Skyward Sword is a prequel to the entire Zelda series and while the story isn’t too dissimilar to the storylines of the other games (Zelda is kidnapped, Link must travel around Hyrule searching for items in order to help find her and prevent evil rising) there are still a lot of reasons to buy this game
Firstly, in this game, Link lives in a village on a floating island in the sky (Skyloft) and, as such, to travel to other areas (also in the sky) he must ride on a giant flying bird. Of course, beneath the sky, there is also the usual Hyrule, but it’s segmented into three sections (unfortunately), but there is still a substantial amount of flying involved. Flying is, for the most part, fun, but can occasionally feel a little bit boring when you have a long distance to travel and you’re just flying through empty air.
Secondly, I think that the game puts quite a twist on the usual “go to one place, do it’s temple, repeat’ style of the other games. Sometimes you’re in the middle of one of the dungeons and you don’t even realise it! You also actually have to go back into a past dungeon in order to do something in there that you couldn’t do originally. Plus, there are these bits inside something called the Silent Realm which I think are really, really good, but, I wouldn’t like to spoil this for you.
However, there is one new feature which I don’t find particularly enjoyable. There are a number of times where you have to do specific movements with the Wii Remote in order to succeed in sword fights. It’s always quite clear what movement you have to do, so I do the correct thing, but it’s all very silly and often thinks I’m doing something else entirely. This can be very frustrating at times and would be avoided entirely if you used buttons. Having said that, there are other puzzles which involve motion controls which I really quite enjoyed (certain locks for example).
In conclusion, this game adds to and improves on the features of some of the past Zelda games, but also has a couple of downsides. The graphics are rather nice (a mix of Twilight Princess and Wind Waker style) which makes for some nice looking environments to explore. Also, as a final note, I think the relationship between Link and Zelda in this game is better than it has been in any other games, I know people like to ‘ship’ (as they say) this couple, but this is the first time I’ve believed they might have romantic inclinations towards each other and the game, in general, might be the most emotional in the Zelda world.
Rating: 9.2/10