The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Review (Wii)

It’s no surprise that Skyward Sword does so many things right, which makes its flaws stand out but in no way ruins the experience. Some of these have plagued the series since Ocarina of Time, such as the clumsy ’auto-jump’ mechanics that can sometimes make Link leap around in ways you didn’t want him to. The MotionPlus controls also require frequent re-centering (this isn’t too hard, just press down on the directional pad when necessary), and sometimes fall out of sync with the player if you’re moving quickly; it fares much better if you pretend your ’sword’ has significant weight and add very slight pauses between each attack. Even worse, the first hour to seventy-five minutes of play are very tedious. You’ll be sent on a string of tutorials one after another that are punctuated by fetch-quests for characters you won’t care about, and it’s fair to say this game gets off to a very weak start. Fortunately, it’s much better once you get past that first hour or so.

Despite innovations in control, this is a fairly straightforward Zelda experience. You’re still doing the same things in Skyward Sword that you were years ago, sending Link out to find massive caverns and dungeons, locating the special tool within that gives him new abilities, and figuring out how to defeat the boss within. Sometimes these bosses can be defeated in a straight-forward sword battle (which is very fun!), while others are basically puzzles unto themselves and require you to figure out what attacks or tools to use at which time. While part of me wants to criticize this as playing too close to the series’ traditional formula, another part wonders if there is really much purpose in fixing what isn’t broken to begin with. It’s hard to be too upset when the game’s world is so vibrant and interesting, so Skyward Sword’s relatively conservative design may be for the best.

Overall, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is an example of how a solid core allows a game to overcome several minor problems. I could go on for several pages about all sorts of little gripes I have with text speed, some aspects of the controls, and so on... but they don’t define the experience and aren’t worth spending so much time fussing about. You’ll be having too much fun to let those flaws ruin things, and there is certainly enough content and length to justify your purchase!