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Skyward Sword
Jul. 28th, 2015 09:53 am* Found all the heart pieces
* Found all the items and upgrades
* Fully upgraded all the upgrades
* Got all the gratitude crystals
* Beat the game
Well that was 75 hours of my life.
Did you wake up and hear a tiny, distant mewling sound last night? That was me crying after I cracked my laptop screen with my Wiimote while fighting the final boss. I was typing up the little speech he gives, and then he lunged at me and I panicked. I'm going to have to come up with a good excuse to explain this to the Muggles.
Someone I just started following on Tumblr called Skyward Sword "Legend of Fetchquest: The Game," and that sounds about right. I actually spent good portions of the back half of this game playing while listening to my backlog of This American Life to keep things interesting during the rote and mechanical gameplay. Don't get me wrong – this game is gorgeous and creative. Still, it's way too long, and the last fifteen hours weren't strictly necessary. I think I'm going to call this "Final Fantasy Syndrome" from now on. Bros, it's okay for a game to be only sixty hours long; sixty hours is still a lot of hours.
Skyward Sword also has a major issue with pacing and story development. For example, during the first hour or two of the game, Groose is a major character, and then you don't see him at all until the last third of the game, when suddenly he's supposed to be a big deal. Likewise, Link chases Zelda without really seeing much of her for the first half of the game, and then she totally disappears. When she comes back, it's difficult to care, so the game forces the player's empathy by damseling her.
And holy abysmal mother of Cthulhu is Zelda ever damseled. The game is super focused on her pain as Ghirahim performs his creepy hands magic ritual throughout the sequence leading to the final boss fight. You're fighting your way down into the pit of the Imprisoned, and then the camera will cut to Zelda writhing and moaning, and then it's back to you butchering up hordes of small creatures that have been coerced into battle against you. It's kind of gross, to be honest.
So not one of the strongest games in the series, then. I don't think I did myself any disservice by focusing on the handheld Zelda titles for the past four years.
Next up is...
...I don't know, actually. I'm probably going to finish up Brothers and then mess around with some browser games. After that maybe I'll give Okami another shot? Idk, Okami has never really captivated my attention, and there are a lot of small developer titles that have come out on the WiiU during the past six months. I want to get a PS4, but I'm holding on to my PS3 until they release Steins;Gate. Technically I could play it on PC, but my laptop isn't exactly a precision machine... and now the damn screen is cracked.
* Found all the items and upgrades
* Fully upgraded all the upgrades
* Got all the gratitude crystals
* Beat the game
Well that was 75 hours of my life.
Did you wake up and hear a tiny, distant mewling sound last night? That was me crying after I cracked my laptop screen with my Wiimote while fighting the final boss. I was typing up the little speech he gives, and then he lunged at me and I panicked. I'm going to have to come up with a good excuse to explain this to the Muggles.
Someone I just started following on Tumblr called Skyward Sword "Legend of Fetchquest: The Game," and that sounds about right. I actually spent good portions of the back half of this game playing while listening to my backlog of This American Life to keep things interesting during the rote and mechanical gameplay. Don't get me wrong – this game is gorgeous and creative. Still, it's way too long, and the last fifteen hours weren't strictly necessary. I think I'm going to call this "Final Fantasy Syndrome" from now on. Bros, it's okay for a game to be only sixty hours long; sixty hours is still a lot of hours.
Skyward Sword also has a major issue with pacing and story development. For example, during the first hour or two of the game, Groose is a major character, and then you don't see him at all until the last third of the game, when suddenly he's supposed to be a big deal. Likewise, Link chases Zelda without really seeing much of her for the first half of the game, and then she totally disappears. When she comes back, it's difficult to care, so the game forces the player's empathy by damseling her.
And holy abysmal mother of Cthulhu is Zelda ever damseled. The game is super focused on her pain as Ghirahim performs his creepy hands magic ritual throughout the sequence leading to the final boss fight. You're fighting your way down into the pit of the Imprisoned, and then the camera will cut to Zelda writhing and moaning, and then it's back to you butchering up hordes of small creatures that have been coerced into battle against you. It's kind of gross, to be honest.
So not one of the strongest games in the series, then. I don't think I did myself any disservice by focusing on the handheld Zelda titles for the past four years.
Next up is...
...I don't know, actually. I'm probably going to finish up Brothers and then mess around with some browser games. After that maybe I'll give Okami another shot? Idk, Okami has never really captivated my attention, and there are a lot of small developer titles that have come out on the WiiU during the past six months. I want to get a PS4, but I'm holding on to my PS3 until they release Steins;Gate. Technically I could play it on PC, but my laptop isn't exactly a precision machine... and now the damn screen is cracked.
