The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Public Service Announcement (Impressions)
I’ve never really wanted to jump off of a bridge before, so the feeling sort of came as a surprise. It happened while I was in line waiting to play Skyward Sword for the second time at E3. I was watching person after person ahead of me waggle their Wii remotes, trying to defeat skulltulas and moblins when an insurmountable frustration overtook me. I began glancing around frantically, looking for something incredibly high to throw myself off of, but the only thing in sight was the balcony of the VIP section in Nintendo’s giant castle booth thing. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a VIP.
After a few moments I came to grips with myself and tried to figure out why I had nearly just Link’d myself, but I could not figure it out. It wasn’t until it was my turn to play that I realized the problem: Nobody knows how to f*cking playing f*cking Skyward Sword.
I almost Link’d myself. Get it? Get it!?
I do apologize for my language, but seriously, I swear to Miyamoto himself: Nobody knew how to play Skyward Sword to save their life. And I don’t mean in terms of like, knowing how to beat bosses or find items- oddly enough they seemed very familiar with the Zelda formula- I mean they literally did not understand the concept of playing this game.
I get it though. In the past, Zelda enemies generally consisted of waiting until your enemy exposed his/her weakpoint and then mashing B as fast as your thumb would allow to get as many hits in as you possibly could. But please, for the love of all things good in the world, stop doing this with Skyward Sword. This is not a button mashing game. This is not God of War. This is not Bayonetta. This isn’t even Twilight Princess.
“Austin”, you ask, your innocent little voice ringing through the dark basement where I have put you for your crimes against my sanity, “How am I supposed to play it, then?”
“Did I give you permission to ask a question?”
Don’t think God of War. Think Punch-Out. This is a game with a deeper level of strategy than simply waiting and then mashing buttons. It’s a slower, more thoughtful and methodical game type. Simply waggling the living sh*t out of your wrist like you’ve caught some sort of terrible hand disease does not work, and it’ll only leave you frustrated because you think that the game isn’t following your motions correctly. Hell, if it was following your motions correctly, Link would be very quickly and slightly moving the sword in front of him as if he’s casting a spell with a wand in fast forward and you’d be dead a hell of a lot faster.
Watching people play this game was possibly the most frustrating thing I’ve had to do since playing Metal Gear Solid 3D, because I know exactly how they’ll react: “The game was okay, but the motion controls were just waggles and it didn’t follow my motions very well.” Them saying this is effectively saying the same thing as using your feet to play Call of Duty, and then complaining about how bad the controls are.
”This game sucks. My K/D is like negative thirty!”
To top it all off, no one seemed to get the message no matter how many times their actions failed them. They would try to kill something, fail, try again in the exact same way, fail, try again, fail again, try again, fail again, and then eventually get lucky and win using their ridiculous methods.
Take that, definition of insanity.
I guess maybe I shouldn’t be complaining. I just find it remarkably frustrating to see so many people disliking a game that really doesn’t deserve to be disliked. I had no trouble with MotionPlus. I think I had to re-center it once (which is done simply by pressing down on the D-pad) during the two times I played it, and the device tracked my motions remarkably well. I just did exactly as you’re supposed to: Swing at the elbows, not at the wrists. Link wouldn’t get very far doing what you’re doing. Why should you expect that you will?
Image References: Here, here, here, and here.
Oh, right. The whole “impressions thing.”
It was good. I really enjoyed playing it.
~Austin
