Anyone gotten it / played it yet? How do you feel about it vs. how you felt at the launches of previous Zelda games?

My Wii is not with me so I can't buy/play it for some time (and I don't have WiiMotionPlus either :() but I am super pumped about it. Haven't read too much of it on purpose because I want to experience the game without being colored by spoilers and reviews etc. From the vague high-level commentary I've read on it though I am super duper excited.

I'll get it for the holidays, I'm guessing it will still be fun.

I heard 40 hour playtime. But will that be 25 hours of fetch-quest nonsense?

It's not as good as Twilight Princess. In fact, of the 3d zeldas, I'd put this one last.

I'm right outside the first dungeon, having just defeated it, and up until this point the game has been, for the most part, disappointing. This game is very much like Ocarina of Time in one bad way. In Majora's Mask, you get turned into a deku scrub. You have no idea wtf is going on. In Wind Waker, your sister is kidnapped by a giant bird. You have no idea wtf is going on. In Twilight Princess, your girlfriend is kidnapped AND you get turned into a wolf. You have no idea wtf is going on. In Ocarina of Time, and in Skyward Sword, your adventure starts when a mystical being tells you how awesome you are. Also, that first dungeon? It makes the deku tree seem hard. Hard, and really, really, big. If the rest of the dungeons are like this.. I thought they couldn't get easier than Twilight Princess. I was wrong.
The controls aren't that great. They are far beyond Twilight Princess - none of that waggle-is-a-keypress nonsense, but, the motion controls are so important to the game that when they fail, you will notice. And they fail a lot. The game is especially fond of confusing throwing and rolling. Oh, and, apparently you can't auto-aim projectile weapons at z-targetted enemies. Hitting the button for the item launches you into first person mode every time. For aiming itself, I need to look to see if there's any way to increase the sensitivity. It lets you recenter the aiming at will, which is a good thing because you'll have to recenter it every single time.

The game is absolutely gorgeous. I mean, wow. There's nothing more I can say about the graphics. You'll forget it's in standard definition pretty quick. Even the doors are pretty.

Speaking of doors, everything seems to behave the same as they have since Ocarina of Time, and last I heard they were still using the Ocarina engine in Twilight Princess; anyone know if that's still the case?

I highly, highly doubt they were using the Ocarina of Time engine in anything past Majora's Mask. It's just such a vastly different system on Gamecube (and subsequently Wii which is basically a suped up Gamecube). All the super-meticulous optimizations, programming and such that they needed for the N64 were basically moot for the Gamecube, and it was different hardware top down to boot.

I don't know how much of the code-base survived the jump from Majora's Mask to Wind Waker, but I know I read in an interview somewhere that nintendo didn't start from scratch (And Ocarina of Time's engine began as the Mario64 engine). They've also made it clear that Wind Waker was the starting point for the development of Twilight Princess. So if they started with Twilight Princess rather than from scratch, that would mean Skyward Sword uses the Mario64 engine.

First: I absolutely cannot believe this game requires motion control. Why? I won't be playing this one simply because I can't.

Also, I remember reading what JM is saying on an article about the right and wrong ways to recycle an engine, but I can't find it now.

Well you see, it's a Wii game...

Preordered it from Amazon, and since it's a wacky Sunday release Nintendo game, it doesn't get release date delivery, so still waiting on it. No big deal though, still have many hours left in Skyrim.

I was under the impression it would use the same engine as Super Mario Galaxy.

But it doesn't look a thing like

http://www.zeldac.com/legend-of-zelda-images/ocarina-of-time-beta-development/

This was really bugging me, so I just spent a great deal of time looking it up. From what I can suss out on the internet, there's no clear answer. It seems WW was a brand new engine that was based on the upgraded Mario64 engine used by MM, but is either so heavily modified, or is only inspired by it, that it is its own separate engine.

An "engine" is just a library for game development.

I'm not sure how much code you need to carry forward in order for something to qualify as the same engine, but there is a lot of code you could reuse from a N64 up to a Wii, and in a wide range of different products. We also already know Nintendo has at least some shared codebase (e.g. bmd files.) It might be reasonable to say that all Nintendo games run on the same engine.

So I'm guessing this is pretty much the swansong game of this console, like Twilight Princess for the Gamecube. So what now for Nintendo?

Is the handheld gaming hardware even worthwhile in the near future? I mean, Sony has a new PSP but I don't even see any excitement for it. Everyone who has a smartphone can game on it now and do 800 other things.

The 3ds is nice, but as typical for Nintendo hardware, only Nintendo uses it right. Compare Ocarina of Time 3ds to the slew of gimicky 3d games out for it.

We would have had a much better showing on the Wii if Nintendo had released a game like Skyward Sword earlier to show other developers how motion controls are supposed to work.

So true for the 3DS. The only games for it that I've played so far that were worth a damn were OoT, Star Fox, and Mario 3DS...

Prime 3 is as good as you can get with the original hardware. If developers didn't learn anything from that, I doubt they're going to learn anything from a creative use of this generation's Expansion Pak.

It's too late. They will all be developing for the wii u now.

lol

This is either the best spambot we've ever had, or there is a new member. Quick! See if it's posting by proxy!

He wants us to help him pirate the game. We don't need new members bad enough to tolerate that.

Super Mario Fantasy Fox VI - F-Zero Turbo Edition EX Story Island



Haha, no.

What do you think we are, a bunch of poors?

So has the game gotten better, JM?

Not really. It also suffers from a really bad case of WTF. You'll understand when you see the second boss. Or the imprisoned.

I'm about 18 hours into Skyward Sword and love it. Definitely in my top three. I have noticed some trouble with the controls but I blame that more on myself than the game. From my perspective, it tends to be an issue where I didn't make the desired motion quite right, r big enough to recognize how I moved it. It's a habit I have picked up from other Wii games where a simple waggle is enough.

The story has been fantastic and keeps me wondering and motivated, as it should. The graphics are perfect for the game and characters, and the orchestrated music is also fantastic.

As with previous games in the series, I haven't felt annoyed by traveling from destination to destination. Flying has beentheclosest thingto it, but it's not as bad as other games. There's a ton to do between temples which also helps distract from the traveling.

Can't decided if I would give it a ten or not yet, but it's absolutely up there.

If your wondering, A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time are the other two in my top thee list.

So I finished the game earlier this week. Meant to reply to this sooner, but work, urgh.

SOME BACKGROUND:
I'm a Zelda junkie. I own nearly all the Zelda games, and some more than one copy (when re-released for other systems). A Link to the Past is what got me into the series. I'm not sure if I have a favorite, but for some reason I can't explain, I really didn't like Minish Cap, I thought Wind Waker dropped the ball in some places, and Zelda 2, while not a horrible game, is likely my least favorite. Zelda, for me, isn't really about the storyline as much as the overall experience. I also enjoy the Wii and a number of games that have come out for it, having little issue with games that involve motion controls.

GRAPHICS:
Not surprisingly, the graphics are pretty awesome. However, this is one of the first Wii games where I really felt it could have benefited from having higher resolution. I do wish that Nintendo had stuck with their original aesthetic style they intended for Skyward Sword, which I heard was impressionism -- you can tell they cut back to something more 'traditional' and I feel it suffered a little from that.

MUSIC:
The orchestral music is beautiful! Part of me is a little sad that the harp isn't more involving, but I know it's better that they didn't try to force an "instrument playing" mechanic into the game as they did with Twilight Princess -- the harp works well enough as just following a simple rhythm. It may not be /quite/ as moving as the music in Link's Awakening or Majora's Mask, but it's certainly up there.

STORYLINE:
I'll try to remain spoiler-free here, but as a non-Ganon-starring game, it's not bad. It's nice to see an actual romantic relationship for once between Zelda and Link, and a lot of the NPCs are really engaging. It helps that, during conversations, the options to select are amusing and not simple yes/no, even if they largely don't affect gameplay, they do add to the story experience. However, I didn't really care for Demise as a character, as he seemed too generic. I didn't feel he was really worth fighting as a character, or sympathetic, or mysterious, or really what his deal was other than "I'm evil!" At least Ganon clearly comes from a culture of thieves and seems driven out of greed most of the time. Ghiraham is enjoyable, though, and creepy!

While not quite part of the "storyline" exactly, I'd also point out that the environments are a little less lacking than most Zelda games. However, they make up for it by the density - every place was enjoyable to visit, especially the desert that turns to a sea as you're cruising in your boat -- THAT was also an amazing graphical/aesthetic touch!

GAMEPLAY/DESIGN:
This is a big one, considering that Skyward Sword is all about the motion controls. Overall, I enjoyed the experience -- they did an excellent job of making the swordplay the opposite of "waggle controls" as I see it. However, I must admit that I feel the game drops the ball somewhat in certain areas. For instance, it took me pretty much the whole game to realize that the game was designed for the player to make their motions strong. It punishes you for attempting anything remotely sloppy and quick, and that's great, except the game doesn't make it clear enough that this is the case, and even then, there's the small percentage that the motion controls still won't quite read correctly (at least while in the not-as-objective moment of playing) or outright fail and have something start diving to one side (which the "centering" action normally helps mitigate), both of which can be really frustrating. There are other instances where the gameplay design drops the ball, such as when you first receive a bomb bag, you are told you can store bombs, but there is nothing to force you in a "safe" area to learn this new mechanic, which caused lots of wasted time on the following boss that requires the player to know they can do that. Another boss battle requires using a type of horizontal attack that, up to that point, was never required (and could have been easily missed by the player), and the situation could have been easily resolved again with a "safe" area shortly beforehand to learn how to do this. It's mostly frustrating because Fi (the Navi equivalent in this game) will often chime in and talk far too much about very obvious things. Unlike Navi, though, Fi can actually be useful/helpful in certain places -- I just wish Nintendo had taken more a page from their recent Mario games and made the "newbie help" (Fi's conversations) more optional. I also wish that the Z-targeting worked with ranged attacks like in Twilight Princess.

Regardless of the complaining, there are some fantastic gameplay moments. Most of the bosses are some of the most fun I've had in Zelda game, as is most of the puzzles, normal battles and sidequests.

OVERALL EXPERIENCE:
I'd call it a mixed bag, but only relative to other Zelda games. The parts of the game that are awesome (of which is a lot) are some of the best in any Zelda game, and it's unfortunate that there are a few parts (namely where I felt the ball was dropped, though thankfully not as much as Wind Waker) that keep it from being my favorite of the series. I'd definitely play it again, and I'd suggest the game to anyone with the caveat that they not try to play the game carelessly for lack of better words.