. I wonder why though, WW managed to render whole town(s?) seamlessly.

Yes i know, np. Im just pointing out a potential problem with SS and how its even worse (in this case) than in previous games.
It's a shame really. If it's as intrusive as jarosh says up the page then it could be a problem. I can generally deal with constant messages even if I recognise how obnoxious they become, but when they start ruining game designs and elements by literally solving puzzles for you, then it's a problem. Is there no Skeikah Stone equivalent in SS? D:
 
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