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sarah_senseiWell, I can't say Skyward Sword has supplanted Twilight Princess as my new favorite Zelda... but it was ok overall. Twilight Princess still wins in my opinion and the non-spoilery reasons are as follows:
1) Twilight Princess had an awesome NPC cast.
Skyward Sword was a little lacking in the likable NPC department. Most of the NPCs were really generic and lacked personality. In Twilight Princess I liked all kinds of people: the lady in the bar, the bug girl, the 'fro-guy, Yeto and Yeta... and I liked Midna even when she was mean to you in the beginning of the game. There were a lot of reasons to feel good about kicking ass and taking names. In Skyward Sword, Zelda was pretty much the only person you worried about.
2) Areas felt small and repetitive.
Without saying too much, I felt like I was running in circles a lot and going back to the same places over and over again. I mean, I guess you can say the same about running all over Hyrule Field in other Zelda games. But for some reason in Skyward Sword, I kinda wanted a little more Dungeon, a little less running around.
3) I had no idea what I was doing half the time.
Skyward Sword keeps you in the dark regarding the plot for about half the game, and not in a good way. It's kinda like, "Well, I'm just doing this because the weird spirit that came out of the sword [Fi] told me to..." I had no idea WHY I was doing any of it until a little past the mid-point in the game (I mean besides the obvious, "I'm the hero trying to save Zelda," thing).
4) Fi is no Midna.
I like Midna because she had attitude and started out as a total bitch but then she kinda softens up a little without losing her spunk. Fi, comes off as cold and mechanical, more like a operating system or diagnostic tool for the sword, than a spirit. She is particularly annoying because she constantly speaks in statistics (giving you random percentages in dialogue sequences, and keeping actual track of your battle performance on certain enemies).
I got a little tired of her telling me things like I only have a "60% chance of making it to the end of this room." (When I wasn't even doing poorly, that was just how the dialogue was written). Once I messed up so many times she more or less told me that the probability of me passing the trial was decreasing every time I screwed up! (Which was untrue because I was learning the layout and I was getting slowly better at it). And people didn't like Navi yelling "Hey, listen!" every few minutes. Fi left me wanting to scream at her like Han Solo, "Never tell me the odds!"
5) I cried like a baby at the end of Twilight Princess.
Every time I play Twilight Princess, or even just load my game and beat the final boss, I CRY like a BABY when I watch the ending. The whole deal with Midna makes me cry every time and I mean full blown tears. In Skyward Sword, I think ONE tear nearly escaped when one character disappeared during the ending sequence... and that was about it. It just didn't have the emotional impact that Twilight Princess did :\
The Good:
The new controls were pretty cool and the Motion Plus sword action was easier to control than I thought it would be. I liked some of the new elements in the game such as upgrading equipment (though breakable shields were kind of annoying). The game was very colorful and the visuals were like a mixture of Wind Waker cel shading and Twilight Princess' more "realistic" look.
The Bad:
Too much repetition, not enough dungeon action. Plot/Story was a little ordinary. NPCs were generic and dull and I didn't care about any of them particularly. They left you in the dark about the main plot a little longer than they should have (had they told me more earlier on, I may have felt more invested in what I was doing).
The Ugly:
Fuck you Din, and your fucking trial near the volcano. I also didn't care for fighting "The Imprisoned" every few minutes near the last 1/3 of the game. The last couple bosses were also a pain in the ass, so I "cheated" like a little bitch and made some super special awesome potions to help me with the very last boss. I am not entirely proud of that...
Overall, it is about what I expected, but I think part of me wanted it to be a little more epic. It felt good going in, but by the end, it was pretty clear that Twilight Princess still 0wned.
1) Twilight Princess had an awesome NPC cast.
Skyward Sword was a little lacking in the likable NPC department. Most of the NPCs were really generic and lacked personality. In Twilight Princess I liked all kinds of people: the lady in the bar, the bug girl, the 'fro-guy, Yeto and Yeta... and I liked Midna even when she was mean to you in the beginning of the game. There were a lot of reasons to feel good about kicking ass and taking names. In Skyward Sword, Zelda was pretty much the only person you worried about.
2) Areas felt small and repetitive.
Without saying too much, I felt like I was running in circles a lot and going back to the same places over and over again. I mean, I guess you can say the same about running all over Hyrule Field in other Zelda games. But for some reason in Skyward Sword, I kinda wanted a little more Dungeon, a little less running around.
3) I had no idea what I was doing half the time.
Skyward Sword keeps you in the dark regarding the plot for about half the game, and not in a good way. It's kinda like, "Well, I'm just doing this because the weird spirit that came out of the sword [Fi] told me to..." I had no idea WHY I was doing any of it until a little past the mid-point in the game (I mean besides the obvious, "I'm the hero trying to save Zelda," thing).
4) Fi is no Midna.
I like Midna because she had attitude and started out as a total bitch but then she kinda softens up a little without losing her spunk. Fi, comes off as cold and mechanical, more like a operating system or diagnostic tool for the sword, than a spirit. She is particularly annoying because she constantly speaks in statistics (giving you random percentages in dialogue sequences, and keeping actual track of your battle performance on certain enemies).
I got a little tired of her telling me things like I only have a "60% chance of making it to the end of this room." (When I wasn't even doing poorly, that was just how the dialogue was written). Once I messed up so many times she more or less told me that the probability of me passing the trial was decreasing every time I screwed up! (Which was untrue because I was learning the layout and I was getting slowly better at it). And people didn't like Navi yelling "Hey, listen!" every few minutes. Fi left me wanting to scream at her like Han Solo, "Never tell me the odds!"
5) I cried like a baby at the end of Twilight Princess.
Every time I play Twilight Princess, or even just load my game and beat the final boss, I CRY like a BABY when I watch the ending. The whole deal with Midna makes me cry every time and I mean full blown tears. In Skyward Sword, I think ONE tear nearly escaped when one character disappeared during the ending sequence... and that was about it. It just didn't have the emotional impact that Twilight Princess did :\
The Good:
The new controls were pretty cool and the Motion Plus sword action was easier to control than I thought it would be. I liked some of the new elements in the game such as upgrading equipment (though breakable shields were kind of annoying). The game was very colorful and the visuals were like a mixture of Wind Waker cel shading and Twilight Princess' more "realistic" look.
The Bad:
Too much repetition, not enough dungeon action. Plot/Story was a little ordinary. NPCs were generic and dull and I didn't care about any of them particularly. They left you in the dark about the main plot a little longer than they should have (had they told me more earlier on, I may have felt more invested in what I was doing).
The Ugly:
Fuck you Din, and your fucking trial near the volcano. I also didn't care for fighting "The Imprisoned" every few minutes near the last 1/3 of the game. The last couple bosses were also a pain in the ass, so I "cheated" like a little bitch and made some super special awesome potions to help me with the very last boss. I am not entirely proud of that...
Overall, it is about what I expected, but I think part of me wanted it to be a little more epic. It felt good going in, but by the end, it was pretty clear that Twilight Princess still 0wned.
