Blog Posts For The Post-Posting Challenged: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Pictured Above: Link feels a tad threatened, while the emaciated shopkeep shows off his wares.

     Its like, “that’s not what’s happening in that picture…” Anyway, for those of you who have taken to a lifestyle of monasticism, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is welcoming itself to stores in North America on Nov. 20. Yes, that is tomorrow. Yes, I will probably get no sleep tonight. Let’s not make my sleep habits our focus, however. Let me tell you what I know about this game, and why any person with an inkling of a tendency to play video games should dive into this adventure. *takes a deep breath*

     Hmmm, perhaps I inhaled too deeply.

Skyward Sword(abbreviated hereon as SS) was initially announced at E3 2010. What wasn’t announced was that Nintendo had been working on SS since the months directly preceding the release of Twilight Princess back in 2006. Now, in 2011, Nintendo has put 5 years of effort into this game. By their own telling, SS is the “biggest Zelda to date”, with a team of over 100 (count ‘em) people working on the title. Nintendo has put an effort into refining what makes their flagship franchise special- but they’ve come back from that effort with a shocking  new control scheme that has left most (*coughcoughTOMMCSHEAcough*") reviewers dazzled. However, as one would expect, the team at Nintendo overhauled much more than the control scheme- the entire process of playing Zelda has been streamlined, and, more importantly, rethought. Gone is the progression that you could follow in your sleep. The puzzles, typically reserved for dungeons, have bled into the overworld- thought it should be said that the line between overworld and dungeon has been blurred.

     Let’s pay a tad of attention to the control scheme. I’ve embedded a video that should lay bare the ease of the motion control here. There is a duality to the controls- it has a sense of depth, but yet remains fairly simple- you simply choose the direction to swing your sword. Of course, there are a few special moves, but most of the combat revolves around finding the weakness in your enemies defenses, and exploiting it. Well, that and trying to stay alive. The rest of the controls exhibit this same level of pleasure and simplicity.

     I could go on. I’ve been following this title closely for months now, and I’m more than excited to finally get my hands on it tomorrow. I could talk about the music, the art direction, the story that has apparently moved players to tears- but I think I’ll just let the game speak for itself tomorrow. If you have a Wii, you owe it to your neglected system to buy yourself a copy of Skyward Sword, and find out why Nintendo pushed for motion control all those years ago.

Also: This morning I stumbled across a talented musical artist, who I will likely do a bigger post relating to soon. This link will take you to his most recent work. Impressive.

Have a great day!

Sparkly Retro Magic: Part 2

 

Touching back on my previous post, I'd like to summarize what made Mega Man 2 so great. Just like any good story, a video game requires pacing to keep the player interested. Given the limitations of that era's technology, the Mega Man franchise on the NES excelled in continuously interesting the player with new abilities and not revealing too much at any given time. Generally the player was given a single new ability after defeating each level. Of course, there were other ways of pacing the game to reveal just enough at any given point in time, but for a game like Mega Man that had separate levels within a menu structure, a new ability per level was a natural way to maintain player interest.

     Mega Man 2 was also one of the earlier games to exhibit non-linear game progression. As mentioned before, the player was given a variety of levels to choose from in any order they wished. However, defeating a certain boss was usually easier using a certain weapon they were weak against. Navigating levels in Mega Man was not unlike a puzzle- trying different combinations to find the path of least resistance. There is a surprising amount of dpeth to be found in this simplistic structure.

    

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is one of the finest classic examples of fantastic pacing. However the structure is far removed from games like Mega Man. Whereas Mega Man gave you a level menu to choose and rewards you based upon your completion of that level, Zelda gave you an open world- you rely totally on your own exploration skills to find new items and progress. I suppose, in that sense, it is not best to refer to the game's progression as "pacing"- because in reality, the game waits for you to make the decision to progress. A Link to the Past is in my opinion, one of the best Zelda games- because it is a full world, so to speak. At every turn there is new content to interest and engage the player, each new item or event complimenting his overall quest. It never feels broken or disjointed. Rather, the game is an uninterrupted whole from beginning to end in a single, expertly interwoven story. Unless, of course, you can't complete a quest- then you'll run around frantically like a bee with no hive and eventually regress into controller-flinging rage. The temper tantrums are your OCD's fault, though, not Zelda's.

On a related note, is it kosher for me to insult my reader? Oh well, too late.

     If you're interested in purchasing a copy of either of these games, you can find both Mega Man 2 and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on the Wii's Virtual Console. If you're cool, you can also find them on their original consoles.