Have been playing this today and I've just beaten the first dungeon and unlocked the second area (although I haven't visited it yet. Some impressions:
The bad:
- Too many cutscenes and too many slow (and unnecesary) hand holding. I understand Nintendo wants to be easy on beginners, but that's why options are for: just allow us to skip being told the obvious, because it breaks the tempo of the game and makes for very slow first hours of gameplay.
- It seems like I've been playing too much PC, because I can hardly see anything. I love the graphics, but the IQ is atroicious. It doesn't help I'm playing through RGB in a 4:3 24" TV and the game goes 16:9 no matter what. I find reading all the text very hard.
- I've never had any problem with Link being silent or the lack of voice acting in Zelda games, but in this game I find it a bit jarring. There're so many cutscenes, that it's a bit odd, in this day and age, when even indie games have VA, that a game of this caliber can only offer different flavors of blips.
The good:
- It was time I saw my life in danger in a Zelda game again. It's not 2D Zeldas, but you can't be as carefree as in TP or WW.
- Graphic design is top-notch, and IQ aside, I can hardly believe this game is running on the Wii. Well, SMG 1&" made me believe Nintendo can do magic in this regard, and SS it's just another proof.
- Nintendo is king when it comes to level design, even Valve can't compete. They've fixed the overworld problem following the steps of SMG: reducing the tedious parts by offering less freedom. I'm not sure it will work as a whole in a Zelda game, but one thing is clear: navigating the enviroments wasn't as fun in a Zelda game since Link's Awakening (OoT 3D world novelty aside). The first dungeon is probably the best first dungeon I can remember of any Zelda.
- I have just seen two items and one of them is pretty fun. That's great, because it's been years since the last fun item in a Zelda game.
Not so sure, will need time:
- Combat. The concept is good, I just find it too slow at the moment. I hope it will feel a bit more organic soon, because as of now, it's just Wii M+ showcase. That said, it works better than I expected.
- Freedom. I don't know if I will miss it or not. At the moment, I'm happy that they've focused the game on being fun again. Although I'm not fond of having freedom as the first casualty. Zelda has always been about losing yourself in a big world... I don't know. Time will tell if it was worth it.
- Story driven game. The story is not that interesting yet, and I have no confidence it will be very good. But since Zelda has always been special, I think it will be special because emotional atachment coming from me rather than an interfesting story coming from the game. We will see.
Now I'm going to watch Minecon. Maybe I will resume at a later date
