Skyward Sword May Have Sucked, But...

You're kidding me, right?

@GreySeal9: Xenoblade's ost in a league all of its own. It has the best ost in video game history, imo. ACE did an outstanding job.

Most Zelda fans I know said it was a good game. Not the best by any means but good. Its one I haven't played.

Zelda fan here, yo. To the extent that I believe Zelda is the greatest franchise in gaming. Link to the Past is my greatest game of all time. So I'm as hardcore a Zelda fan as they come.

Skyward Sword fucking sucked.

@charizard1605: fair enough dude. Think I'll still play it when I get a wiiu again.

Eh, I mean, it is good, certainly high quality and well produced fantasy style music. The problem is the soundtrack just isn't catchy or memorable, except for the tunes that we already know are catchy and memorable, because they had the good sense to use them for the past fifteen years in most Zelda titles. Doing a good fantasy soundtrack isn't uncommon and won't carry you much anymore. Given that the rest of the game is a steaming turd, it isn't like I'm dying to return just to hear a nice melody.

Darksiders 2 had a better soundtrack. So did Mass Effect 3

It's a mediocre game with a few high notes (4th temple was great), but its biggest problems are the handholding, motion control quirks (swimming, flying, using motion+ for things that should have used the IR pointer etc. etc.) and item pickups.. without those things hampering it, I wouldn't have ever thought the game down right sucked. Asinine decisions..

But yes, it has a great soundtrack.

Bamboo island

Ancient cistern

The dragons

Biggest issue for me with the music is that outside of a few tunes, I can't think of any of it right off the top of my head. With some older games in the series, like wind Waker or Majora's Mask, I can think of almost every tune in the game.

Also, a console game in the past five years with amazing music? Xenoblade. Game sounds jizztastic.

I guess it depends on what you consider filler. Everything in Skyward sword was there for a good reason. It gave you interesting gameplay experiences at all times. I enjoyed the game from beginning to end on each of my many playthroughs. For a game that takes 30+ hours on the first try, that's pretty fantastic.

Then you are referring to your own opinion on filler. You finding filler enjoyable does not make it any less of filler, when it is all in fact objectively filler. Skyward Sword is probably the worst offender as far as filler is concerned in the series, barring maybe only Wind Waker (and at least Wind Waker had the decency to have it all in one chunk).

Then what exactly is filler to you? Gameplay content that has little to do with the main narrative? To me, if there's a good gameplay idea that deserves to be played, then they should stick it in the game regardless of if it is directly applicable to the main plot. Games are about the gameplay to me so I don't consider that filler.

Filler is what Metroid Prime one and two did (I loved those games by the way). You finish everything in the games and then they tell you to find randomly placed final objects to open the final area. That's clearly just padding. What Skyward Sword did didn't feel like padding to me. It felt like enjoyably made scenarios that were worth playing.

I hated Skyward Sword's padded puzzle, flying controls, bombs, and how the combat was more puzzle focus. Not to mention that the beginning of the game was unnecessary long and boring. The only music I enjoyed was the desert ocean which I felt was the best track in the entire game.

Filler is filler. It is something that completely stalls the game's momentum, something that within the logical constraints set by the game's narrative and mechanic universe, has no business being there. So yes, Metroid Prime and Echoes had filler. Skyward Sword had filler. Twilight Princess had filler. Wind Waker had filler. Phantom Hourglass had filler. Spirit Tracks had filler. (damn, the Zelda games haven't been doing good on this front lately, have they?) Assassin's Creed II had filler.

Skyward Sword is an awful offender of filler, incidentally. Repeated boss fights, repeated backtracking (you know it's bad when it's not just backtracking, it's repeated backtracking) with the rewards not being proportional to the effort expended in said backtracking, and of course, nonsensical elements like hunting and constructing keys before a dungeon, or the dowsing quests- this is all filler content.

Again, you are fully entitled to have found it all enjoyable- in fact, I am very glad you did, and that you didn't feel it was filler that negatively affected the game. The fact, however, remains that it was all filler by any reasonable definition of the word, and it was there, and to a lot of people, it was pretty damn awful.

You want to talk about a Zelda game with no filler? Look at Link to the Past. Or Ocarina of Time. Or Majora's Mask. Link Between Worlds. They are filled with things to do, but nothing ever stalls the game pace, and perhaps most importantly, everything ties into one overarching cohesive whole that makes progress feel meaningful, instead of some arbitrary roadblock that makes the player feel cheated.

Skyward Sword was not good at that.

What do you feel about Sawano?

I thought most of the soundtrack was incredibly unmemorable except for one song. This song really got to me:

I don't but Super Mario Galaxy had some pretty good music too in the last 5 years or so. In essence yes Skyward Sword had pretty good music.

Skyward Sword wasn't a bad game at all. It wasn't the best Zelda game but it was a great game.

I loved skyward sword. Third favorite 3d Zelda. In order MM, TP,SS,OOT,WW.

SS is very unique and the puzzles were amazing. The only thing I would change is the dragon quests, they were alright, I wasn't bored playing them but I would have rather had more dungeons. Also using the gyroscope for the pointer controls was odd, if the wii did anything great it was it's IR pointer control.

Sorry for not editing previous post GS just isn't working for me at all right now.

But also I hate when people whine about the dowsing. I NEVER USED IT ONCE. YOU DON"T HAVE TO EVER USE IT ONCE. lol apologies for the caps. And back on topic, yes the music was great. Not as memorable as MM, OOT, and WW but it had some really really good tracks and boss tracks especially.

I loved Skyward Sword. One of my favorite Zelda titles.

Skyward Sword was my game of 2011. Strangely, I don't remember a whole lot about the music. I'll likely replay it before the year is over.

Zelda who?

Do you sit home all day posting threads and ponder the rebirth of everything Nintendo affiliated?

Skyward has the best combat and character movement of the whole series. Dungeons are as fun as always. I honestly thought all motions controls were great beside the bomb that needed some tweaking. Bird took some getting used to but it worked ok after. The fetch quests were kinda fun actually cuz I cared about the characters. Items were ok. Boss were fun and challenging. The whole game felt more challenging compared to previous Zeldas. The items upgrade system is a nice touch. Nice visuals and great soundtrack. Link with emotions. haha :P

That repeated boss when you had to hit its toes, not fun. That same character as boss temple twice, not cool. That was some dumb decisions. Boss lack epicness compared to say TP. The provinces weren't designed to be explore which is a bummer. The sky yes it was but it was full of empty islands with nothing to do but take a treasure chest. It's hard to take the story with the ceremony thing seriously with so few people living in Skydome. They should take example on the Last Story city which felt alive. Lack of enemy variety. Too many low res textures. Music not as memorable as previous Zeldas.

All that being said, it hardly sucked. -__- Some really bad design choices tho. I'd give it a 8.

Btw ballad of the godesses = sick track!!!!! :O

I guess I'm in the minority about Skyward Sword. I liked it. Yeah, as far as Zelda games go, it was not that great. Almost every console Zelda blows it out of the water. I would put the game on Twilight Princess's level.

Skyward sword was great.

You are in the majority. The game is a 93 on metacritic.

Minority by System Wars standards, if I had to guess. I still have to beat it myself.

My least favorite of the 3D Zelda games but still a great game.

Music was pretty darn awesome as well.

I mean on System Wars, although I think 93 is way too high.

SS = MM = Twlp > WW > Oot

There I said it

@Pffrbt: Yeah, really nice track!

I believe Twilight Princess also received a lot of forum hate for a few years, didn't it?

@Demonjoe93: oh definitely. But that's my point. Notice what happens when the newest iteration (SS) launched? All the hate was projected to the newer game while the older one (TP) was loved all of a sudden. As a Nintendo/Zelda fanboy, I can safely say that Zelda fanboys are some of the most childishly fickle fans in gaming. I've witnessed this sad cycle occurring since MM.

(Also sorry for my wonky posting. Using a tablet.)

Oh, I agree with you. I've noticed the Zelda Cycle over the years, myself. I know Wind Waker got a lot of hate from the fan base for its art style, the triforce shard quest, and lower difficulty.

@Demonjoe93: Bingo, buddy! Wind Waker, (as well a Majora's Mask), were major victims of this cycle. They were never fully appreciated for the stellar games that they were until several year after release (at least until the next iterations came along).

I don't mind the art style at all and LOL a complaining about difficulty in the Zelda series. What Kind of hurts WW though is that the sailing, while neat, also could be tedious at times, and as you said the triforce quest. Also felt the game had the least impressive and least interesting dungeons as far as 3D Zeldas go. Still a good game though.

The only 3D Zelda I haven't beat. I got to about the 4th dungeon I believe and I just couldn't keep forcing myself to play. I never felt that way with a Zelda game before. Not a bad game but a god awful Zelda game.

Also, the art style was neat but the game looked absolutely disgusting on any decent sized HDTV. all dat pixelation. all dat blur

Last five years? Probably Nier, Assassin's Creed IV, Dark Souls, Heart Gold. Maybe Mass Effect 3 and The Witcher 2. Demon's Souls is arguably past the five year cutoff. Could probably think of others I liked more as well. As far as Zelda music goes I wouldn't rate it terribly highly either, probably. Still better than average for most video game music that's for sure.

a few members here on SW are the only ppl that i know that think it sucked. which is pretty depressing

OoT tainted them.

@charizard1605: If only SS was playable with a traditional controller the experience imho would have been x10 better.

Char hates Zelda games with a passion

Nope. The game was poorly designed. Even if it had been playable with a traditional controller with no motion bullshit, it would have sucked.

@Ballroompirate said:

Char hates Zelda games with a passion

It is known

the game was built AROUND the motion controls. If you replaced the controls the game would practically cease to be.

IMHO that's where most of the quality and freshness came from.

Ghirahim boss battles... Drools

I actually really liked both the game and the music for Skyward Sword. The motion controls could be iffy at times, but it hardly ever detracted from the game itself.

On a side note, I hope we live to see a day with a first person Oculus Rift-supported LoZ. Imagine shimmying along a mountain ledge in Dark World - oh my lawd.

@charizard1605: I think you are being way too cynical about the game. SS will easily be the dark horse in the LoZ series. It gets a whole lot of hate for very silly reasons.

I beat the game twice, second time on hard mode without healing/sitting down. Ya the out world mechanic was poorly executed and the fetch quests were pointless. But the combat, and dungeons were amazing. The boss fights, although somewhat easy, were incredible epic.

My biggest gripe with the game was the ending, it was over drawn and very anti-climatic imo.