I have a confession to make . . .

I have a confession to make – there’s a Zelda game I really didn’t like, and it’s one of the more recent ones. Most people put Four Swords or Four Swords Adventures at the bottom of the list because most people don’t own the necessary equipment to properly play them. But not me. 

Skyward Sword.

Yep. 

I’ve played every Zelda game through at least twice, and many of them at least 5 times, and some of them close to 50 times. I really love the Zelda series, as it speaks to several aspects of my personality.

The Collector – If you look at most of the side-quest things, Zelda is essentially a big scavenger hunt over Hyrule. Especially as a completionist.

The Adventurer – Going into a dungeon makes me feel like Indiana Jones going into the cave at the start of Raiders, or the resting place of the Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. And discovering new lands makes me feel like Lewis & Clark.

The Helper – restoring Hyrule to its former glory, fetch quests, and the little things to help people really make me feel good, even if it’s fake. This is one of the main reasons I love Majora's Mask so much – there are so many people to help.

The Solver – figuring out ways to solve a puzzle with the current items I possess scratches an itch in the same way that solving a Rubik’s Cube, completing a hard crossword puzzle, or figuring out a tricky riddle does.

I also love the fantasy/medieval setting of Hyrule because it reminds me of The Lord of the Rings. 

But Skyward Sword just didn't do it for me. 

That’s not to say I disliked everything about the game. There was still a familiar feel about it. The art-style was beautiful. And I recognize that as the game that came out on the 25th Anniversary year, it included a lot of elements from past games. But unfortunately, it seemed to me like they took all the elements that I didn’t like from past games and put them into one game. Most people cite the motion controls as the biggest shortcoming of the game, but to me that's just the most obvious target. I didn't mind them as much as a lot of people did - and the fact that I only played through it once and still remember all my gripes is a testament to how big of an impression they made on my mind. 

Anyway, here are some of my major complaints:

The beginning was far too slow (aka, Tutorial Hell) – (Past offender: Twilight Princess) 

Most of the Zelda games get you started pretty quickly. I consider “getting started” to be when you have a sword and can do a little open world exploring or get inside a dungeon. ALttP got you in a dungeon with a sword within 5 minutes, and so did LA. WW, MM, and OoT all had about 20 minutes of story/exploring before that, which is slower than some others, but doesn’t feel super long. Anything more than that and the game starts to feel sluggish. The main offender in this category was Twilight Princess. When my friend and brother were playing it on Black Friday the week it was released, we were almost 45 minutes into it and still hadn’t gotten a real sword, nor had we gotten to the first dungeon. Skyward Sword decided to take this idea and run with it. Tutorials are nice for beginners, but it would be nice for veterans to be able to skip the usual stuff (the Ace Attorney games have a tutorial if it's your first one, but it's skippable).

Skyfield was empty – (Past offender: Ocarina of Time, Oracle of Ages) 

One of the best things about exploring Hyrule is finding hidden grottos under bushes or caves. Nearly every screen on the original Zelda game had something to find, be it a dungeon, a bombable wall, or a burnable bush. I love a game that has so many things that you have to make mental notes of places to return to once you have a particular item. When I saw how vast Hyrule Field was in OoT, I was amazed. I couldn’t wait to find everything in it. Unfortunately, the amount of hidden things can be counted on one hand, and it had very few enemies. I realize they probably wanted having to cross it feel tedious so that having Epona as an adult would be more fun, but there should have been much more thought put into it and more people/caves/houses/etc. Skyward Sword took that empty main area idea and expanded it. Besides Skyloft, there are basically 3 places of interest and 3 portals, and miles of empty sky between them with nearly no enemies or obstacles. It's just a lot of wasted real estate. Additionally, the three main areas aren't connected and require pointlessly traveling between one and the other via Skyfield. 

Annoying companion – (Past offender: Ocarina of Time) 

Starting with OoT, most of the games have replaced the wise adviser (Old Man, Sahasrahla, the Owl) with a companion (Navi, Tatl, King of Red Lions, Midna, Ciela, Zelda, Fi) and occasionally both. Most stay out of the way unless it’s a story part where the person can explain something or speak for Link. A lot of times I forget I even have someone tagging along. But Navi was very annoying, and judging from the amount of parody videos, I’m not the only one who thought so. All the rest were less intrusive, but then there’s Fi, who's on a whole new level. She brings back the problem of the annoying companion who solves the puzzle before you even have a chance to think about it, as well as the issue of constantly interrupting the flow of the game to reiterate something just stated. The intrusive HUD has an option to turn it off, and Fi should have come with the same option.

Intrusive and repetitive UI – (Past offender: Link's Awakening DX, Twilight Princess)

One particularly annoying aspect of Link’s Awakening was how often you accidentally bump into an object you can pick up, bomb, or destroy provided you have the right tool. If you don’t have said tool selected, the UI gives you a message basically hinting that at some point you should be able to overcome it. On the original LA, you could skip everything beyond the initial message by pressing B. Same went for whenever Link got a Piece of Power or Guardian Acorn. But the DX version removed that and so every time one of those things happened, you had to scroll through the entire text. Twilight Princess kinda did the same thing. Whenever you saved the game and turned it off, upon getting a rupee worth 5 or above the game would remind you how much it was. Skyward Sword does this even worse. Every time you pick up a treasure, no matter how many you’ve seen in the past, the game feels it has to remind you about what it is. This kind of annoyance is constant, and it’s really disorienting in a battle. Also, while I liked the inclusion of the stamina meter, making it look like a lime wedge was a poor decision. BotW did it much better, even as small of a change as it was. 

Repetitive elements – (Past offender: Phantom Hourglass)

There are a few things that people didn’t like about Phantom Hourglass, but by far the biggest complaint is how often you have to go through the Temple of the Ocean King. It was meant to be a central dungeon, and each time you went back with a new item you can go deeper into the dungeon, as well as take advantage of shortcuts. But having to visit the same dungeon 8 times can get old quick. Skyward Sword does this with a couple of items. Mostly with how often you have to fight The Imprisoned and Ghirahim (3 times minimum each – more if you want the Hylian shield). The same goes for the animation to imbue the sword with whatever new power Link found. The only difference in Fi’s dance after boss fights (meaning how it gets powered up) is the color of the smoke/energy. Another example is how Link has to backtrack to the same area, and then a third time for the Silent Realms as a way to reuse the overworld sections to make the game seem longer. And dowsing got old after a while. And while the Forest/Fire/Water dungeons started getting a little tired in TP, this game has you do that combo at least twice.

Bad boss design – (Past offender: None in particular) 

Fighting The Imprisoned seemed more like fighting Rrarrg from Spongebob Squarepants. Plus the whole, ‘toenail smashing’ tactic made it seem more like a Donkey Kong 64 fight than a Zelda fight. The buildup to the Tentalus fight seemed terrifying until you actually saw that it was less-menacing Celia from Monsters, Inc. And the fact that you fought the Imprisoned and Ghirahim thrice each makes it seem to me that it was really supposed to be one fight, but they spaced it out over 3 fights to artificially add length to the game.

Linearity - (previous offenders – the 3 GBC games are probably the worst in this category) 

I’m not a “non-linear is the only good kind of game” sort of guy, but there needs to be a good balance between story/puzzle complexity and linearity. Usually an increase in one category means a decrease in the others. In most of the games there can be a little sequence breaking (like doing the Water Temple before the Fire Temple in OoT) or doing side quests at one’s leisure, but there is an advantage to forcing a linear path. It allows a story to develop over the game, and it’s hard to tell a coherent story by reading chapters randomly. But if it’s too linear, it ruins the exploring aspect of the game. Some of the past games had a measure of linearity, but Skyward Sword almost feels like it’s on rails. There is a way to still have story and non-linearity, like how BotW did it through memories or ALBW had Hilda monologue after so many dungeons were complete (sorta what the gaming community calls “gates”).

Disregard of established continuity – (previous offenders – Oracle games, others)

I realize that they weren’t thinking of these games as a continuity the way things like movies, TV shows, or comic books work (see the Zelda Timeline post for more). But dammit, it bugs me when stuff like this happens. Details like Link rescues Zelda twice in ALttP, then in the Oracle games (which feature the same Link/Zelda) she introduces herself, and then Link somehow gets the Master Sword in Holodrum (again, I realize that the developers probably weren’t thinking that they were making a game that took place right after ALttP, or they just didn’t care). Games will often put forth little bits of lore about Hyrule, its history, and the past Heroes. But Skyward Sword kinda shat all over that. Like the problem with MC establishing why Link wears a pointy green hat (Ezlo), and OoT showing why Link wears all green (raised Kokiri), then Skyward Sword just making it a school uniform that everyone wears with palette swaps. In other words, we now have 3 different "origin stories" of Link's attire. It also seemed like they kinda dumped some of the established history about the Triforce’s location and the 3 Golden Goddesses in favor of some new Lore and new species/races (unless they’re intending for the kikwis to turn into koroks and whatever).

There’s always an older tale – (previous offenders: ALttP, MC, WW, TP, FS) 

It seems like in an effort to make a player feel like they aren’t missing out on previous games, Nintendo keeps making prequels. If you were in line to see Pirates of the Caribbean 5, you might feel like you missed something by not seeing movies 1-4, and it might be enough to convince you to see something else at the theater. But if the movie was slated as a prequel, then you know you’re probably not missing anything chronologically. When you learn of some of the history of ALttP, WW, and OoT, you get a sense that Hyrule has a rich history. But then as more and more prequels keep being made, instead of seeing the origin of certain elements, we see the same story as before, always hailing back to a previous hero. When Skyward Sword was touted as the first chronologically, I was excited to see what they cooked up. But to my dismay, the opening story talked about a previous hero, and also when Link was called to the shrine by Fi, he found the special sword already made and waiting for him. These things happen in the same way as the other games. Even the robots in the Lanayru mines seemed to indicate a far older (and more advanced) society than Skyloft’s.

For all of the nostalgia, the music got left behind - (past offenders: Adventure of Link, Four Swords)

I get that we shouldn’t hear the Hyrule castle theme when Hyrule doesn’t exist. Sort of like how we didn’t hear much of Luke’s theme in Star Wars 1, 2, and 3 (it’s the main title theme) other than during the opening crawls. We should definitely have a great new theme or two (which we got in the Main theme and Fi’s theme) but it should also have some callbacks to previous themes. Other than 5 seconds of the LoZ overworld theme, and the occasional use of Princess Zelda’s theme, there wasn’t anything worth writing home about.

The Timeshift Stones should have been this game's "gimmick," not motion controls

The coolest puzzle element in the game by far is the Timeshift Stones in the Lanayru Desert. They could have (and should have) built the whole game around this mechanic. Instead they built it around the motion controls (I suppose they could have done both). I think that if the motion controls were there but not the focus, this game would have gotten much more favorable reviews. For such a cool puzzle design, they only used it in a small part of the game. 


There were a few other things, like the low enemy selection (it's missing most classic enemies), the annoying HUD, Link making far too many sounds/noises for a "silent" protagonist, and the fact that they managed to make playing an instrument even less interesting (compared to the Ocarina, the Wind Waker, and the Spirit Flute). But I got the major gripes covered here. I'm planning on playing it again soon and maybe with more reasonable expectations, I'll like it better. 

Update after playing it a second time in 9 years . . .