Last year, Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, the first true Zelda game for the Wii (Twilight Princess was made for the GameCube and had Wii controls tacked-on later). It was also released as part of Zelda's 25th anniversary, so it's a culmination of sorts of the entire franchise to date. Lots of people were excited about it, and then it came out and...nothing. No one ever really talked about it. Even the video game podcast I listen to mentioned it like once and then never talked about it again. I found this shocking.
Sean bought it the first day it came out, and I watched him play it until he moved back to school (and I played it a little when he was out with friends of whatever). I was fascinated. It was unlike any Zelda game I had played before, but at the same time, it was completely familiar. There were enough bits and pieces from the other games that it seemed similar to any other game in the franchise, but felt completely fresh. So, as I mentioned before, I was completely baffled as to why it wasn't getting more attention.
Last night I finally got to play it again, and since I had to start over from the beginning, I thought I'd take the opportunity to review the game as I play it. I had a lot of fun doing the series of Majora's Mask reviews, and I have a lot of things to say about this game, because there's a lot to talk about.
Day 1: Beginning
The game begins with some backstory that I don't really remember. Something about some monsters trying to get a golden triangle and the Goddess preventing them from doing so by hiding it away in a place they can never go (which considerably helps the "Skyloft is the Sacred Realm" theory). It's all pretty basic stuff that you've heard before.
When the game actually begins, you wake up (a common way of beginning Zelda games) and you're Link, a student in the Skyloft Knight Academy. Your first goal is to meet Zelda at the statue of the Goddess, and you're pretty railroaded to get there (gates are shut, doors are locked, etc). Even with only one track to go on, though, you still get to meet a lot of people and do a lot of things, including climbing, running up walls, throwing things, rolling things, and climbing on ledges. Basically, this first part is there to introduce you to different ways to use the wiimote - of which there are many - and also to the game's stamina meter, which more or less controls how fast you run and swim, how far you can climb, etc. I was pretty wary of the meter when I first heard about it, but it's a good mechanic and I dig it. You also learn, even in this closed-off area you're in at the moment, that Skyloft is a big place and made even bigger by the fact that there are tons of different levels: the ground and rooftops, paths that go under other paths, and so forth. It's very maze-like, and this makes it feel more real, in my opinion.
When you finally get to Zelda, she talks to you a bit about the Academy and the Goddess and the Skyloftians' relationship to their "guardian animals", birds called Loftwings. You also learn that Zelda isn't a princess...but she is the daughter of the Academy's headmaster, who's practically the leader of the town, so this is a great example of how the game is familiar and new at the same time. Then some plot happens (Link's Loftwing is missing, it was stolen by some Academy students, Link has to get it back, but has to get a sword first). This is when you get to see the rest of Skyloft for the first time, and it's kind of crazy. It's like Clock Town meets Hyrule Field, which is novel and cool, with a giant waterfall and a huge bazaar in the middle and all kinds of other stuff. Along the way, you also get to learn how to roll and swordfight, and the swordfighting is (of course) one of the best uses of the wiimote. You can swing your sword in any direction, in addition to stabbing and a spin attack, and these controls show just how awful Twilight Princess's controls were (and the direction you swing your sword is definitely important, which I'll talk about more later). So you save your Loftwing, win the competition you need it for, get a Sailcloth (a parachute, basically) as a prize, then Zelda goes missing and you're tasked to find her by going the Surface, which no one's ever done before.
This is getting pretty long, so I'll briefly talk about some other noteworthy points:
1) Your companion in this game is named Fi, who inhabits your sword and talks like a computer program. She leans on the fourth wall occasionally, she's kind of snarky, and I really like her.
2) There's a lot of collectibles in this game, such as Chu Jelly and Dragon's Teeth (or something like that), which can be used for a variety of purposes. Some Zelda games - such as Wind Waker - have dabbled in this before, but never on this scale.
3) Zelda's father is named Gaepora, has really long eyebrows, ends his sentences with "hoo hoo", and dresses almost exactly like Rauru. With all of that evidence and the fact that birds are so revered in Skyloft, it's almost certain that he and Kaepora Gaebora are the same guy.
4) You go to the Surface by dropping through holes that open up in the clouds. In this way, the land is set up similar to Termina, where Skyloft takes Clock Town/Termina Field's place as the hub, and other areas connect to it but not to each other.
5) The flying system takes some getting used to. The game doesn't explain it well, and it's pretty easy to overcorrect when you're aiming for something, but it's pretty easy to get the hang of once you figure it out.
Part 2 will be up either tomorrow or Tuesday, and will cover a variety of things, but mainly the woods area and the first dungeon.
Verdict: So far, it's as good as I remember! (And that's saying something, considering this is the third time I'm going through it.)
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