Two years later: Skyward Sword

It's worse than even McShea made it out to be. If people liked the game, that's fine, but the number of official reviews that basically claim it to be perfect is pretty confounding.

It still sucks

Phantom Hourglass?

No, that's fun.

It's a good game, but definitely on the lower end on my personal list of favorite Zelda games.

The best aspect of Skyward Sword is the dungeon design. I'd have to put it near, if not, at the top of best dungeon design for a Zelda game.

The worst aspect is the game telling you picked up an item (such as a bug) every time you reboot the software, effectively eliminating my desire to collect all the bugs and doing 100% completion in the game. More of a general design choice that was bad is probably the linearity of the game, as well as the sky not being fleshed out enough.

With that said, it's still a solid installment into the Zelda franchise.

twilight princess was far superior

To me 7.5 seems like the disappointed fan's score.

The game contains mounds of creativity, has a beautiful art style, and one-of-a-kind control scheme (that works very well by most people's standards).

The Metascore reflects this.

While Tom's review made a strong thesis and supported it with specific examples from the game, it was hardly wholistic, very focused on the games flaws. The most complete reviews seem to be in the 8.5 - 9.5 range.

9.0 seems like the perfect score for it.

@trugs26: I have to agree with all of those points. Its good but not fantastic.

Played it earlier this year. A nine seems like a good score. Some odd design choices were used. Also the back tracking was kinda lame, as well as having to do a task for the water dragon to 'prove' yourself whenever you needed something.

The controls were fine and only spazzed out a few times. The Combat was good and the dungeons were really good (Water dungeon is a favorite.) I really liked the art style as well. It is a game I can see myself coming back too in time to play again.

The town was alot of fun and had some good side quests. It is a very good game.

It was a great game. I liked it a lot save for the dowsing and water dragon quest.

7.0 or 7.5 sounds about right, so I agree with the GS review. Its biggest redeeming quality is that it's not Spirit Tracks or Phantom Hourglass.

Right now I'd give it about an 8. Outside of Skyloft (the town) the overworld sucked. While I didn't mind flying, I hated how you couldn't teleport in the sky. Plus the sky itself felt empty. The filler and padding sucked and while not as bad as TP, the beginning felt too long.

But the motion controls for the most part worked for me except rolling bombs. Plus I'm in the minority where I didn't find Fi annoying. Furthermore I liked the characters. But yeah I hated fighting the same boss over and over again.

ALBW is proof that 2D Zelda > 3D Zelda. That being said, SS still has the best dungeons in the series as I think no other Zelda game has better dungeons then SS. I also liked the controls for swimming.

McShea's review is irrelevant because of his failure to comprehend controls

Skyward Sword is a great game, and the controls worked really well, but this game isn't a 9.3. I don't think it deserves a AAA rating. Still, I lean more towards most metacritic reviews than that horrendous display of McShea's work

I can't stand it, I played up to the first dungeon and I haven't bothered getting back into it. Hated the controls, hated the excessive padding that was already showing up, hated the hand holding, hated the overworld. Dungeon was pretty good, that's about the best I can ever say for it.

AE. It had tons of great ideas, and some of the best level design for the dungeons in the series, but for every two things it did right it did at least one thing wrong. the biggest issue for me was the absolutely blatant padding and the complete disappointment that was the overworld.

I hated the motion controls. Ruined Zelda and Mario Galaxy for me. Would love to see an HD port of the Galaxy games with the option to use the 360 rip off controller wii u has.

I would say about an 8.5. Swimming/flying controls (motion was pointless for these), having a hub instead of a proper open world and having less hearts to collect kept it from going higher for me. Not the best Zelda but a brilliant game nonetheless and I loved the motion controls for combat personally. Koloktos is one of my favourite boss battles ever as well.

It's a meh Zelda game. Coming from Twilight Princess, it's a significant downgrade. Not from a control standpoint, as I found the motion controls to be awesome. I'm talking about the overall game design. The broken up overworld that's designed like a dungeon to the point where exploring is more tedious than it should ever be, reused bosses(fighting the Imprisoned 3 times SUCKED), inconsistent visual quality, and needless backtracking all hurt the experience. I gave it an 8, though I would have given it a 7.8 if GS had its old scoring system at the time. When Skyward Sword is good, it's awesome. When SS is bad, it feels like a chore to play.

And if Sheep KING says this, I wont play it and haven't.

I've yet to play it. Can't wait to.

Probably my least favorite of the 3d Zelda console games and I think Tom McShea was pretty accurate in his review.

"7.5 - Good" is a perfect score for it. It's a good game to play. But it has too many flaws and annoyances to be considered great or superb.

The motion controls WERE often crap in that game though, sword fighting aside. And the shaking to sync got old too.

Skyward Sword ruined me on the series with the BS motion controls. Zelda with classic controls is awesome as I love Twilight Princess on Gamecube.

I consider it one of the absolute best games of last gen. It's a one of a kind experience that shows off just how incredible a motion controlled adventure can be.

At first I disliked the game because I had many preconceived notions on what a Zelda game should be, but when I stopped restricting my views and opened up to the different direction taken in Skyward Sword, I loved the experience completely. It was a complete joy from beginning to end. Not one of its varied tasks was a chore (something most 3d Zeldas have a problem doing) and has now become my most replayed Zelda to date (well over 200 hours sunk into this game)

Highlights: perfect motion controls, action and puzzles are the most balanced since A Link to the Past, silent realms, variety, never a dull moment in a 30+ hour campaign

-Best boss battles in the franchise (Ghirahim battles are in a league of their own)

-Best combat in the franchise by far

-Best dungeon design (the final dungeon OMG)

-No pointless fluff or chore like quests

-A new level of wonderment never before experienced as you interact with a beautiful world with 1:1 motion controls

9.5/10 for being proof that motion controls do have a place in gaming beyond just minigame fluff. Nothing else compares to what Skyward Sword does and it deserves a lot more praise than it gets.

I can't call this a Zelda game. It's just a bunch of motion control mini games slapped together.

I love Zelda games, tried playing SS twice and I just gave up.

Great dungeons, lame everything else.

Fundamentally it's a good game, but far from great, and really it could be pointless enough to be considered mediocre at times if not out right bad. The game goes out of its way to bore you with chores. It also doesn't help that Zelda has in recent years been lacking some teeth when it comes to the raw depth of the gameplay or its puzzles.

This is the only Zelda game in history that I was too bored to finish. In fact, it's the only Zelda game I haven't completed except for Zelda 2, I couldn't finish because it was too hard. That alone should tell you what I think about this game.

I haven't played far enough to give it a score but I can say that it was one of the weakest Zelda games in recent memory.

I still think McShea's review sucks even though I didn't think the game was as amazing as most other people. He didn't know what the Hell he was talking about in regards to the controls in Skyward Sword. Skyward Sword had its flaws, but the controls were probably the best aspect of that game. If that game had had normal controls, I'm not sure if it would have even gotten a 7 here.

I gave Skyward Sword an 8. It was good and all, but it wasn't as good as past games. I would put it on Twilight Princess's level.

A timeless classic... with the best final battle in Zelda ever! Epic samurai showdown

And Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks were both garbage imo... and they are the only things keeping me from trying the new 3ds zelda.

The only issue I ever had with motion controls was sometimes a forward thrust, or a stab, wouldn't register but that's about it. So I didn't do it, it's never required at any point in the game where stabs only working during combat and I never really thought about it much so that wasn't an issue.

The number of times I've had to sync the controller I'll bet could be counted with one hand, not including the times where my batteries simply died.

Regardless, McShea actually incorrectly explained how the controls worked before he edited his review, talking about using the IR pointer to aim and how he had to sync the controls constantly because the IR pointer got messed up, which was wrong. He then had to edit the review in this stupid attempt at damage controls saying "That's what I meant. I used the controls correctly all along." BOTH LIES!

McShea's review is irrelevant because he didn't bother to learn how to learn how the controls worked. Just about every other review on metacritic save maybe two or three say the controls are excellent. And aside the stab, I agree.

It was just so tedious. I expected the graphics to be behind the times but to that degree? And there just wasn't enough there. Padding. Over familiarity.

The franchise is a sacred cow, so few can be honest about it but Skyward Sword was just so unspectacular a game in every way. Would it hurt them to expand on the mechanics a little? Add a few different villages? Unlockable costumes?

That's kind of modern reviews in general. Games like Mass Effect 2 and Uncharted 2 are riddled with flaws, but that doesn't prevent "professional" reviewers from being entirely blind to them. I'd even put the first Mario Galaxy in the same boat. Not a single negative review, but there are clearly reasons to ridicule them.

A flaw that gets in the way of enjoying the game is a problem. One that doesn't isn't.

For example...a flaw in control's is a serious problem. A few environmental surfaces that Nathan has trouble taking cover behind isn't

BTW I can't think of a single flaw in Mario Galaxy.

mcshea was right on the money.

For all those people saying that he just didn't understand the controls, in that vlog he said that even if the controls were fine it wouldn't have affected the score.

And btw, the controls are not fine. I am a seasoned video game player and I managed, but the system Nintendo came out with was rough to say the least. Just because you did fine with them doesn't mean that they are fine. Many, many gamers would have a problem with these controls. For a game to get a truly great score it has to be accessible to everyone and all parts of it have to function properly. That whole cursor recalibration thing should be enough to fail it outright, but sadly the motion controls are also not as advertised by Nintendo or the Zelda apologists.

The entire game comes across as rushed. The overworld is incomplete, the controls were clunky, and the padding is crow-barred in their with zero elegance.

I got the game to function but I definitely had more problems than you did. I was re calibrating the cursor CONSTANTLY. Forgive me for sometimes slipping my hands outside the prescribed box Nintendo wanted them to stay in. That Octopus boss was an absolute nightmare for me because of this issue.

The swordplay generally worked. Generally, as in not all the time. It definitely became an issue on the final boss fight, but I still managed to beat the game. If Nintendo made their controls properly then I shouldn't be able to get through the whole game without truly mastering the controls. What turned Metroid Prime from a great game to an epic game was that by the end you had to do some amazing gymnastics in terms of quickly and effectively selecting and using the correct weapon/visor/etc at the exact right time. That part of Skyward Sword was simply absent because the controls were not reliable enough to do something like that, a problem with a lot of wii software.

I don't see what was wrong with McShea's original review. So he said that the cursor was IR when it really was motion sensing.... Big woop. Who cares what the technology is? It's about the gameplay issue. Ironicly, if Nintendo had made the cursor IR like all other wii games then the player wouldn't ever have to re-calibrate the cursor at all.

Gotta love the majority saying McShea was right. I remember when he posted that review. People wanted his head on a platter.

I am slightly torn between Other M and Skywars Sword on being the game that made me look with cringed eyes like I was crazy for continuing to play either game to the end. Funny thing is I don't remember much of either game. It actually made me want to play Nights journey to dreams because its filth was clean enough to wash the other filth out my eyes.

Controls weren't a problem in Skyward Sword. They functioned flawlessly... There's far more to complain about in Uncharted 2 than Nathan having trouble taking cover. Just passable shooting mechanics, bullet sponge enemies, entire throwaway chapters, generally molasses paced, climbing sections etc.

I think the lack of challenge and the lack of precision and tightness to the level design of the first Galaxy were problems that at least some reviewers might have had. I just find it ridiculous that not a single professional review scored the game below a 90. Seems unlikely.

Fact: Skyward Sword is just a difficult game to ascribe a number to.

The motion controls could literally MAKE or BREAK the game for you. The over-world design was the opposite of Twilight Princess: it incorporated more puzzles and felt more dense, but practically killed the exploration. Choose your poison. There's a lot of variables.

Skyward Sword is a very a polished game with original ideas, well designed puzzles, and pleasing art direction. There are absolutely qualities of an AAAE in Skyward Sword, for some, but some of the choices surrounding it (and a degree of series fatigue) can really hurt enjoyment for others.

@sammyjenkis898: While it did turn out to be a more popular opinion than the extreme outlyer it was at the time, you can't really take System Wars polls too seriously. There's just a lot of biases all around.

I thought Skyward Sword fixed just about all of the glaring problems with Twilight Princess, and I really liked it for that. As far as Zelda games go, I'd put it somewhere in the middle of the pack and score it a 9.

Well I don't how how I didn't have the problems like some have....actually yes I do it's because I'm THE WIIFAN001. The controls were not perfect but excellent as just about every other critic has stated. My first time recalibrating was sometime in the 4th dungeon at the Ancient Cistern.

What's wrong with McShea's original review is even through a 3 hour tutorial that skyward Sword puts you in, McShea still didn't get it right. I could forgive that...except he attempted to cover it up by lying.

This "big woop" it is a big deal. Nintendo emphasized strongly this is about the Wiimote Plus, an evolution in motion controls. As a professional gaming critic you're supposed to know how controls work. There's no excuse with the overly needlessly long tutorial in skyward sword about this. McShea diabolically failed to learn the controls, which would have solved most of his sync problems and use the items and combat properly.....but no, he blames Nintendo both before and after for faulty controls just so he could cover his a@$. He never used them right in the first place!

It's a masterpiece to this day. 9 is my score for it.

I felt it was a good game, had a lot of fun with it, but it was the weakest of the 3D Zelda games that I've played (aside from the DS games.)

What makes the boss battles any different in this games.

Looking back it was a good entry in the series it's not the best but the items were cool and MotionPlus worked well too.

Still haven't played it.

Still haven't played it. I HATE the Wii's controls