Burny

@Oxygen_Waste And here I though it was driving you nuts. I'm actually surprised nobody has commented on the game's habit of repeating the messages for every collectible item every time you load a save. TP did that with rupees and I thought it was a bug. Now Skyward Sword does it with everything but rupees, which makes me think it's deliberate. It's insulting the player's intelligence somewhat.

You're talking about menus here (map, item collection), not FPS aiming, right? The pointer gets the job done quickly enough and is absolutely precise and that's all a menu has to be. If you're pointing at the ceiling for anything other than the "skyward strike", you're doing something wrong. Now, looking around is indeed slow and clumsy, but I can't remember it ever being anything else in a 3D Zelda. Maybe it'd bother me more, if I regularly used it, but I rarely do. It's the very least of the game's issues and seems like a strange thing to get worked up about.

There is no calibration option whatsoever. What's the problem anyway?

There's more! Go into Groose's room. It's full of barbells and there is a punching bag with a drawing of Link's face stuck on it. ^^ There is no natural day/night circle. More importantly, it allows you to ignore it completely, after you've changed into dowsing mode once when you get the notification. The stupidity of asking for a "quest marker" is incomprehensible imo. If they wanted to make a valid complaint, it would've been that the game reminds you to use dowsing every time you need to find something. It's not like you're forced to use it though.

Frankly, this doesn't even come close to the drag, that was Wind Waker's traveling for me. If you want to go somewhere in WW, by the time you have placed the instrument and the sail on the item buttons, played the melody to warp as close as possible and played the next melody to change the wind direction, you've practically arrived where you want to go in SS. And that's before you would've even started sailing in WW. By flying through the holes in some of the rocks, you can speed up the whole process even more. Now, about the charme of the clouds or how much there is to explore, that's something where WW's ocean really offers more. Personally, I take "not getting in the way" and fun flying over what WW did anytime though. The only thing I'm not 100% comfortable with is the wing flap. The motion has to be too elaborate for my liking (or I haven't found the appropriate "lazy" motion yet :p). And next time you jump off your Loftwing, you won't just think you're close, but instead press "Z" before you jump.

It's stemming from your lack of understanding how it works. Or your WM+ is broken, but if you didn't have problems in WSR, it's probably not. It doesn't sound like you're talking about the drift from which Motion+ suffers occasionally either. The moment you activate the map/weapon/whatever with aiming functionality, the game assumes the Wiiremote's current orientation as center. If you point the remote at the wall opposite to your TV at the time, it's naturally the center for your aiming. All you have to do, is point at a comfortable center position before you activate the item. I have to say, aiming works brilliantly here for me. It's of course not shooter levels of speed, but the accuracy is nothing to scoff at. The one thing I would've preferred, is a combination of the IR-pointer and the Motion+ aiming. Pointer for faster aiming and automatic recentering of the cursor and Motion+ for whenever the remote can't recognize the sensor bar anymore. Lack of "proper Z-targeting" means no more auto-killing bats across half a room.

It does speed you up. While you're nowhere near an island though, you have little reference, so it's hard to tell. Traveling in general seems extremely fast though. It takes no time to get anywhere with the bird and if you want to dive beneath the clouds, you can practically warp anywhere, because there are so many bird statues. Low point for me was the whole intro section. It's cool that they're trying to ease newcomers into the game and make you care for Links relationship with Zelda, but it takes decidedly too long until anything interesting happens. Although It took still considerably less time to get geared up and make the way to the first dungeon than what I remember from Twilight Princess. I liked the whole area before the first dungeon. It was essentially a "fetch quest", but the resulting light exploration is fun and results in an item. There are actually creatures out there, who interact with Link in different ways than attacking him on sight. That goes a long way for me. Found out that it's actually possible to kill insects with the sword. And crows like to take a dump on links head. :p Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that will seriously test some people's patience. I never knew Navi bothered some people this much, before I found out about all the hate she gets on the internet for example. I'm sure those people will want to murder Fi.

If what I caught from youtube commentors is right, than there is one single piece he actually composed and that's what playes during the "ink blotch" intro.

Yes, the triangle has something to do with the languages on the game's case and in the manual. We normally have a lilac triangle and only German text on the game case and in the manual. As for the 12 - welcome to the USK. These things are mandatory and have to be on every case here. They're just as large on DS cases btw. Just for comparison: Around 2006/7 their mark with the age rating was smaller than the PEGI-logo. After two cases of pupils going on a gun rampage in the last ten years with many killed on both cases (both played Counter Strike), there was a lot of political activism here against games. Probably the reason why the USK made these so large, that even the most blind and uninformed parents can't miss them anymore. If you're using the golden Wiimote, it might be prudent to leave it on. The gold is unfortunately just varnish and I don't know how resistant it is against scratches. I don't want to find out either.

It works similar to what was used in LKS. Everything at a certain distance from the camera and onward gets blurred. It's not the usual blur effect though, but rather one that redraws the scene with something resembling brush strokes. This is a screenshot someone made with the emulator and here the effect works great imo (practically spoiler free, unless you can identify the item). The "mileage" varies though, as the effect doesn't seem to include everything. Going by what I saw in other screenshots, characters, finer details in the scenery and water for example aren't blurred this way.

It sounds like he did have a very clear idea what to do with the controls, except for the aiming issue he complains about. Aiming is supposed to work really well according to other people who've played it. The "waggling" he mentions has more to do with enemy design/behavior and pacing of encounters the way he describes it. I wouldn't dismiss this complaint outright, because he's not saying these controls don't work, but he's rather complaining about the way they are best used. He might not explain it well, but from what I've watched in trailers and read from other people's impressions there is something to it. That's probably better to discuss once we've played the game though.

Many views on this game are inconsistent across various reviews. From the motion controls that some love and others complain about, to the changes that some claim make the game feel fresh while others complain about the stale formula, to reviewers claiming it's not as good as other Zeldas while others claim it's the peak of the series. If anything, it goes to show that there is a lot to love and some rough edges that are perceived very differently by different people.

I won't bother spoiler-tagging this, it's just commercials after all. The first one shows the "lucky number 7"-item in action (15 seconds in). Edit: So does the second video! (1:57) Another edit: Downloading multiple ghosts and racing against them simultaneously seems like a very cool thing, too. But I can't tell if they're ghosts from friends or from some kind of global ranking.

And Famitsu scored it 40/40 (this isn't the review, but don't klick if you're on a complete blackout!).

Maybe the Gamespot review score will make the wait easier? They gave the game a 7.5. I haven't read the whole review, only skipped through a couple of sentences, as reviews tend to spoil more content than Nintendo do with all their trailers combined. Complaints mainly stem from the controls and bad habits in the game design it seems. Overall though, there seems to be a lot of praise in the review. The one thing that stood out among the control complaints I read however, was complaining about the IR-controls. It has been confirmed that Skyward Sword doesn't use any. Maybe the reviewer just can't distinguish between the Motion+ and the pointer, or he tried to control that particular action wrong the whole time.

Given that online and offline multiplayer seems to be limited to 8 drivers, there'll of course only be 6 other racers this time. (No idea if they've even included Bots this time )

New trailer time! I'll spoiler them for those, who are sensitive towards spoilers even in a racing game. One showing returning tracks ("leaf cup"), another one showing all new tracks ("star cup") and a last one, showing of the battle mode.

You know, games can be extremely linear in progression and surprise you at every turn despite the linearity. See the Mario Galaxy games. Hardly one level is anything like the last. Given what Grazza has been clamoring for in Zelda games, there is a reason he is rather sceptical about Skyward Sword.

There is no beef, although you might provide the correct context when you quote. You simply quoted something, Grazza read out of it what he wanted to hear and that's it.

I should know, as I do consider TP to be a "low" point for various reasons. The gamesradar reviewer you apparently quoted, considers Wind Waker the best Zelda game ever made ("Is it better than... Wind Waker? No – how dare you even ask. ...") and and he even wrote that TP and SS are more or less a tie, not that SS is worse. But you'd have to read the little text blurb that comes after their "is it better than X: Yes/No" for that.

No, you haven't tried "motion controls", but a few particular implementations of motion controls. Or you already played Skyward Sword and can tell me how it is then? After all, you must've played it and found that its particular implementation of motion controls add nothing to the Zelda formula, unlike a bunch of reviewers claim. I've even read more than a few times by now that people consider Twilight Princess the series' pinnacle. So, you take one reviewers word for gospel, just because he agrees with you on Wind Waker being the best game? And hasn't played the game any more than the rest of us. He has just already made up his mind.

@Rummy Where are you at the moment?

It had about the same controls as every other 3D game with a dual analogue setup. They work. As Zelda isn't about ridiculous attack combos (and hopefully never will be ) though, they're also as conventional and boring in combat as it gets. Aside from that, Anouma, the Zelda team and the game testers must've played the game to death during development. If they still liked the controls that much after that, they're in a very good position to decide if these controls should be adopted by future Zeldas. A far better position than some "fans" with a predetermined opinion on motion controls at least. :p

He said "niggles", not "obscenely annoying, game-breaking, wrist-wrecking fundamental design flaws so ubiquitous that Nintendo should pay you to play the game". Although, now that I think about it, that's usually how niggles are viewed once a bit of hyperbole is thrown into the mix, isn't it? Still, there better be no dramatic "niggles". Gamesradar has an interview with Anouma, and to me that sounds as if motion controls are here to stay. I'm kind of happy, cause it would be an absolute waste to throw them out on the WiiU, if they turn out to be really good.

They could've just programmed it that way. Apparently, they decided not to for some reason. Wasn't it mentioned in one of the "Iwata Asks"?