The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

[miffy495]

Actually, I'm replaying Twilight Princess* at the moment and have noticed that it does it as well. Nobody got pissed off about it until Skyward Sword, but every time I turn on the console, I'm treated to "You found a blue rupee! That's 5 rupees!" the first time I pick one up. Ditto yellow and red. There were no crafting items in that game, so that's the only time it does it, but it struck me as odd that everyone thought it was new for SS.

 

*aside, but man: the dungeons in that game are really well-designed. The art style wasn't great to begin with and doesn't hold up at all, but those are some GOOD levels.

[tegan]

Dude, everybody got pissed off about it in Twilight Princess.

[tberton]

Dude, everybody got pissed off about it in Twilight Princess.

 

Yeah, that's one of the major complaints I hear about that game. I think Skyward Sword is a bit better about it, actually.

[miffy495]

Really? I don't recall a single complaint. I guess I was frequenting the wrong places in 2006. In fact, aside from Idle Thumbs, I don't think I was frequenting ANY places in 2006.

[Woodfella]

Dont remember much about TP other than the end boss and the cool spinning top item. Might revisit after I've finished this. Although I do have Wind Waker HD sitting here too. 

[Twig]

Didn't TP only do it in chests, though? It also had a million chests with completely worthless items. And there were so many rupees you never ran out and you'd just get more chests with rupees and you couldn't even take them out so the chest would stay unopened.

 

I am probably making most of that up. I remember having issues with TP's item gabbing but not as much as I did in Skyward Sword.

[tegan]

TP did it the first time you picked up a Rupee worth more than 1 Rupee after booting the game up, or if you found it in a chest at any time. Basically just like the crafting materials and bugs in SS.

[Twig]

Yeah it's entirely possible I just got "more" fed up with it. Fortunately I was able to use some sweet Game Genie codes to make Skyward Sword less ridiculous about most shit.

 

That said, Skyward Sword is much more handholdy in other manners, like straight up just pointing the camera at puzzle solutions a few times without any prompt, or minute long cutscenes to make sure I see the chest through this window so I'll know I have to get there eventually or or or bleh.

 

I never finished Skyward Sword. I wanted to, but once I had to stop for school projects I just... never went back. This shit undoubtedly contributed to my lack of interest.

[miffy495]

TP does it a lot, but as I said, there are no crafting items so the most it can do it is for each different denomination of rupees. It may do it for bundles of arrows too, I can't recall right now. I just went through the spinner dungeon last night. It's really too bad that TP and SS have so much extra baggage, because I feel like Zelda dungeon design has been improving steadily across the games, but the things surrounding the dungeons have been degrading at a roughly equivalent pace. The dungeons in SS and TP are nearly all SO FUCKING GOOD, but all of that other crap is really starting to weigh the series down.

[Twig]

Hm. I think SS is a lot better than previous Zeldas in a lot of ways! Overworld-wise, especially. Also I like the controls but I know some people have like cat paws for hands and can't figure them out.

 

The only problem SS has, as far as I'm concerned, is just the general hand-holdiness.

[miffy495]

I loved the way that they turned the overworld bits into nearly dungeons in their own right, don't get me wrong. I just feel like there's way too much extraneous shit going on as well. The amount of side-questy weirdness going on in that game is nuts, and why is there a crafting system? I don't play Zelda to catch bugs to upgrade things, and then learn that I need to upgrade my bug net as well? The fuck?

 

That said, I did really like that game and finished it. I'm not saying it was THAT frustrating to me. It was just a lot of distraction that took away from what made the game good, in my mind.

[Twig]

I like upgrading things! O:

 

Agree that it's not very Zelda-like, but I certainly won't hold it against them for trying to stir up the Zelda formula, even if it is in small ways or ways that might feel out of place.

 

Besides that, personally I've always loved the side-questy stuff in Zelda. Maybe that's why Majora's Mask is my favorite. The Biggoron's sword in OoT. All that crazy trading one item for another for another in Link's Awakening. The main quest and the dungeons are certainly the biggest appeal but I like to have other things to do! Not to mention collecting all the heart pieces and wallet upgrades and stuff. O:

 

I actually kind of feel like SS had LESS sidequesty stuff than previous Zeldas, but that may just be because I never finished it. ):

[SecretAsianMan]

I like the Zelda side quests that aren't just collectathons.  I hate any sort of side content that is simply get a million of a thing.  The gold skultulla quest is the only one I never bothered finishing in OoT.  At least getting the heart pieces usually involves some puzzles and there's not that many of them in a given Zelda game anyway.

 

Regarding the dungeons, I don't really remember the ones in TP that much but SS had some good ones.  It also has my favorite boss

 

[miffy495]

Koloktos is rad as shit. I'm really enjoying replaying TP because 8 years later, all I remember is that the Fire, Water, and Sky dungeons blew my mind at the time. I don't remember why. As a result, re-discovering that the fire dungeon revolves around using giant magnetic mining equipment and the iron boots to let you walk on the ceiling and strap yourself in to huge magnetic cranes is rad. As the last thing I did is the boss fight against Stalord, I got to see that new all over again. I'd been wanting to play a Zelda again, and I'm glad I chose TP because I'd played all the others more recently. I actually feel like I'm discovering things again. In 6 years, I'll go for Skyward Sword again. I'm sure I'll love it.

[Danielle]

God, Skyward Sword. I wanted so, so badly to love this game. I made it a good 25+ hours (and enjoyed MOST of that time), before the controls frustrated me to the point where I never picked it up again.

 

I can't tell you how many bombs that I desperately tried to kick ended up exploding right on Link's little elf boots because the command just wouldn't function.

 

Sword fighting was such a mess. I died dozens of times on the very first boss.

 

But the level design! And the world! I even liked the story. I found myself completing weird, time consuming sidequests because I could at least keep playing the game and not die every ten minutes because my Wii Motion Plus Whateverthefuck wasn't up to snuff.

 

Given Nintendo's history with re-releasing games, I do hope we get a version of this with nice, normal controls one day.

[Hermie]

Yeah, for all its problems, I think the SS art direction might be among my favourite for a Zelda game. The color palette alone was just so pleasing, especially in the open areas. It was muted but still colourful, compared to the muted and kinda grey of TP.

 

 

 

 

As for TP, the moments I remember the most was zipping around walls on your gear skateboard. Too bad it was mostly for only one dungeon.

[tegan]

Remember how much better Twilight Princess looked in all of the prerelease stuff?

 

[Merus]

I never finished Skyward Sword because, despite having no trouble with any of the controls, I also had no trouble with any of the dungeons, and it just became a slog. There was one puzzle I didn't immediately get in the entire game, I didn't have to do a lot of discovery or work, I wasn't really having a lot of fun. TP might be a little drab, but I've got much fonder memories of it (in part that's because the writing was better, although the writing in Zelda games is never particularly good).

 

Link Between Worlds has been the best Zelda in recent memory, but I'm almost certainly skipping the next mainline Zelda game unless it turns out it's really, really good.

[Nappi]

I quit just before going through the stargate and haven't picked the game up since. It seems like there would have been only a couple of boss fights between me and the credits, but since I didn't care for the story anymore, disliked the swordplay, and absolutely detested the emo boss they make you fight three fucking time, I simply gave up. Other aspects of the game were nice, though, and I definitely felt like I got my money's worth even if I didn't finish the game.