The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (mini-review)

 

My family hasn’t had this much fun playing a video game since we first bought the Wii. Thatis no joke. My daughter (pictured below) is a huge Zelda fan. She’s seen all the cartoons, knows all the music, and loves sitting in my lap watching me play the games.  My wife grew up on the first Zelda game on the NES. It’s one of the few games she enjoys playing or at least watching me play. So, with a lot of time off (on vacation this week), it has been a family event to play through a significant portion of the new Zelda game, Skyward Sword.

I had high expectations for this game, which you can get a taste of by reading my previous post, so every little thing both good and bad would stick out to me when, normally, they wouldn’t in any other video game. Let me get some of the nit-picky things out of the way first. I don’t like auto jump. In fact, I hate it. Especially when I fall off a ledge in Sky World because then you have to sit through a cut scene fo someone chewing you out for falling off the edge. Too many times do I leap to my “death” on accident because I didn’t stop in time. It is irritating to have to stop gameplay just because I wanted to look over a ledge but not jump over it. Thankfully, they don’t penalize you by taking a heart away like the have done in every Zelda game going back to A Link to the Past. But, it’s still irritating. Also, some of the fetch quests, especially in Sky World, are tame. Lots of helping people find a missing friend/partner/son/daughter etc. Without too much of a spoiler, I will say that some of the stuff that a gargoyle-like creature gives you is pretty useful. Finally, in some ways the game is still too easy, but that’s an issue I’ve had with most modern video games.

That’s really the only problems I have with the game so far. I am thoroughly enjoying the dungeons, the surface world, the sky world, heck the whole game. It brings back a sense of freedom in Zelda games that I’ve always wanted to have back. There is so much to do in the surface world it’s insane. One thing that’s helpful to know before you play is that the surface world is really like one long inter-twined dungeon. In fact, it’s hard to tell when the overworld ends and where the dungeon begins. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the first time you go through each world, you will have to solve A LOT of puzzles to traverse the land. The good thing about that is that you can find ways to open up shortcuts so that when you do go back through each world is far more open and you won’t have to go through so many trials to get where you want to go.

Combat is far more exciting than it has been in any other 3D Zelda game. I have died more than once fighting a group of grunts. And those danged “Little Shop of Horrors” plants that are in every Zelda game now- those things used to be easy and now they are a pain! The bosses are really fun, too. I usually hate playing bosses in 3D video games, but I actually enjoyed the ones I’ve fought so far. They are a puzzle in and of themselves, but unlike past Zeldas (torch-lighting anyone?), the puzzles are based 100% around combat. 

Items and power-ups have been refreshed as well. With the right combination of materials you find and money you spend, you can upgrade ALL of the user-based items (except the sword). This means rupees are worth searching for and holding on to. Stuff’s expensive, too. Danged Beedle raises his prices on you throughout the game! So, that will certainly mean you will have to go back through each level to collect more rupees.

My daughter, dressed as Princess Zelda, Skyward Sword in hand

What are my favorite things in the game so far?  The flying beetle (effectively replaced the boomerang which was my favorite Link weapon until now), sprinting!, the desert world (best world in the game so far and really show off the graphics), and flying. Leaping off the edge of a flying island and onto a bird hasn’t gotten old yet.

So far this has been shaping up to be one of my favorite Wii games and possibly my favorite Zelda game of all time.  Definitely worth buying new and worth getting the snazzy new Wii-mote with it.

Skyward Sword Will Rule Them All…

And wash the Twilight Princess taste out of my mouth.

As I wait in anticipation of the Wii’s next and last great game, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, I have had plenty of time to reflect on why I am psyched about this game when I haven’t been psyched about a new Zelda game in about 15 years. This matters, to put things in perspective, because I was (and very recently AM) a huge Legend of Zelda fan. The first Legend of Zelda is easily my favorite game on the NES. The same goes for A Link to the Past on the SNES.

With those games, my friends and I would stay up all night passing the controller around, drawing our own maps, and debating on what each clue meant to find the next item. Even while I was in college, although my gaming tastes had changed, I still had some love for old school Nintendo characters and looked forward to the memories a 3D Zelda would make with my friends and me.

I could, as the title of this blog post suggests, blame my absence from Zelda fandom all on Twilight Princess, but honestly it all started with a humble little game called Ocarina of Time. I couldn’t wait to play OoT when it first came out. Unfortunately, I blew all my extra money on a PC where I played most of my games, but a friend bought the game at launch. As soon as I could, I went over to his house and feasted my eyes on what was supposed to be (and many say that it IS) the greatest Zelda game ever made.

Sonic Colors (game review)

My wife surprised me for Father’s Day (and my anniversary since they are just a few days apart) by giving me Sonic Colors as a gift. There are only a few more games left on my want list of the Wii and this was one of them. No, I didn’t get it when it first came out, but with so many quality games coming out at the end of last year, this little gem got pushed aside for awhile. But, now that I’ve played it and beat it, what do I think of it?  In my opinion, it will go down as a must-own for Wii owners and as the best 3D Sonic game since Dreamcast.  Here’s how I break it down…

Wii Play Motion (game review)

This game will be the sleeper hit of the summer. I’m calling it right now.

Whenever I have friends over and I fire up the Wii, there are always my go-to games for parties. They include Super Mario Bros, Smash Bros Brawl, Mario Kart, GoldenEye, NBA Jam, or Wii Sports Resort. Never Wii Sports and never Wii Play. I got those on Christmas Day, the same day I got my Wii, but I rarely every play them.

But, unlike Wii Sports, a game that its sequel rendered pointless, Wii Play had me coming back at least for the target practice and that tank game. Wii Play is marketing genious at work. Because it came packaged with a Wiimote, it was basically a way for the consumer to buy a Wiimote and get a disc with a bunch of mini-games on it to show off the motion-sensing tech. And it sold. And sold. And sold. Around 27 million units as a matter of fact.

So, when Nintendo announced that they were releasing a Wiimote that had Wii Motion Plus built into it, I thought surely they would release a sequel to Wii Play as a way to get people to buy that second Wiimote, but instead we got Fling Smash. Never played it, never will. It got panned by the critics and at the time, I didn’t think I’d need much more than the Motion Plus attachments. Wii Sports Resort and Skyward Sword were the only two games I thought I’d ever buy that needed Motion Plus.

But, that all changed with the announcement of Wii U. I had been keeping up with some of the leaked info and early on it was all but officially confirmed by Nintendo that the new console would be fully backwards compatible with the Wii. I immediately thought, “Hmmm, that will most likely mean Nintendo will phase out the Wiimote and just stick with Wiimote Plus.” This thought was further confirmed when it was revealed that Nintendo plans to stick with the Wii-mote as its standard controller beside the new controller. And even if they don’t, having a couple of Wiimotes with Motion Plus built in is something I would want to have for the long run.

So, I preordered Wii Play Motion and got to play it today. Here are my initial thoughts:

The Wii U: Attitudes and Hype

At this years E3 conference this past week, Nintendo finally announced its next console: The Wii U. While the name is more than just a little bit hard to swallow, the features are a welcome addition to the gaming industry. I, for one, am saving my hard earned dollars to purchase the system on day one. I will give my reasons why later. First, however, I want to deal with the attitude that many commentors and armchair critics have had around the web. Most of them are just insane.

I am no video game journalist, but within the span of about an hour, I have gathered all the information one would need to dispell negative rumors about the Wii U. In addition to that, I applied this thing called reason and this other thingy called logic and used them together to understand that most of the negativity is just fanboy hate. Here are some of the knee-jerk reactions that I’ve read over the past few days: