Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

A post from our guest blogger Faado. A massive thank you to him for this review on the latest Zelda game. - The Control Room. 

Ok so I was looking through the past reviews and I noticed that there was a review for twilight princess but not skyward sword. So I thought to myself “something must be done about this! Challenge accepted”   

And here it is:  

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword 

Ok so by this point in life we should all know the main characters in the Zelda series and if you don’t then you need to get down to the local game store and buy yourself a Nintendo console ('cause you obviously don’t own one. How else can you explain the lack of Zelda in your life?). For this particular title you will be needing a Nintendo Wii and a Wii motion plus controller. But I digress; this is about the game itself not the amazing consoles. So the game starts as the hero Link (not Zelda, Zelda is a girls name) is waking up on the day of his final flying exam, but as with any teenager his first thoughts upon waking up are not ‘HOLY MOLEY, I HAVE AN EXAM TODAY!’ No his first thoughts were ‘right lets go chill with my mates for a bit, 'cause that’s just how epic I am” so he goes to find the most important person to him, good old, not so princess, Zelda. And what does she do? She does what any good girl would do - completely ignores everything he says and throws him off the edge of their flying island only to realise that something is wrong, dive off the edge to save him with her giant bird, and then break down in tears when she realises she almost killed her ‘best friend’. So then your left with one major question, “hey where the heck is my giant bird? I’m the main character, I need a giant bird!” and this is where you meet the most obvious character in the game. Obvious how? Well Link is effectively in school, and what does every good school need? That’s right, an overconfident bully. Enter Groose, the greatest idiot to have ever graced a legend of Zelda game. Turns out in an effort keep our man Link out of the final exam, which takes the form of a race, Groose and his boys have somehow managed to capture and lock away your faithful, flying companion. Of course this is no problem for our great adventurer and he quickly rushes of to free his bird and wipe the smug grin off Grooses face. 

Now it’s not too long after this that our heroes’ world gets casually flipped upside down and he is forced to watch as his precious friend is dragged down below the thick clouds that had been the edge of their world for as long as anybody had known. And so Link is forced to begin his search for a way down below the clouds, which inevitably leads to the acquisition of the titular, Skyward Sword, and the meeting with a character so annoying I actually cried for Navi at times. Once you’re stuck with Fi (and when I say stuck I mean there is absolutely no getting rid of her) then you're off for your first experience of good old fashioned Hyrule and you know what that means… your first dungeon, and more importantly your first boss; who is quite possibly one of the campest bosses in video game history and my personal second favourite character in the entire game. Now as stories go Skywards swords is pretty good, admittedly it can be a little predictable at times, but I found that those moments weren’t disappointing in the slightest - instead they managed to make you feel good about story and the way in which it was heading. 

Now as far as the actual game play is concerned the most difficult thing about it, in my opinion, was getting used to the motion plus controls. Being an unfortunately lazy gamer I found myself trying to play the game with just general swings of the remote - the kind required for twilight princess… or any Wii game before the motion plus. Of course once I realised that just wasn’t going to happen, I picked myself a seated position that allowed adequate arm swinging room and started playing the game properly, like a boss. My personal favourite feature of the game is the rather simple item upgrades, that’s not just the sword but pretty much everything from bug nets to the rather beautiful bow… well that, of course and the flying on a giant bird (can’t express how cool they are.). 

Next up is the graphics. Now as a hard core gamer and someone who had just transferred from the mighty Skyrim, there was something about the Skyward Sword graphics that weren’t quite the HQ games I was used to and at the same time weren’t quite the cell shading of the wind waker. Now at first the ever so slightly cartoony feel to the graphics made me weary, but after playing the game for a while I started to realise that they gave the game its own unique charm, like it had looked at the big high def games of the Xbox and PS3 and thought ‘you know what? No. I’m not gonna compete with them. Instead I’m gonna do what Nintendo does best. I’m gonna make you fall in love with me in a way that means once you’ve got bored of you Call of Duty and your Battlefield, you’ll come back to me and you’ll love me all the same.’ Now if you are looking for a Zelda game that will compete with the quality of the of the HD consoles then you have two choices. One, go play Twilight Princess or two, wait for the legendary Wii U and the beautiful Zelda that will be coming with it (hopefully). 

Now as for ratings I give Skyward Sword 9/10 my only real problems with the game were the fact that Fi obviously thinks we are all total morons, and that the final boss left me wishing for so much more. But it did manage the incredible feat of keeping me away from Skyrim for a full 2 weeks which is no easy feat (just ask any of my four characters) and it’s the kind of game I will happily go back to weeks, months even years later and love it just as much as ever. The legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is most defiantly a game the series and the fans can be proud of.