Some of the best gameplay of any platform! An average gamers' review of how it stacks up.
The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword recreates and combines many of the amazing facets of its predecessors into a unique action packed adventure that keeps you going right throughout the game. Like any game it has its ups and downs, so here are a few key elements I thought were what made it such a great game.
+ Puzzles and Dungeon challenges +
Skyward Sword saw an amazing amount of puzzles and brain bulging tests to challenge your observational skills and working out where to roll that bomb or which diamond to shoot first with small hints from Fi along the way. This specifically pertained to the dungeons such as the Sky-view Temple where you utilise Wii Motion Plus capabilities to make three eyes on the wall dizzy following your sword, or utilising water to create a magma platform to access other areas of the Earth Temple. These are some of the simpler puzzles but they keep you 'on the ball', constantly looking out for new areas to access, new ways to get into deeper parts of the dungeon and quicker ways to getting to the depths of the dungeon where the next boss resides ready to be slayed.
The architectural structure of each room of each dungeon allows for some greater holistic puzzles and challenges such as the Ancient Cistern's center structure that can move to create new undiscovered dungeon rooms and Sky Keep's 3 x 3 dungeon room puzzle(Final Dungeon) that requires you to slide the structure of the entire dungeon to access the tri-force pieces. These allow for some extremely fun and intricate game play.
+ Stamina Gauge +
The introduction of a stamina gauge gives Link a sense of humanity in his physical limitations. By limiting Link's ability to sprint for a week, or spin his sword till he starts flying like a helicopter it adds a nice challenge, especially when you are faced with running across quicksand with a limited amount of sprinting power or overcome by enemies and out of stamina to hold your sword. This stamina gauge forces you to rethink your strategy when approaching a horde of enemies or working through the Lanayru Desert sand and contributes to some of the great puzzles inside dungeons.
+ Equipment, Items, Bugs and Upgrades +
Bringing back some of the great items of past games, Skyward Sword brings with it the ability to mass upgrade all of your items... at the cost of rupees and items found throughout the game of course. Upgrades aren't necessary, but do come in handy, for example when fighting enemies and your shield needs repairing all the time, upgrading your beaten shield until you can go and win a Hylian Shield is a smart choice. Nevertheless there is an extravagant amount of items, bugs and upgrades to make that boss or dungeon just that bit easier. I haven't gone into detail about bugs but if you like collecting them and need them to upgrade a certain piece of equipment while on your path to the chosen hero they are pretty useful. Different locations throughout the game provide you with bugs and insects native only to those locations. Some are harder than others to catch as they may be rarer or the Wii Motion Plus decided it didn't want to catch it and let it fly away which I will get to soon, but quite an enjoyable ongoing side-quest for all those bug lovers out there.
Some Small Cons
Here are the parts of the game that just stopped it from being a Superb game.
Wii Motion Plus
The imperfect Wii Motion Plus sometimes caused a bit of frustration in the game. At times it became unresponsive to certain hand movements and did things you didnt want it to which cost you hearts in a dungeon battle. For example, versing a boss such as Scaldera, when swinging the remote in a slashing way to hit its eye at its weak spot it would often miss completely and cause you to hit the armour surrounding the eye, or slashing at Ghirahims' open side when he has his sword cause you to hit his sword rather than the target you wanted to hit. Keep in mind that this is only for a minority of the game when this happens and most of the time it will work fine. It occasionally has its imperfections but thats a part of console and accessory development.
As I had said before this problem happens when you have a small net trying to catch bugs, the only way you can catch the bug if you are standing over it and basically cup the net square on the bug to catch it. It is a small set back, but is aided by the upgrade to the larger bug net in this situation.
Location Repetition
Occasionally throughout the game you get a feeling that Ive been here way too many times, and know the location like walking around your house. However, this small problem is minimized by the fact that some equipment you didn't have before, you now do, which means you can access places you thought nothing of before. This slight inconvenience of going back and forth between Skyloft, Faron Woods, Eldin Volcano, and Lanayru is a part of any adventure game that requires journeying to distant lands. If you make the trip there than you make the trip back, which in the end makes you feel a lot better about how many hours and how much effort you actually put into the game.
Living up to many of its predecessors Skyward Sword creates a gaming experience that can only be described as amazing. The challenges you face and puzzles you solve give a great sense of acheivement and keeps you entertained for hours.
Overall rating 9/10.