Critical Reception: Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

This week's edition of Critical Reception examines online reaction to Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, which reviewers describe as "a very good Zelda game and a rather great adventure game." Skyward Sword currently earns a score of 95 out of 100 at Metacritic.com. Wired's Chris Kohler scores Skyward Sword at 10 out of 10. "It has taken Nintendo five years to release a game in this series developed exclusively for Wii, and it delivers in every way possible including some you wouldn't necessarily expect," he praises. Kohler continues: "The visual design and music are gorgeous, the gameplay varied and well paced, the script humorous. And there's a lot of it. As of this writing I've lost 30 hours to Skyward Sword and I still have more to do." Kohler praises the game's use of the motion-tracking Wii MotionPlus peripheral. "The most immediately obvious way that this affects the new game is in the swordplay," he notes. "In Twilight Princess, waggling the controller any which way produced the same basic sword strike. In Skyward Sword, your onscreen sword mirrors the position and orientation of your hand, allowing you to slash any which direction or poke your sword forward when a thrust is called for. "You don't encounter as many enemies in Skyward Sword as in previous games, but each enemy fight is more meaningful since you can't just hack and slash your way through them without getting your sword at the ready and making precise cuts." "The most important change is that most everything feels new," Kohler writes. "The fights against giant boss creatures at the end of each dungeon don't rely on old ideas. The classic characters are replaced, for the most part, with novel ones. If you already know what's going to happen, is that really capturing the spirit of the original Legend of Zelda, in which we all went in blind? Skyward Sword shows that 'a real Zelda game' is about more than certain items or certain gameplay rituals, which in the end is more meaningful than adding better sword controls." Jose Otero at 1UP gives Skyward Sword a B+ rating. "Skyward Sword shows that Nintendo EAD has learned a lot since 2006's Twilight Princess and the two portable games that followed," he observes. "With this latest sequel, the developers have crafted a remarkable adventure that implements some of the most forward-thinking ideas of the series." Otero continues: "Combat is fluid, intuitive, and requires careful observation of enemy patterns to ultimately be successful. The new system never feels too complex, but the timing window to strike enemies can feel small in the heat of battle." The MotionPlus features extend beyond swordplay, Otero explains: "Of course, Zelda always consists of more than just swinging a sword, and about ten hours into the game it hit me that a majority of these motion control concepts are carried over from Wii Sports Resort. Sword fighting, bowling, archery, flight, and sky diving were all featured in that minigame collection, and those ideas are all put to great use in this much more traditional game experience." "Perhaps the most impressive and polarizing element of Skyward Sword is the set of three overland areas that you'll constantly revisit throughout the main quest," Otero writes. "As the boundaries peel away in each zone, new secrets are revealed and areas explored. But recycling zones in this manner means that variety of gameplay is critical; while Skyward Sword brings a fresh take on some of the game's well-known mechanics, it's here where the game becomes uneven, falling into a predictable pattern of quest lines that alternate between new ideas and filler material." "While the developers made a conscious effort to shake things up with new ideas and implementations, the game falls into a weird middle ground filled with genuine surprises, inessential carry-overs, and copy/paste quest structures," Otero summarizes. "That said, I still believe this to be one of the more admirable chapters of the series, even if at times it feels the developers were unsure of which sacred cows to keep and which to sacrifice." Giant Bomb's Patrick Klepek gives Skyward Sword 4 out of 5 stars. "How you come into Skyward Sword partially depends on how you took to Link the last time," he asserts. "Top to bottom, I found Twilight Princess painfully boring, which is, perhaps, a fate worse than bad." "Skyward Sword could not be more different," Klepek continues. "It's not just the added fidelity from Motion Plus that makes the difference, it's that your physical actions are truly meaningful when it comes to engaging in just about every combat scenario in Skyward Sword." Other mechanics fail to engage, however. "The game includes a forgettable element of potion-crafting and item-upgrading, a case of good ideas that don't go far enough," Klepek explains. "Some depth would have gone a long way here, especially if players could have any customization of Link's sword, the weapon he spends the most time with in the game. The sword's path is all story-driven, and that makes it difficult to forge a unique identity through upgrades. It ends up feeling like you're working way harder for upgrades that would have been found naturally in a dungeon in any other Zelda game." Klepek also warns that the game is slow to start, but quickly gains momentum. "It takes several hours before you're given any sense of real freedom, which is too bad, as the game manages to merge the sublime openness of the sea from Wind Waker (without the Triforce madness!) with the directed fun of most other games," he explains. "And by the time you start seeing what the designers really have in store for you, you actually don't want it to stop, even if you're able to constantly, cynically predict when the game will ask you to find just One More Thing before it's all over." "Skyward Sword is simultaneously a very good Zelda game and a rather great adventure game," Klepek concludes. "But the series finds itself facing an identity crisis, as it flirts with expanding what has defined the series without abandoning its charming but waning simplicity. Zelda doesn't need to become something else to maintain relevance, but at a certain point, when 'a brand-new great Zelda game' isn't enough, there's reason to pause."