VIDEO GAME REVIEW: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Over the years, fans and critics have begged Nintendo to take a step forward with its golden, multi-platinum The Legend of Zelda franchise. Nintendo's last major release in the series, 2006's The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, garnered enough praise and attention to warrant its own historic place in the vault of Zelda masterpieces, but was still torn apart for its "throw every Zelda game in a blender and burn it to a game disc" approach to its development. Thankfully, such is not the case with The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

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VIDEO GAME REVIEW: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

POSTED: Thursday, December 29, 2011, 4:00 PM

Filed Under: Video Games

Over the years, fans and critics have begged Nintendo to take a step forward with its golden, multi-platinum The Legend of Zelda franchise. Nintendo’s last major release in the series, 2006’s The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, garnered enough praise and attention to warrant its own historic place in the vault of Zelda masterpieces, but was still torn apart for its “throw every Zelda game in a blender and burn it to a game disc” approach to its development. Thankfully, such is not the case with The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

That isn’t to say that gamers won’t still be scouring the world in search of Zelda or collecting heart pieces — just about every beloved Zelda staple returns to Skyward Sword in full force. How these things are collectively put together, however, makes this a Zelda game that stands out nicely from its relatives, creating a cohesive adventure that never fails to keep gamers enticed. Unlike many of the past few entries, Zelda gamers are immediately given a sense of direction in what might be the most thoughtfully put together first 30 minutes of a Zelda game yet. Players are enraptured with a wholesome cast of characters that includes a version of Princess Zelda that — surprise, surprise — isn’t actually a princess. In fact, for the first time, players are given the sense that there is purpose for venturing across foreign lands to save the buxom beauty, rather than being sent off to fight against hellish fiends and traverse dark dungeons to save some uppity bitch in a tower.

But what Skyward Sword really nails is its execution of combat; gone are the days of waggling the Wii remote in frustration, and welcomed are the days of precise 1:1 motion control thanks to the Wii Motion Plus accessory. Controls are not quite as intuitive as one might initially prefer, but by the time a few hours have passed in the game, it becomes difficult to imagine pressing a button to control any of the franchise’s basic gameplay mechanics. Skyward Sword offers what is, without question, the most engaging combat ever to be found in the franchise, requiring strategic slice-n-dice swordplay against enemies that are shockingly talented at being a nuisance to take down.

The premise of Skyward Sword is, on the surface, very simple: evil doers have run amok in the land below a floating island full of blissfully ignorant townsfolk known as Skyloft. Beneath the surface, however, is a carefully written and impressively witty origin story of how the land of Hyrule and its reigning goddesses came to be. And though the narrative could have been better enhanced with more cutscenes between dungeon crawling, voice acting and perhaps a few more appearances by the androgynous, badass new villain Demon Lord Ghirahim, it nonetheless shines through as a step in the right direction for a series that too often becomes predictable with its storyline.

Pacing is equally as well thought-out, quickly picking up just as traces of redundancy begin to set in, whether it be with a twist in the plotline or a dungeon that manages to surprise with its clever construction. The five years Nintendo took to flesh-out Skyward Sword prominently shows with puzzle designs that are as simple as they are complex and eye-bulging visual scenery that could be likened to that of a watercolor portrait, making even the biggest tech geek forget about Wii’s underpowered graphical innards.

At the end of the day, Skyward Sword’s biggest strengths lie in its most seemingly basic additions. Developers conspicuously scale down Link’s abilities by giving him a stamina gauge, but balance it out by incorporating a dash button that results in a game with more platforming elements than the series has yet to see. Other additions, like a save point system that makes dungeons more bearable to sift through, help to slow things down and allow gamers to enjoy Skyward Sword’s picturesque new world. Minor complaints include an overworld that feels slightly off, blending together the open world of Twilight Princess, the hub-centric world of Majora’s Mask, and the vast ocean of nothingness found in The Wind Waker, and ultimately forgoing any major breakthroughs in the Zelda formula, sticking with the standard “find these items and slay the bad guy” pattern that has become all too foreseeable.

But calculable or not, that doesn’t change Skyward Sword’s utter brilliance in its composition. Skyward Sword does for motion control what Ocarina of Time so masterfully did for 3D more than a decade ago, presenting the gaming world with the motion control masterpiece Nintendo should have introduced years ago. Nintendo’s latest entry in the Zelda series is by far its most evolved and — while still having a few kinks to be worked out — sets a standard for future adventure games as much as it paves the way for the next Zelda game to take things a step even further. Skyward Sword is easily the best Zelda game produced since The Wind Waker, and unquestionably the best (and last) reason to pick up a Wii.

Posted by Brandon Baker @ 4:00 PM Permalink | Post a comment

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