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#4 - The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)
http://www.gamefaqs.com/wii/960633-the-legend-of-zelda-skyward-sword
Oh hey, a Zelda game came out this year. Maybe you heard about it.
Skyward Sword is a strange beast. There are a lot of things I don’t like it about it. There are a lot of good things to say about it. Overall, it excels at doing what I like about Zelda games the best, which is why it’s so high. I’ve also grown to accept some of the misgivings I have towards the game as I’ve had time to look back and reflect upon it - I was actually pretty down on the game immediately following its completion.
Let’s start by tackling the big elephant in the room: motion controls. I have mixed feelings about how Skyward Sword handles them. On one hand, I think the combat itself is implemented mostly well. The biggest hurdle you have to get over is realizing that despite what Nintendo might have tried to sell you, this isn’t true 1-to-1 motion control. You have to make movements in certain directions to get Link to perform predetermined slashing moves. Once you realize this and learn that the game wants you to be more patient, making broad, calculated slashing motions, it begins to click a lot better. That’s not to say it’s perfect by any means, there will still be time when the expected movement doesn’t register and you’ll get something you didn’t want, which can be especially frustrating in some boss battles. With some iteration on how the motion control combat is done, however, it could become something truly great. While I may not have been entirely enthralled with it during the course of the game, it definitely made me feel like it’s something that can really add to the experience when refined.
The rest of the motion controls are another story. Everything beyond the swordfighting, to me, felt very tacked on with little purpose other than to show off motion controls - and often they don’t even do that very well. This is excluding aiming for the bow/slingshot, etc. That’s fine and definitely needs to be kept around, though I’d still like to be able to target and use the items in third person on occasion. What I’m talking about is stuff like flying the Loftwing around, using the beetle, sky diving, drawing, etc. I personally didn’t feel like motion controls in those aspects of the game added anything meaningful to how those segments were played out. Everything there could have been done as well or better with a regular old control scheme. It’s also pretty obnoxious to have to recalibrate the center of your screen so often throughout the game, but I at least understand why it happens and it’s a pretty quick and easy fix. So the bottom line on the motion controls is refine the good stuff, and drop everything unnecessary.
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FF fans don't hang around the internet on a monday morning they are out doing shopping or asleep hungover from parties. They got lives. -The_Djoker