[SPOILERS!!] The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

[Agent Gibbs]

Although this control set up will continue on a WiiU zelda it WILL NOT be the only control scheme available!

 

Think about it, the WiiU USP is the ability to switch to the controller screen, to do this you won't be able to use the wiimote at this point.

So either a WiiU zelda a first party game won't allow the WiiU's USP (yeah right)

or it will have multiple control schemes available to use, or a s a bare minimum a button only scheme for when it switches to the wiiu tablet

but can you really imagine them going to the effort of making two control schemes and then limiting one to only being during tablet play

 

people read to much into quick statements on a game only in the concept/story writing stage

 

/speculation on game 2-3 years away

 

as for SS

the game is amazing

I chose hero mode

you keep all equipment upgrades apparently probably don't keep them from the start though

and thought i'd leave it for some time so i didn't get zelda overkill and ruin the game

 

but i'm dying to play it again

 

The motion controls work great, at first i had to teach myself to not do a TP and waggle the mote like i'm a 14 year old with a playboy mag, but once i did i found the controls great, for the sword atleast

 

I still think the flying could be analogue, as flapping was very difficult and alien to do while keeping a straight line

Swimming i was more generous to, although it worked great in MM i did like being able to quickly turn the wiimote vertical and start swimming up/down that was slightly faster than an analogue. basically it was slightly less than on par for me

 

but i never got used to clicking "b" to ready an item and holding to choose. I'd often hold it too long and the menu would pop up and i'd end up releasing and selecting something else, and it made using the bow on keeze very slow and to the point where i waited for them to come to me 99% of the time and then sword stab them. TP had the better set up for items.

Z target/Strafe/easy till was too easy in TP, but target/no lock/take time to aim was too slow, the only reason it worked to an extent is because there wasn't any sections like some of the caves in TP that would require you to kill lots of flying enemies quickly. when ever you needed, well could attack enemies like keeze from afar you had all the time in the world. I think i only used the bow on the switches and for sniping bobkins on death mountain slopes

Edited December 13, 2011 by Agent Gibbs

[Cube]

but can you really imagine them going to the effort of making two control schemes and then limiting one to only being during tablet play

 

The tablet play is a per-game basis. Personally, I hope Zelda (as well as 99.9% of other WiiU games) don't use it as games that allow tablet play won't be able to use the screen for unique gameplay.

[Burny]

So either a WiiU zelda a first party game won't allow the WiiU's USP (yeah right)

 

Well, yeah?

 

As it'll probably be two or more years before any WiiU Zelda would even be in a presentable state and it wouldn't be as important to stress the console's unique selling point by then. It would be essentially like selling a game with a required addon and that's not unusual for Zelda.

 

Skyward Sword itself doesn't work without a controller addon. Majora's Mask sets more precedence: it required the N64's expansion pack to even run.

[Agent Gibbs]

Well, yeah?

 

As it'll probably be two or more years before any WiiU Zelda would even be in a presentable state and it wouldn't be as important to stress the console's unique selling point by then. It would be essentially like selling a game with a required addon and that's not unusual for Zelda.

 

Skyward Sword itself doesn't work without a controller addon. Majora's Mask sets more precedence: it required the N64's expansion pack to even run.

 

I can't really see it though, the transfer to tablet feature impressed everyone, to remove it from a flagship game is stupid, it would be like SS not using any motion controls at all

 

I'm not saying there isn't a chance that nintendo will do that, becasue hell we all know they make some odd decisions some times, i just think its more than likely they won't

[Burny]

I can't really see it though, the transfer to tablet feature impressed everyone, to remove it from a flagship game is stupid, it would be like SS not using any motion controls at all

 

I don't know if everyone was that impressed. It's technically neat, but also the possibly most uninspired use of the tablet controller imaginable. Directly followed by maps and inventories.

 

I'm not saying there isn't a chance that nintendo will do that, becasue hell we all know they make some odd decisions some times, i just think its more than likely they won't

 

Likely, even after the series producer says he thinks they cannot go back to the usual button controls? Not to mention that going by what Nintendo showed of the WiiU, the Wiimote will be the standard controller option for local multiplayer. As such, it won't exactly be an alien control method.

 

It's still possible to use the controllers in conjunction. After all, the "tablet" doesn't need to be used for input, but can also be exclusively used for output. I'm sure they'll incorporate it somehow, but at it sounds very much like they're thinking about keeping the Motion+ controls a central part.

[Grazza]

If Zelda Wii U doesn't use the Wii U controller, it will be insanity. This goes way beyond whether I like or dislike motion controls, because I don't particularly dislike them. Motion controls were the theme of the Wii, and so Skyward Sword was right to use them. The next console Zelda will be a Wii U game, and so should use the Wii U controller.

 

And although I appreciate the posts by @Agent Gibbs, I don't believe there should be different control options, or we'll just have another Twilight Princess on our hands, which couldn't properly take advantage of either. Wii U controller all the way.

 

Yes, motion control (broadly speaking) allows gameplay that wasn't seen before, but the reverse is also true. I'm disappointed how gamers don't miss all the gameplay developed with a traditional controller, like using the R trigger for shield control and the Mirror Shield (not seen since Wind Waker) and the C-stick for camera control (again, not seen since Wind Waker). Do people genuinely not miss that stuff? I thought it was brilliant.

 

The Wii U tablet could have all that and go even further. Did you all watch the Zelda Wii U tech demo? You could use the screen to control the lighting, not just the inventory. Basically, the tablet is the selling point of the Wii U. It will be absolute madness if Nintendo don't design their best game to use it.

[Agent Gibbs]

@Grazza makes a very good point there really, the WiiU supports the WiiMote, its isn't its controller, its more akin to the classic controller an optional control method for some games

 

The tablet is the WiiU's main control so those points all seem logical

 

the motion controls could be achieved with stylus imputs in theory

horizontal swipes/diagonal/vertical could all be swiped across the screen during combat, think the bottom screen of OoT on the 3DS only instead of the map a first person (from link's perfective) view of the enemy, which you then just slash across to indicate the way you wish for link to attack

hmm not sure on my own idea but it indicates other optional control schemes available and a way they could retain a non traditional control scheme while utilising the tablet

 

at this stage we all have no idea, were all speculating and its very difficult to do on an off the cuff statement in an interview

[Cube]

http://www.zelda.com/skywardsword/comic/

 

Random "official" Skyward Sword comic made by Penny Arcade.

 

I'm not sure if they're trying to go for entertaining or funny, but whatever it is, it doesn't work.

[Ganepark32]

Finished the game last night. Will post full thoughts later but I think my general feeling is that the term 'flawed masterpiece' best describes what I've played.

 

Will say though, that the orchestrated piece covering the credits at the end is one of the best arrangements I've heard in any game ever. Utterly beautiful. More of that Nintendo

[EEVILMURRAY]

FUCK!!!

 

 

Thought I'd let it save the Hero Mode, thought it would let you do it on a separate file/carry on the existing one. I didn't think it would rape the original save file.

 

 

SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[Shorty]

If only there was a message that said "this will erase the progress on your current save, are you sure you wish to continue".

 

Oh right, there was

[EEVILMURRAY]

If only there was a message that said "this will erase the progress on your current save, are you sure you wish to continue".

 

Oh right, there was

I foolishly assumed it meant the settings progress on the current save. Not the whole game file.

 

Well. I'm not fapping around to get inside Zelda's room now. I was well excited as well.

 

To Tales of Abyss I go!

[Shorty]

Get inside Zelda's room? You could do that as soon as you got the clawshot, and there was very little to see...

 

But yeah, the correct thing to do is duplicate your save before doing the last boss

 

It's stupid tbf. Why do they even use three save slots when I have oodles of megabytes of memory, and a save state only takes up a few kb?

[Grazza]

Well. I'm not fapping around to get inside Zelda's room now. I was well excited as well.

 

There's a funny little thing on the way to Zelda's room (reminded me of Metal Gear Solid). Might be worth watching it on YouTube or something.

[Agent Gibbs]

There's a funny little thing on the way to Zelda's room (reminded me of Metal Gear Solid). Might be worth watching it on YouTube or something.

 

when i saw that i was thankful the game wasn't in HD and used a blurred style

[Dante]

Cant post in spoiler-free topic so i am posting it here.

 

Japan gets Hyrule Historia, The Zelda 25th anniversary art book.

 

Release date: 21/12/2011.

Price: 3,255 Yen.

274 pages.

 

Detailed Skyward Sword stuff broken into various sections: 67 pages

 

The World of Hyrule detailed in several sections including a timeline: 70 pages

 

Artwork for the individual games:

Legend of Zelda - 4 pages

Link's Adventure & Link to the Past - 2 pages

Link's Awakening - 1 page

Ocarina of Time - 6 pages

Majora's Mask - 3 pages

Wind Waker - 10 pages

Oracle series - 6 pages

Twilight Princess - 32 pages

Phantom Hourglass - 4 pages

Spirit Tracks - 22 pages

 

The rest of the book contains an evolution of Link's character designs over the years, a catalog of Zelda games, and some other extra stuff.

 

 

Zelda SS Manga preview

[Agent Gibbs]

Why aren't we getting those:(

[Mokong]

There's a funny little thing on the way to Zelda's room (reminded me of Metal Gear Solid). Might be worth watching it on YouTube or something.

 

when i saw that i was thankful the game wasn't in HD and used a blurred style

 

When I saw it I thought...

 

Damnit why didn't he finish up sooner so Karane could have used the bath

 

[Shorty]

quote=spoiler...

 

you've been here how long? :p

[Burny]

No need to worry about getting blind! I belief It doesn't blur on that distance anyway. Nintendo thought about the children, even if they cheat their way into the room:

 

 

[dazzybee]

That books looks immense, but 22 pages on spirit tracks?! Yeah, I'd spend more pages on the worst Zelda too!!! (bar Twilight...pages not worst!)

[Burny]

 

[Guy]

Change of structure. The guy playing that is the real final boss, wow.

[Captain Falcon]

Finally finished this game this afternoon.

 

It does a lot of things well, but it also has a few faults.

 

For one, this game seems to love building things up and then letting you down with an almighty thudd as if someone just knocked you off SkyLoft and the knights failed to catch you.

 

The music was mostly pretty forgetable too aside from the main theme and the credits. Hearing Ganondorf's theme stripped back to create Demise's theme was nice though. The music that played as you navigated the sky wasn't bad, but if you didn't spend so much time up there, it wouldn't leave much of an impression.

 

Speaking of which, I know it's no where near as large as the Great Sea... but proportionately, it's just as boring.

 

And going back to music for a second... the harp. How dumbed down was that for music playing in a Zelda game. Music has often been a plot device but it had added benefits aside. But here, you have the Ballad for gossip stones and walls and that was that.

 

Save points... urgh. Aside from reminding you to save, not something I've ever had a problem with, I can't help but think it was only added to the statues to make them more interesting than to just return you to the sky. Having to return to the sky to "warp" around the area though whilst more accurate is hardly ideal either.

 

I didn't much like the continued fights against the imprissioned either. I didn't learn you could jump on top of it until accidently landing on it in the boss rush when it fell off an edge and I jumped after it. But even then, 3 times is 2 times too many.

 

As the tale that started it all, I just had higher hopes for the creation of the blade. A Link to the Past stated that the sword was made by the people of Hyrule and I long had the idea of the people of the lands coming to together to create this blade under the oppression of a great force only to see it turn the tide of a hopeless war. Now this story has since been altered in subsequent games but it still had potential. Yet this didn't feel much different to the restoring of it's power in Wind Waker - as if it was always the Master Sword from the very beginning.

 

It would have been more emotionally engaging if Fi was completely seperate from the normal Goddess sword and at the end, the Goddess sword is no good and Fi gives herself to becoming the Master Sword and is no longer available to help you. In the end, the Master Sword is as is and she goes to live in it permanently but she is no longer needed at that point.

 

And one final thing that seemed really strange. Link sets the Master Sword in the pedestal of, what is what will ultimately be, the Temple of Time. But this pedestal is situated in front of the doors that lead to the back where the sword normally resides (which was where Zelda was sleeping). Yes you could easily explain it away by saying the Shekah rebuilding the temple but it does seem like a silly place to put it when the final shots show the icon imagery of the the Sword with the trees only it's 20m off where it normally appears to be.

[Grazza]

Yes!! Got the best shield from the Boss Run. Found it quite difficult, as I don't exactly "get on" with this game particularly well, but I'm glad I got it. I decided to use a Stamina Potion and choose The Imprisoned first, as that can be frustrating if you make a small mistake. The one I find most difficult is the 2nd version of Ghirahim, so was thinking of choosing him first, but ended up getting him last! Beat him with a few hearts left. Meanwhile, my heart was beating!

 

Looking forward to some exploring and sidequests now with the best shield on my back.