The Top Five Things I Hate About Skyward Sword

Skyward Sword has some redeeming elements... just not many. Anyway, one my friend's kids was playing SS, and he said to me, "This game sucks. There's too much text, Fi is annoying, and how anyone could possibly think this is better than Ocarina of Time 3D is beyond me." with OoT 3D being the only other Zelda game he'd ever played.

I'd thought that maybe I was just being a nostalgic blowhard by thinking it sucks when compared to previous Zeldas, but if a youngster who didn't grow up in the N64 era thinks so... well maybe I wasn't. Without a further ado, I'd like to rant about the top five things that bother me about Skyward Sword. Now of course, in contests like these, readers might be able to think of literally hundreds of things worth mention that suck about SS, but one would have to write a book to list everything wrong with this game.

5: Unnecessary Reminders

The first time you find a green, red, or orange Rupee, the game will notify you of its value. This is fine. Now, reset your Wii, then and find another Rupee. The game will notify you again. Why!? This is not only condescending, but flat out unnecessary. The amount of Rupees is shown on-screen, and anyone first grader can do the math. Really: If I was able to out Rupee values playing ALttP when I was five, kids today should be able to do it, too. Perhaps Nintendo (understandably) doesn't have any faith in our education system.

That's inexcusable, but it gets worse. How would like to have Skyward Sword notify you about what kind of bug you catch every time you turn your Wii on? And what about crafting materials? Would you like routinely hear about those? Well, no worries my friend. They've got you covered with unnecessary notifications.

And it gets worse: Fi is an unnecessary notification system that's built into the storyline. Like all Zelda games, this game has a heart meter that beeps when you're dying. However, it also Fi to explain to you that your hearts are low. A second beep will start when you have less than three hearts, that beep being Fi wanting to talk to you. She'll also talk to you when your batteries or low. I won't even touch on how she patronizes you at every turn.

4: Lazy Man's Collision Detection

Beedle's Airshop is a shop that floats above Skyloft. To get Beedle to lower a rope for you to climb up, you need to ring his bell. But how? Well, you need the slingshot for that. Can you throw a pot at the bell? No. Tell me why a pot could not hit a bell? Give me one good reason! If you throw a pot at the bell, it would go right through. You could also try using a Skyward Strike on the bell, which also go right through. You could even successfully jump off a cliff and unsuccessfully strike the thing with your sword.

The unnecessary notifications are annoying, but this is just poor design. It even continues into the regular gameplay. Why can't you shoot something with a bow that can be shot with a slingshot? Because Hylia is kind of lazy when it comes designing her civilizations? That's all I can figure.

3: It's the text, stupid.

The first problem: There is too much text in this game. The second (and worst) problem: There is no text speed option. I don't support the idea of voiceacting in Zelda, but the lack of text speed in this game makes a compelling case for it. Final Fantasy 1 had a text speed modifier in the options. For a text-based game made in 2011 not have this is just... worse than magical can-only-be-hit-three-things bells.

To make matters worse, the text is unskippable on a new file. Twilight Princess, to its credit, allowed you to skip cutscenes all day long. But in SKyward Sword, you need to play Hero Mode to be able to skip cutscenes. What if someone wants to play the regular mode with heart spawns, but doesn't want to sit through the three hour intro?

2: An A to Z Journey

It seems like I wrote an entry about this. I'm certain I complained about it on ZU or somewhere, if not. Skyward Sword is the most painfully linear Zelda game ever made. It's worse than Twilight Princess in this area, and that's saying something! Gone is the excitement of open-world exploration. It's replaced with storyline. You can't go to a later dungeon because you'd see a cutscene at the wrong time. And when story is, at best, B-movie material, it all seems very -- what's the word? -- sucky.

1: Fi. Fuck Fi!

Fi makes bad things in SS worse. The game would be so much better if Fi had been left out, or at least replaced with someone more interesting. Midna was a good guide that contributed to the story. Navi was at least helpful and not overly intrusive. Fi just constantly notifies you of things, and spits out probabilities in a manner that would make the cast of Quantum Leap shout, "STFU Ziggy! We're not retarded!" How many times in this game does a character tell you something, after which Fi tells you the same thing again? How many times does she explain dowsing to you? How many times does she abruptly stop you to state the obvious?

Really, fuck Fi!

It's good to have this off my chest.

Goldeneye Vs. Black Ops Vs. The Conduit (Wii)

The battle of the ages! Yeah, so these games have been out for a while, but the retro gamer in me says that a title must be so old before I'm willing to consider it. Hehe.. in all seriousness, I've had Black Ops for a while and have enjoyed its online mode, and recently got around to getting The Conduit and Goldeneye because the price drop allowed me to do so with little expense. And now, I want to ramble about them.

Storytelling/Single-Player Campaign:

Oh, kids these days! The lot of you probably don't even know who Pierce Brosnan is any more than I know who Sean Connery is! Goldeneye follows the exploits of James Bond, the Hero of British Secret Agents, on his quest to save England from the dark lord Alec Trevelyan. It was an awesome movie, and a pretty fine N64 game. This Wii game is the same (albeit with updated technology and a few twists for variety), although Pierce Brosnan has been replaced by some gentleman named Daniel Craig. So, kids, tell me: Who the hell is this guy standing where Pierce Brosnan should be? Well.. whoever he is, he sneaks around killing Russians and uses stealth to avoid battles.

The Conduit isn't based on a movie, but it's got Kevin friggin' Sorbo (from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys) doing voice-acting. With all due respect to Mr. Brosnan, Hercules would annihilate James Bond. Bond would start shooting his PK7 (or P99 in this Wii version) and Herc would just keep coming. He has the power of a god, and a sidekick that's a pretty good fighter by human standards. Unfortunately, Kevin Sorbo isn't Herc in this specific instance. He's a member of the resistance against a shadow government called The Trust, which is trying to take over the world via alien invasion or something. His character is named Prometheus, which is probably a subtle nod to Mr. Sorbo's eternal association with Greek mythology. The narration by this good actor really makes the single player campaign feel like a gem (much as Daniel Craig's voice-acting does in Goldeneye).

Black Ops' story is told through a series of flashbacks. Alex Mason did some stuff in the 60s and he wants you to hear about it. Well, he doesn't want you to hear about it, but the dude torturing him does. He tried to kill Castro, but failed and got sent to a Russian prison. But he broke out, then JFK wanted him to kill more commies. There's a shocking plot twist at the end which is quite surprising, but Black Ops' storyline isn't exactly up there with either the The Conduit or Goldeneye. I'd say Goldeneye is the best in terms of story, followed by The Conduit, then Black Ops is significantly behind.

When it comes to actually playing the single-player campaigns, I'd say Goldeneye is the best... if you play it right. Every difficulty mode except 007 Classic makes for a shameless Call of Duty clone, which the world could do without. On 007 Classic Mode, you pretty much have to play this game like you're a secret agent. Blasting through like Mason or Reznov will get you killed.. much as it would in real life if you tried to gun down an entire army. You have to watch your health and even your ammo to an extent. When coupled with the fact that this mode makes you accomplish all the objectives, the experience feels truly awesome.

The Conduit has some elements that aren't exactly miles away from what I've described in Goldeneye. You use your All Seeing Eye device to accomplish objectives and find secret areas. None of that is really all that great. The best thing about The Conduit is that it reminds me of another game: Gauntlet. It's not enough to kill the bad guys; you need to kill the objects that are spawning bad guys. Killing spawn spots is awesome to the max, yo! I also like the fact that the health regeneration isn't as overt as it is in CoD.

Black Ops has an annoying single player campaign. You could shoot six thousand NVA soldiers in some places and they'll just keep spawning. The developers want you to use your skills to advance and take position from the enemy, but that sucks! (on Veteran anyway. It's too easy to do on the lower difficulties, and it's nearly impossible on Veteran.) Like in Goldeneye and The Conduit, there are objectives, but those objectives primarily consist of getting to the end of the level.

Graphics:

Black Ops Wii really impresses me by just how good it looks. It's not in the same ballpark with the other platforms' versions, but the fact remains that not many Wii games that look as good as this one does. It's a pleasure to look at, and Goldeneye actually looks sort of bad when compared to it. The Conduit doesn't really strike me as real per se, and I certainly hope that's not what they were going for. It looks like a comic book world, to me, and the graphics are very easy on the eyes. I'd rather look at The Conduit than either of those other two.

Online/Multiplayer Modes:

I haven't played The Conduit's online mode yet, so I can't speak about it just yet. I'm sure it's pretty ok. Haha.

Fuck you, Activision! Why do I have to go to a PS3 owning friend's house to play Black Ops map packs? And why doesn't this game have a local multiplayer? Because Wii sucks, you say? Ah, right. I forgot about that. Outside of those two little things, Black Ops' online mode is awesome. There is so much depth to the combat, and there are any number of ways to play this game.

Goldeneye has a local multiplayer, which I'm sure means a lot to anyone who plays these sorts of games with friends. (My brother seems to like this game, but doesn't really want to play the multiplayer with me.. likely because he knows I'd destroy him. heh). However, there are problems. The framerate can get pretty low at points, particularly on the Outpost level. Secondly,I haven't counted them, but I'd wager that Goldeneye has fewer customization options than Black Ops. Finally, it takes entirely too long to level up in Goldeneye (which lets you get access to better weapons that the level 56 people are using to obliterate you).

In summation, I think Goldeneye has a better single-player and Black Ops has a better multiplayer. The Conduit is also good, mostly because of spawn destruction and the fact that Kevin Sorbo is god. Thank you for your time. :)

Speculation on Skyward Sword Recalibration Issues

Note the first word there: Speculation. I'm still waiting on Skyward Sword to arrive in the mail, and meanwhile, I hear these complaints about people having to recalibrate every thirty minutes or so. And on the other hand, I've heard from folks who played SS the whole way through and only had to calibrate the Remote at startup.

My totally uninformed theory is this: Some players.. well, a lot of folks, are playing SS incorrectly. I know that the standard Wii Remote games aren't immediately intuitive. For example, instead of wildly moving your arm around as your first instinct might have you do, you usually just need to move your wrist. I know that I had problems playing some games until I figured out how to use the Wii Remote right. For a "casual" console, the Wii can often be quite hard to play occasionally.

I find some evidence for my speculation in this video. Note how the player makes subtle wrist movements, which work just like standard Wii Remote usage, except with far more accuracy:



(video from Zelda Informer's Youtube Channel).

Skyward Sword: Robots?

The world is not exploding.

Ocarina of Time was an awesome game, and it still is an awesome game. I've moved on from Neutopia to playing a 3 heart run of OoT in my spare time. Ganon's Tower (on the N64 version) looks like total shit running up the stairway now, but aside from that, it's held up pretty well, you know. The remake helped us Zelda nerds solve the mystery of TP-Ganondorf's ears, but I don't think it was all that necessary, honestly.

I digressed from the subject on Ocarina of Time because of the influence Ocarina of Time had on the canon. Most of its storyline was present in A Link to the Past (albeit mistranslated in a few spots), but Ocarina of Time brought A Link to the Past's manual into the game. We were able to see the creation of Hyrule by the Goddesses pictured in that manual. We were able to see inside of the Temple of Light and observe a building Nintendo modeled with Sacred Geometry in mind. And the themes of Ocarina of Time were very mystical, as the game's text continually referred to the prophecies of Zelda, and the ancient legends regarding a Hero that would come. All of these things gave a very magical feel to Hyrule. One that A Link to the Past gave as well, but there's a difference.

A Link to the Past talked at length about the ancient civilization of the Hylia. Sahasralah talked about the "Great War Against Evil" that took place generations ago and how all of the knights of the Hylia were wiped out. Ocarina of Time, as best I can recall, doesn't mention that ancient civilization that often. This has caused some to think that maybe Ocarina of Time's civilization was that civilization, but the text of Old Woman causes me to disagree. She was clearly referring to a civilization along the lines of how Atlantis is depicted in the movies (as a great civilization with powerful technology). The point I'm trying to get at here is that Ocarina of Time's magic may well be supplanted by the technology implied in A Link to the Past. Time will tell.

Even though when I first played Alttp, I'd thought that the advanced civilzation she was talking about was pretty cool. But, having said that, I'm not 100% on wanting to see it, especially if it involves adding robots into Hyrule's PAST. I would have preferred A Link to the Future.

But the good news is that Skyward Sword looks like it's going to be a pretty decent game, and at least the robots don't look like robots. I guess I'll get the bundle since I need a Wii Remote Plus. Ack.. friggin' add ons these companies want you to buy. *grumbles*

Neutopia Vs. Zelda (Or Much Ado About Nothing)

So, I finished up Neutopia a moment ago and wanted to ramble about it. First, I'll say that it's pretty friggin' sweet no matter how you look at it. Some negative things have been said about Neutopia and its relationship to Zelda. Well, as with most Zelda related topics, I'll rant an opinion about it here.

If we're comparing Neutopia to the original Legend of Zelda, Neutopia is a better game in a few ways. But it also loses a few steps here and there by virtue of its not being a complete clone.

Firstly, these bosses are more reminiscent of A Link to the Past than they are LoZ. And I'm sure there's an almost unanimous consensus of Zelda players would agree that LttP has better bosses than LoZ. You can't just manhandle a boss with a single bomb: You have to fight them all with your sword or with the rod. This is something they could have employed in the original Zelda game, but they simply opted not to.

Secondly, (and this is just through the merits of superior hardware): Neutopia has more and better music. Most of it's pretty fitting, although that dungeon theme gets tiresome after a while.

Of course the graphics are better, but 8-bit Hyrule has its charms. Finally, I would add that the text LoZ might have had if translation ability and game space allowed is in Neutopia. "BURN THE TREE AT THE DEAD END." has been replaced with something along the lines of "Your fire rod can burn down trees. Try it out in various places to find secrets." Since I played LoZ first.. I had to figure that shit out the hard way (and by the hard way, I mean look up the location of a dungeon, at which point I found out that candles burn trees. doh!).

One area that Neutopia sort of loses completely to LoZ in is the way the original Zelda game was conducted. It's a very unique game that hasn't been followed up on (at least by another Zelda game). There is no help in Zelda. They don't tell you what to do. They just say, "Hey! Ganon kidnapped Zelda. Go find some triangles!" And that's it. Who knows which way to go? In fact, there are numerous ways you could go. You could play Level-2 first if you were so inclined. You don't have to get all of the items. You don't even have to get the sword until it's time to fight Ganon.

Oh yeah, LoZ has a Second Quest. Can't forget that. But in fairness to Neutopia, I'd submit that the bad collision detection and infinitely more challenging bosses make some parts of Neutopia as hard as Quest 2 of Zelda. So it's almost equal, but LoZ wins by a nose for having more content.

A more interesting comparison would be Neutopia and A Link to the Past. A Link to the Past was made later, and they're very similar. One has to wonder if Neutopia had a little influence on Zelda too.

But anyway, I think that the flack that Neutopia gets for being a clone is mostly unmerited. Nintendo doesn't have a monopoly on a damsel in distress stories. Medieval Europe has that. Nor does it have a monopoly on collecting mystical items to save a given land. The hero myths that preceded Zelda have that. But Neutopia should have came up with some new items aside from the few that they did. You burn down trees and you bomb walls in the center of the room. Those mechanics are just blatant copying.

Some Thoughts on Nintendo's Hard Times

Check it out: Nintendo has lost nearly a billion dollars. Startling, eh? Well, I'm no economist, but I have my theories on what brought them here. Of course there are the exchange rates which probably account for the bulk of it, but I think there's something more pressing.

Nintendo largely abandoned their traditional market with the Wii. It was the first time they'd released a console with indisputably inferior hardware. Sure, long before the N64 had employed inferior cartridges, and the GameCube suffered from a similar small disc size, but with the Wii, there wasn't any real comparison at all. The only improvement were some gimmicky motion controls that no one really wanted.. except their new market. They ate that shit up and Nintendo made billions.

But, one day, Nintendo decides to sell a 3DS, a handheld system. Call me a madman, but I don't see Wii Sports players taking time out of their lunchbreak to play Metroid 3D or whatever. The market that might have bought this system is looking elsewhere because Nintendo they thought Nintendo would probably release (and in fact did release) a bunch of demoesque crap for it. But, lo and behold, their new market didn't come through and buy the system. Imagine that!

So, basically, I think the Wii retroactively bit them in the ass. They made a lot of money, then they lost a lot money. Of course, Nintendo isn't totally to blame. They haven't really dominated the 'hardcore' market since the days of the SNES, and I guess they wanted to look elsewhere. But all they really had to do was release a system comparable to the 360/PS3. That la di da "Nintendo is for children" garble Sega spewed up years ago would have fallen by the wayside if Black Ops had looked better on Wii than it had other consoles.

And what's worse is that we're probably going to see this continue with the Wii-U. My fear is that the casual market will eventually abandon them too, and we'll live in world without games like Mario and Zelda. That would suck.

Skyward Sword's Lack of a Left-Handed Option

You raised my hopes then dashed quite expertly, sir! Bravo! -- Tinny Tim, Futurama.

Of course, as readers of my blog might note, I follow these Zelda issues rather closely, and I recall hearing that the game would not have a left handed option. As a person who does almost everything with my left hand, I found that to sort of suck, of course. But I toughed it out and tried to start holding that Wii Remote in my right hand to prepare for it. I rather like Zelda, of course, and don't want to miss a console title just because of some hand preference issue.

But then, there was hope! IGN made a video saying that the game would indeed have a left handed option. This appeared to resolve a much more trivial issue of mine.. that Link is now right handed. The only reason it matters to me is that, when I see the sword in his right hand, he looks sort of odd to me. It was particularly evident in Wii Twilight Princess, but that might have been because the title in question reminded me of Ocarina of Time.

Anyway, before I started trying to play Wii games right handed and become halfway decent at it, I'd hold the remote in my left hand and the nunchuk in my right. Like playing the guitar right handed, it took a decent degree of effort on my part. I certainly would understand if someone didn't buy Skyward Sword because of the issue in question.

However, there is good news. Initial testimonials from E3 seem to indicate that the game can be played pretty well with the Wii Remote in your left hand. That's good news, but there's one rather large issue with doing that: The game won't look right. This was a large issue for me the first time I played Twilight Princess (using my left hand for sword swinging). The actions on screen didn't match what I was doing, and I was very aware of the fact that I was using some gimmicky tacked-on motion controls. Will Skyward Sword be the same? Well.. with vastly improved controls, I should the think the lack of realism for left handed Wii Remote users will be infinitely worse!

So, anyway, I'll be playing it right handed, but there are people who can't do that or just won't want to take the time to learn to do it. I understand that, and *grumble grumble* Link is.. was.. a left handed hero! Don't give me that sprite mirroring garble, either! Lefty is lefty is lefty! :P