The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

 Wii, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2011) game

It's funny how a certain word tends to crop up multiple times in a short period of time when you haven't really heard it much. There was the film 'Skyline,' then this 'Skyward Sword' and the Bond film, 'Skyfall,' and that was it for Sky-monickered projects and it's onto the next buzzword. Not saying Nintendo were inspired by other things to come up with the name, it's just coincidence, that's the running of creative minds sometimes arriving at the same places around the same time. It was enjoyable to hold aloft the Wii Remote to activate the Skyward Strike, a powerful blast of energy, and that was the key to the game, Nintendo's wish to add the impression of actually wielding the Hero's sword. And it works. With the addition of the Motion Plus sensor, which also made the Remote longer and more hilt-like in your hand, and gave it a little more weight, voila! You have sword-slicing and -slashing action. A novel idea, but inevitable when you consider that this was what the Wii was made for: to innovate and create more direct motion-to-screen control. No longer was it enough to merely press a button or flick a direction on the Analogue Stick, now you had full control. And yet it also had to be entirely accessible, since 99.999% of players were not going to be proficient with swordplay in real life.

I'd have to say they succeeded, you quickly pick up the techniques and simple pleasures of waving a sword around or stabbing into the screen. The only downside is that you can't do it lazily, you have to actually put physical effort in, which can be a little bit distancing - if you play such a game with a standard controller your every nerve impulse is effectively translated into actions on screen through buttons and stick, but here you have to be aware of the physical environment, your orientation within it, forcing you to think outside of the screen as well as inside it. Until it becomes intuitive that can be distracting, as can getting wires in a twist, or forgetting there's a wall next to you. The other issue is stamina. It really can become quite tiring having to wave whenever you want to perform an action that in the past would have been a simple finger move or tap away, and while it's no doubt healthier for the body to be more active, it's not always for the best in game. I remember taking ages fighting Ghiraim, the game's evil lieutenant whom you encounter several times through the story, because you have to learn his pattern and get your head around adjusting the angle of your blade before striking every time or he'll catch it, then you have to give the sword a jerk backwards to free it. Take off another layer of clothing because now you're starting to get genuinely hot and sweaty.

This is all well and good if you're in the mood for physical activity, but if you just want a quiet game and not to be waving your arms around it can be wearing. You can get by with small movements, you don't really need to throw yourself around the room, but this subtlety has to be learned, just as the nuances of actually playing the game itself must be. It's not just sword-wielding, either, it can be fiddly getting used to how you bring up a map, talk to Fi, your robot fairy-ish guide, playing your harp, choosing things from the item select wheels or checking your information screens. The game is a strange combination of both being more complicated and more simple than ever. For example you don't get a map onscreen any more, always useful for orienting yourself, and instead have to press '+' to bring it up. You can rotate the view, choose different floor levels if there are any, insert way points to help you get to certain places, and generally it's a more cluttered system that makes you wish for the mini-map that used to grace the corner of the main screen in previous versions. You can zoom in, too, and see where you and other key locations are in relation to each other, but then you back out of it and it's not as clear as it used to be where you should be heading, so you go back into it again. There were a number of aspects of the game that suggested a relative lack of intuitiveness that had always been there in the past and I don't know if it was young blood trying to change too much for the sake of it, becoming too enamoured with the control scheme, or being limited by that scheme.

An example is with the new stamina meter, something that works well and had to be implemented so you could run around (why running should be something so key to the Wii's era, I don't know - it was the same in the 'Goldeneye' remake, adding a run button, so maybe people were becoming less patient in games, or perhaps the Nunchuk stick isn't responsive enough for incremental movement?), since the nature of the game, small islands in the sky, or tight ground environments, meant it wasn't practical to be galloping about mounted on a steed, hence this compromise. They also added the ability to run up walls. Not in a 'Matrix' way, but Link's momentum can carry him a short way before he drops back to the ground, enabling you to leap for higher platforms and pull yourself up. All very well, and mostly useful, but also presenting a lack of control as sometimes you wanted to roll into the wall or an object such as a tree and instead you'd keep running. The turning circle seemed quite wide, too, and responsiveness of the controls was surprisingly lacking, again due to the stick or the Remote being misaligned. The worst thing was when you wanted to run up a ladder, caught it slightly off centre and instead of Link intuitively catching hold of a rung once his momentum slowed, he'd drop to the floor and if you still had the stick pushing forward because that's where you wanted to go, he'd run up against the wall again and again until you relented. If you did catch the ladder right it was a nice little boost up, and then there was the ability to make little leaps with each flick of the Remote, so you weren't limited to a slow climb as of old, but there were definitely ups and downs to this control method.

It's surprising the Nunchuk stick was so relatively unresponsive, because as far back as the N64 Controller used for 'Ocarina of Time' you had very precise control and different speeds of movement depending on how hard you pressed the stick, and that just didn't seem to be the case here. In the other games if you went close to the edge you'd automatically grab on if you fell, unless you were pushing all the way, in which case you'd make a leap, a superb context-sensitive system, but now you can just limply fall to your doom when what you actually wanted was to hold on. Now you have to press 'A' to do that while inching towards the edge when the icon pops up to give you the option. It wasn't limited to edges, either - too many times when I was traversing a horizontal rope (it took me to almost the end of the game before I mastered the knack of retaining balance, not realising you had to move both Nunchuk and Remote side to side to simulate shifting weight, most of the time travelling a couple of steps then dropping to hang!), I'd be hanging from below, flick the Remote to pull myself back up and instead promptly let go and drop to my doom! I don't know if this was a fault of my control or the fact the 'A' button on my Remote is loose, but it was supremely annoying. And unless you were running full pelt, and often, only when you ran off a specific platform, you'd drop like a stone instead of skydiving and having the option to call your giant bird creature. Another big annoyance: the game's insistence on the same actions over and over! Fall off the edge and a Knight would rescue you, plop you back down and give you a stern lecture. Every time! Or diving into a surface area Fi would laboriously tell you you need to select a location. The same if you picked up a bug or 'treasure' material: every time you started a new play session the game would have to go through the rigmarole of telling you what you'd picked up and then showing the collection screen. I know all this! I've been playing for weeks!

Granted, it would only happen once for each item and then you could pick up the same thing with impunity, at least until you switched off and came back next time, but it was unnecessary and bizarre. Was it a programming flaw? A cheap life-extending tactic? An oversight? I know I mentioned modern gamers' patience might not be what it was judging by some additions, but you needed more patience than ever for that bit. In fairness this isn't the first game in the series to do this as it happened on 'Twilight Princess' whenever you first picked up a denomination of rupee on each play session, even though you don't need to be told how much it is! At least you were given multiple options for the HUD - at Pro level things were cut down to absolute minimum onscreen clutter, while earlier in the quest it was useful to have the full-sized Remote in ghost image to remind you of what button did what, so there was some accounting for taste. It's also the first ever widescreen 'Zelda,' something I didn't particularly care for since it meant I had less line of sight for things when Z-targeting (that's another thing: sometimes you wanted the Z-target to be at eye level, such as standing on an edge and it automatically looks down and yet you want to see the horizon, but without going into the floaty first person view), as I was playing on a 'square' screen with black borders top and bottom. That's progress, though, as most screens would have been widescreen format by the time this came out (and probably earlier, given Nintendo's traditionally slow adoption of new technology in general).

Something not exactly new, but certainly in far greater evidence was the game's inclusion of supernatural or occult themes, which was quite worrying and surprising. I know it's made in Japan, a culture full of this stuff, but in the past they kept such things to a relative minimum. Yes, we'd had talk of goddesses before, and there were usually witches and potions, but in general the series was clean and largely suitable for family gaming. Here, despite it's pastel colours and soft visual style, you had giant goddess statues, idol worship, auras, 'dowsing' by which you had to use your sword to search for things, even a 'friendly' demon who lives beneath the village and wants you to 'cure' him so he can walk among the people. Yeah sure, demons really only want to be loved... Even saving the game at the various bird statues (reminiscent of the owl statues of 'Majora's Mask'), was originally explained as 'praying to the goddess,' so it was extremely inappropriate subject matter. It could be such things had become much more common across the board, but I haven't played more recent games, and 'Zelda' is one of the few, if not only traditional fantasy type I play, so I don't know if this reflects the norm for the genre in modern times, but if so it is a concerning trend that can interest children in dangerous real things. Fortunately there was nothing in the game that stopped me playing - there were some points that involved drawing symbols and I was resolved that if it asked me to draw an occult sign I'd have to just give it up, but it never did, unlike a previous Nintendo release, 'Geist,' which I threw out when one of the puzzles was to move statues in a room to create a pentagram!

Concerns about the content aside, it had the usual hallmarks of the series, the exploration, collecting, puzzle-solving, character interaction, and while I can't say the story drew me in, the environments and levels were typically satisfying. I was worried early on that this sky-based play looked suspiciously like the Oocca dungeon from 'Twilight Princess,' or even the islands in the ocean of 'Wind Waker,' not that I hated them, but I never enjoyed bottomless drops and swinging around empty voids, or small areas as much as large, solid ground-based exploration, so I was relieved when there were places to go on the distant surface. Things did take quite a while to get going and I noticed some tasks seemed designed to take up time, something the series shouldn't need to do as there's generally so much to see and experience. But four and a half hours in I still wasn't at the first dungeon and as with any game it can be a struggle to get into it at first. Not to say it was a tough game, it has to be the easiest 3D instalment by a long shot since you have constant access to hints and solutions, even during boss battles. You begin a play session with a reminder of what you're supposed to be doing so there was no chance of wandering wondering, stuck for hours as in previous versions. The downside is it doesn't encourage independent thought and puzzle-solving and is a big temptation to use it as soon as you don't know exactly what you're supposed to do. But it's better than having that stuck moment of so many 'Zeldas' past. Not that I used that option, I don't think I ever really needed to as there was nothing to the level of frustration and ingeniousness of the original Water Temple from 'Ocarina,' for example.

The Triforce dungeon came close, with its simple set of nine square rooms each in a style from a previous location, and the ability to physically change the relation to each other, shuffling them like a giant block puzzle, though none of the puzzles in this game were truly taxing, and as I've said before, once you're aware of how things work in the 'Zelda' world the solutions are generally pretty similar. A lot is squeezed in with what at first seemed a good fifty to sixty hours, but with more time spent searching out the last bits and pieces, and especially the desert dragon's consecutive boss battles and Silent Realm trials, meant it was the usual epic length, more than sufficient to keep me busy, especially as I like to find everything I can (though I was still missing three heart pieces at the end and didn't have the stamina to go back and search everywhere for them). It was wise to be observant as at certain times you'd need to find specific items, and though given a 'dowsing' signal by which to locate it, if you remember where you saw a strange item that looked like it might have a purpose later on, it enabled you to narrow down what you might be looking for. That goes for other things, too, there's always been a tradition of keeping mental note of places you can explore more fully once you have access to new abilities or equipment, and that remains the case here. New abilities like... sitting on a toilet? The first time I've ever done that in a 'Zelda' game, that's for sure, so an odd addition, though usually it was sitting on stools to replenish hearts that was the point. I never did get to the bottom of the ghostly hand in the toilet, it seemed like it was significant, but if you gave it the love letter nothing happened, so I stuck to giving the letter to the right person. There isn't usually more than one option with these things...

You could also waltz into any house and lie down on their beds for a nice kip, Link about as enthusiastic in the prospect of sleep as could be, hurling himself onto the bed, fully outstretched. The purpose of this was so you could 'activate' night time, though you're quite limited in where you can go during the dark hours. With things like the Dusk Relic to collect I was expecting to revisit all the lands in darkness, but actually that was only seen in the Silent Realm trials where you had to run around collecting orbs against a time limit, while avoiding waking the guardians who'd then come at you, a stressful task to be sure. At night it was really only Skyloft that you could explore, not even being allowed to fly, but there have always had to be arbitrary limitations on what you can do so nothing really new there. It was certainly a very different layout to the standard formula with the main hub being up in the sky and three lands accessible within which are a couple of dungeons, and each land is like a hub in itself, be it forest, volcano or desert. Maybe a bit basic, but at least it was different and you have distinct races to interact with. For once we're well away from familiar species, with only one Goron adventurer you meet periodically and no connection to the land of Hyrule whatsoever - not that that's a bad thing, as 'Link's Awakening' is one of the best and took place entirely on a side island. But I miss the days when there was only one Link and Zelda, and the stories were somewhat connected.

Instead they have a completely blank canvas to paint with (a good analogy since the visuals for this one were quite painterly and soft, like watercolour or pastel shades, a mix between the cartoonish 'Wind Waker' and realism of 'Twilight Princess'), allowing creativity to roam free. Some characters return, like Beedle the shop owner from 'Wind Waker,' and Impa, though an anorexic version far from the warrior elf we first met in 'Ocarina.' Best of all: no Tingle! There's some continuity in equipment, along with new items to play with, a nice mix of familiar and new, as you'd expect, with the flying beetle quite innovative as something that can be used to activate things remotely, cut ropes, drop bombs, and pick up items. And the blow bag was great fun, especially when you have a room full of sand to gust away, much like clearing gunk with the backpack in 'Mario Sunshine' (and presumably Luigi's in 'Mansion,' which I never played), though it's an element that makes it feel like a platform game rather than a normal 'Zelda.' And some things were slightly redundant, like the whip that could have been largely interchangeable with the clawshot, and arrows and slingshot, though traditional, having both was probably unnecessary (aiming into the screen with the Remote made things a lot less precise, especially when you had to realign - fine when you have time to adjust, very inconvenient in the midst of battle). Certain levels like the pirate ship made it seem a lot more like a platform game of Mario or Banjo ilk, and while platforming was always a part of 'Zelda,' the setting somehow always gave it a more serious air. Adding in new 'themes,' as well as the amount of traversing environments in more platformy ways lessons the reality of the style somewhat. It must be difficult to keep being innovative in such a long-running series when it's expected to be clever and yet not too far from what went before. Perhaps it was time to stop doing a forest dungeon to start things off, but at least that is a sort of training level to get people off the ground.

When they do introduce new types of dungeon such as the pirate ship or robot mines where two time periods operate and you carry an orb which has a time field around it that adjusts the environment as it travels, it's certainly different. The robot mines especially made me think more of Game Boy entries in the series for some reason, I'm not sure why. But it was quite innovative, and while I question the move towards more science fiction content of machines and robots, hardly suiting the impression of a time gone by, a time of swords and bows, it sounds like that direction only increased with the next one, 'Breath of The Wild' where they introduced motorbikes into the mix!? At least here there's nothing quite so out of place, and while you don't get to ride a horse as in so many of the previous entries, flying isn't as bad as sailing, even if it remains a little bit of a chore. Skydiving was much more fun, but you don't get to do that enough, whereas flying was frequent as the only way to travel between sky and ground levels. I must say the bosses were in general a lot easier, perhaps only Ghiraim's second battle being in any way challenging, and I remember them all very well having gone through them consecutively in the desert dragon's challenge a few times. They weren't as dramatic and spectacular as even the previous game, but still showed imagination, and having to work in the unique control scheme I can't be too hard on that aspect. Even the final battle with big bad Demise was surprisingly easy (I did have four bottles of fairies, to be transparent!), and I beat him on my first attempt.

I was expecting Demise to turn out to be another name for Ganon, since he did look similar, but apparently not. I'm not sure there was any connection to 'real' legends of Zelda, it appeared to be completely unconnected with only familiar elements such as Link (never called that, of course), Zelda, Impa, the Triforce and the Master Sword. As usual, upon completion it was affecting swooping through all these lands you'd traversed for the last few months, seeing the people you'd met, and especially the twist over Grannie's true identity brought a tear to the eye. But it's always the way when you've spent a long time with a game, it doesn't take much to evoke a sense of nostalgia and missing that which you'd been doing for some time. It must have been a real headache to map controls that weren't designed for epic games, and long play sessions onto this method of control, and no doubt they recommend taking a break every hour or so to prevent the inevitable tiredness of wrists. But like 'Metroid Prime 3' they mostly succeeded in the endeavour, and once you'd got to grips with what was at first awkward, it wasn't really a problem, even if things that take physical effort can be less appealing for extended play. Considering the general controls were something of a backward step in that you have less immediate control than before they did very well not to ruin the experience, especially when you're used to the precision of N64 and 'Cube analogue sticks making the Nunchuk's a real comedown.

Music was the usual sort of stuff, rousing for flying and battling, creepy or expectant when dungeoneering, happy and laidback in town. I wouldn't say anything really stood out in that department, but then I get the impression there were a lot of new people involved from seeing the credits. On the whole it was about as good as most others in the series, but I couldn't quite say it was as classic as the better ones. I can't see myself adding an extra star in my Retrogaming Review of The Year at the end of this year as I did with 'Twilight Princess,' simply because I had no prior connection to it so there was no reforging of past memories or 'coming around' to realise its greatness. But it has all those hunting quests of searching for heart pieces, Gratitude Crystals, Cubes, bugs and treasures, adding longevity, though never on the same level as the famed hunt for the Gold Skulltulas in 'Ocarina.' With the Crystals it was a mixed bag because it did encourage you to go back and talk to people at different times in the adventure, or at night, but it could also add to that impression of time-wasting. At least there was the helpful addition of a little speech bubble containing '...' above the head of anyone who had something new to say, so I appreciated that. But still, for all its qualities it was close to being one of those games I feel like I've played before due to the similarity to its predecessors. I don't know how you could get around that other than making it a truly revolutionary experience (and I don't mean the option to wave a sword around). I kept expecting Demise to pop back up at the end since it was such a short final battle, especially when you consider how mammoth the task seemed fighting Gannondorf at the end of 'Ocarina,' then running down the collapsing tower, and fighting Ganon. You can't help but compare, and while this has plenty of new innovations and additions it still doesn't have the revolution of 'Link's Awakening,' 'A Link To The Past,' 'Ocarina of Time,' or even 'Majora's Mask.' It's better than 'Oracle of Ages' and probably 'Wind Waker,' and perhaps I'll have an opportunity to replay it in fifteen or twenty years and reevaluate its legacy?

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