- The fact that using motion controls doesn't give you the option to also use buttons for certain actions. Look, I get it with stuff like swinging the sword since that completely remaps the controller, but why can't I also interchangeably use button controls for stuff like diving or using the beetle? I legitimately had a lot of trouble with the introduction to diving, where you have to make very specific movements in order to land in the middle of the circle, and eventually just gave up and switched to button-controls. Make this work like just about any other Switch game, Nintendo!
- The fact that every time you want to remove a marker on your map, you have to specifically go all the way to the marker and get rid of it.
- The beetle's speed. I mean ... c'mon. This couldn't get an adjustment? I know there's apparently an upgrade later but, wasting the players time should not be worth rewarding them with less time wasting later. At least make the default speed a little bit better.
- I can't quite remember how vines work in motion-controls mode, since I've been alternating between button and motion controls, but the way they work with buttons is just awful and very clunky. Why? It looks awkward and plays awkwardly. It's Ape Escape gone-wrong (I'm sure this is one complaint that probably couldn't be changed without some heavy overhauling, but still).
- Like the beetle complaint this has more to do with how the original game already works rather than how they could have subtly changed controls for the better, but I'm really surprised that the stamina meter somehow seems worse and more ill-fitted in a linear 3D Zelda than in a giant massive open world game like Breath of the Wild. You can really tell how certain areas were made bigger for no apparent reason other than the run button existing, but the convenience of running is often hindered by the stamina meter. And unlike Breath of the Wild, there's really no reason to stop & pause when your stamina runs out. It's not like you're taking in and accessing this big breathtaking open world where you can take a million paths and have to figure out how to best progress or use your time, you're just waiting out a recharge time limit so you can continue to run down this same linear path. I think running not being part of the stamina meter's depletion would have been nice, or possibly not having a stamina meter at all, but I guess I'll see if this opinion changes as the game progresses. It just feels like the game has so many elements, along with the stamina meter itself, that actively make you slow down to a crawl and do things in a much longer fashion, like a "no-fun-allowed" paradigm of sorts. Guess I just disagree with Nerrel here so far.
That being said, there is definitely some positives. I've played a lot of games in the past few years where I thought the visuals for certain games looked mediocre or just a bit bland while watching people play them, only to be in awe at how good they look when I'm immersed in the game. Skyward Sword HD already looked a lot better to me than the original release just by watching Youtube videos on it, I'm not really sure what it is but a lot of Wii games seem to have their colors pop a lot more when they're remastered on the Switch, but man it really is a very pretty game. I'm still not quite so sure I love
the art style itself, it feels like a creative albeit messy way of hiding the poor textures of the game, and some of the character designs are a bit blegh. But its all delivered in a very cohesive way to make sure the colors constantly pop and the player never takes notice of the detail itself so much as the general ideas being characterized.
I like that the game sort of treats its pre-dungeon areas as dungeons themselves. Which, I guess Zelda has
always kind of done, but it's something that the 3D games had been doing more and more and its really cool to see how Skyward Sword has approached it. At least with Faron Woods, guess I can't talk about much more than that since I've only really beaten the first dungeon. That location, thinking back on it, almost reminds me of how Majora's Mask handled areas. It became more about solving the problems in an area itself, than simply using the area to progress to the dungeon, which is cool.
I also really like the world-building and most of the dialogue. As of now it's a bit hard for me to tell where the game stands here in respect to the rest of the franchise, I feel like just about every Zelda, especially the 3D ones, do a decent enough job in this regard, and Skyward Sword's world-building gimmick characters sometimes step into the realm of annoying rather than entertaining. But Skyward Sword does have some serious things going for it. For example, the fact that Groose basically calls out Link for the boring, bland character he is, practically meta-textually mocking how such an otherwise unremarkable avatar character can constantly be considered so amazing within the world of The Legend of Zelda.
Ghirahim is awesome. I let out a big smile once I realized that this meme character everyone loves is, basically, Nintendo making a Metal Gear Solid antagonist. This is also the only Zelda game I can think of where a major "dungeon" item is not only acquired outside of a dungeon, but in a super memorable and personable way (the slingshot you get from Bucha).
Ultimately I'm enjoying it enough so far, I should be able to finish it and mostly have a positive experience throughout, but it seems like there's way more hiccups than there ought to be. Another thing I'll say that's probably an unfair complaint is, I've at least had a few moments with button-only controls where it legitimately dawns on me how much of this game is essentially just doing what you already did in Zelda games before, but in a more cumbersome and less convenient fashion. And really, I think that's my biggest problem so far. Obviously, it's alleviated a decent amount by using motion-based gyro controls rather than the right analog to swing, but getting stuck in a few webs because I didn't hit the web in the exact angle the game wanted me to, or trying to learn how to dive with motion, or trying to use the beetle precisely with gyro, or perhaps my most consistent control problem of the spin slash being very finnicky with button controls ... I'm not really doing anything I haven't done before, nor am I doing it better, it's just a more inconvenient version of the same thing.
It's really surprising Nintendo didn't take this opportunity back in 2011 to do things that might actually change the game, either. For example: With how smoothly Link holds his sword in this game while walking, why didn't they take this opportunity to make it the only 3D where Link can do attack animations without having to stop for every single one? More powerful attacks like the spin slash or forward thrust or even the skyward strike could stop the player, but regular strikes could be done while moving. Think about how Counter-Strike players play CS:GO. Basically every time you aren't doing anything meaningful, you cycle through your weapons or press the weapon examination button. Make it so that players can do stupid sword swipes while not much is going on. Make it so that enemies can be more reactive and faster now that the player can strike while being mobile.
