Today continues my detailed look into The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Yesterday's note covered the whys of the series and the opening parts of the game, but now that that's out of the way, we can really get into the nitty gritty. So let's go!
Day 2: Skyloft and the Surface
When we last left our hero, Link had just been given the Goddess Sword, met Fi, and was tasked with rescuing Zelda. He had also won the Wing Competition, which means he gets to become a senior in the Knight Academy; this change in status is highlighted by a new uniform, which looks very familiar. With that out of the way, it's time to go to the Surface and rescue Zelda. So let's get going!
...or not. Zelda can wait. Instead, I decided to check out Skyloft some more, and it's fantastic. One of the reasons it's so big is because every NPC has a place to sleep (with a couple minor exceptions). This is important because of the day/night system; Skyloft during the day and Skyloft at night are two very different places, so the NPCs have to have a place to go (this adds a verisimilitude to the town that even Clock Town never had). How are they different? For one thing, there are Keese and ChuChus out at night; also, you can't use your Loftwing at all. The Bazaar is also shut down, but certain characters run black markets of sorts out of their homes. During the day, however, you can go to the Bazaar (which features a potion shop, an item shop, a fortune teller, and an item repair/upgrade* shop), you can go to Beedle's flying shop if you can flag him down, and you can fly to other islands.
[*This is one of the new additions to the game, and like with the stamina bar, it works surprisingly well. Certain items, such as your shield, can only take so much damage before they're destroyed. The damage is only reversible by repairing them, but you can also upgrade them to make them more powerful (which is similar to the upgrades in other Zelda games, except you can't switch between them.]
Other islands, you say? Yes. In a move that is VERY reminiscent of Wind Waker, the sky is dotted with a couple major islands and a bunch of tiny ones that mainly hold treasure. Besides Skyloft, there's also Pumpkin Island (which houses a bar/hotel called the Lumpy Pumpkin), Fun Fun Island (which will host a game, but it isn't ready yet), Bamboo Island (which houses a sword challenge), and Beedle's Island (which is where Beedle lives). The Lumpy Pumpkin is where Link gets his first sidequest, and also his first dick move: by making the bar's new chandelier fall, you get a piece of heart, but you also have to start working for the owner to pay for a new one. So he gives you a slew of tasks to complete throughout the game. Also, he looks a lot like Talon, but I'm pretty sure that's not his name.
However, as fun as hanging out in Skyloft is - and it really is, if for no other reason than getting bits and pieces of the townsfolk's lives (e.g., the repair guy is trying to build a robot and this little girl has a mysterious friend called "Uncle Bats") - there's not much else to do until you get some weapons. So it's time to go to the Surface. But first, there's one thing I keep forgetting to mention: on Skyloft, there's something called a Shiekah Stone. It's basically a Gossip Stone, except instead of just repeating hearsay (presumably because they're old and rundown), the Shiekah Stone knows EXACTLY what's going on. It's purpose is to keep track of which goals you've started and which ones you've completed, and also to give hints on how to complete them if necessary. It's pretty neat. Ok, now it's time to go to the Surface.
When you do, you wind up in a place called the Sealed Grounds, and there's really not much to say about it, except that it seems like they tried to throw every recurring symbol they could into this area: there's a door with a Shiekah eye on it, above which is a ceiling containing the temple symbols from Ocarina, and there's also a post inscribed with three symbols that originated in Oracle of Ages (but have since been used in Wind Waker and some others as well). Inside the Shiekah door is a weird woman who I'm pretty sure is a Shiekah, but who can say really?
Other things worth mentioning:
1) This area introduces a new mechanic called beacons, which is a ray of light that you can place on your map to help you find where you need to go, which is cool/
2) The Goddess Sword lets you do a move called the Skyward Strike, which is essentially shooting a beam from your sword. Having your sword shoot beams at full health is a staple of the 2D Zelda games, but for some reason it never appeared in the 3D games until now. I like it, though.
3) Fi can give you information about bad guys, which is something I sorely missed in Wind Waker and Twilight Princess.
4) This game's Deku Babas are so awesome, and are a great use of the system. There are three different kinds: one with a horizontal mouth, one with a vertical mouth, and one whose mouth can change orientation. To defeat them, you have to swing your sword the proper way. It's pretty smart designing.
Day 3: Faron Woods and Housekeeping
So we start off today entering Faron Woods, which you've definitely seen because it was featured in the majority of the game's pre-release advertising. And with good reason: this place is beautiful. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. The first thing you see upon entering the woods is a Goron being attacked by some Bokoblins. When you rescue him, you learn that he's an anthropologist of sorts named Gorko who's studying the legends of the Sky People. He points you to a old Bird statue that revives itself when you examine it, which is nice because these are how you get back to Skyloft when you feel like leaving. Anyway, Gorko's cool and I feel like I'll be seeing him again.
Now, about Faron Woods. Like I said, it's very beautiful and also very maze-like (which is a common theme for all of the settings as far as I remember; I dig it). I also encountered two new functions for the wiimote: Swinging and Balancing. If you're hanging from a rope, you can swing the wiimote to pump until you have enough momentum to jump off. Balancing is used for walking across tightropes, but it's tricky and I haven't quite gotten the hang of it yet. It's filled with bokoblins and keese and deku babas and these weird crow things that - no joke - will poop on you. But the main inhabitants are a race of creatures called the Kikwi, who look vaguely like kiwi birds, but have bulbs on their backs that they can use as camouflage (they're very shy). Once you make sure that all the Kikwi are safe, their leader gives you a Slingshot, which you need to get into the first dungeon. And it just so happens that the Kikwi leader saw Zelda go into that very dungeon. So let's go rescue her!
Just kidding. ZELDA CAN WAIT. Now that I have the slingshot, I can go flag down Beedle's shop, and that's just what I'll do. And while I'm at it, I decided to make sure my affairs were in order as much as I possibly could before I started tackling dungeons. There's no kill like overkill, after all. So I went to Beedle's and bought a Bug-Catching Net and an Additional Wallet, which lets me hold 300 Rupees. Then I bought another Additional Wallet, bring my capacity up to 900. I feel this might start getting ridiculous. He also had an Additional Pouch for sale, but I didn't have enough money...yet. (Earlier in the game, I was given an Adventurer's Pouch that lets me hold four items; the Additional Pouch lets me hold a fifth. The Pouch introduces a strategy element into equipment. Pretty much everything that's not a weapon goes into the pouch, but you can't carry everything since you have a limited number of spots. I'm fine for right now, but eventually I'll have to start making really tough decisions about what I carry. Even with Additional Pouches, I can only carry a max of eight things.)
Long story short, I upgraded my Wooden Shield to a Banded Wooden Shield, bought an Additional Seed Satchel (so I can carry 40 seeds now for my slingshot), bought another Additional Wallet (1200 Rupees!), bought the Extra Pouch, and caught a wide variety of bugs (which I can sell later or give to a man that'll use them to make my potions stronger). I'd say I'm pretty well set to take on the first dungeon now, even though I don't remember much about it.
Other stuff:
1) There are things throughout the world that you can sit on, from chairs to stumps to even toilets (which flushes when you stand up!); sitting makes you slowly regain health, which is pretty cool. But you can be attacked while you're sitting, so you have to be careful about enemies.
2) When you kill a bug or certain baddies (like keese), their body disappears in a puff and then a cartoon ghost appears for a second. It's a little cheesy, but I like it.
3) The Tune of Currents symbol from Oracle of Ages has appeared again, this time on a wall in Faron Woods. I happen to know why, but I'm pretending like I don't.
Updated Verdict: I am loving this game so far! It's a little premature to say, but I think it may be in my top 3 Zelda games. It's just such a rich, beautiful world that it's easy to get lost in (both figuratively and literally). My only complaint is that, as if you couldn't tell, I don't really care about the story yet because there's not much story to care about. But that's not really a problem when you're enjoying the game anyway; after all, some of the funnest games have only the barest bones of a story or no story at all!
No comments:
Post a Comment