The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

[Wolf Kanno]

With the new Breath of the Wild endearing itself to fans everywhere, let's take a moment to look back and reflect on the last 3D Zelda game. What were your thoughts on it?

[maybee]

I liked it. Though it seems to be the Marmite of the Zelda series.

[Fynn]

I enjoyed it a lot! It had an amazing art style, some of my favorite dungeons (the Great Cistern being my favorite in the entire series) and I just loved exploring that world. And yes, I loved the wii remote combat, actually

[Ayen]

The art style looks good, and Zelda is adorable, and... that's all I can say about it. I don't have a Wii so I never had a chance to play it. If I get a Wii U for BotW I may take advantage of the backwards compatibility and give SS a go.

[Bubba]

Not a big fan. There were certain aspects I enjoyed like bug hunting and yeah, the dungeons were great. I couldn't get on with the art style. Not for me but I credit Nintendo for taking a risk with it's look.

[Lazerface]

Didn't really like it. I felt it babied the player a little too much throughout the game.

[Wolf Kanno]

I was a bit disappointed in the game myself, but not to the point where I feel seething hatred for it. I felt like the Motion-Controls were a bit too predominate for my taste, and the bigger focus on combat/swordplay didn't work out as well as I had hoped. Then again, I figured it would either work or didn't, so I'm not terribly bothered it didn't come together. I feel the flying mechanics was probably the biggest offender, even by the end of the game I never felt like I really mastered it.

My bigger beef with the game was how exploring the world was a bit underwhelming and the game constantly treated you like a child about things; not to mention the layout of the world made it feel very disjointed and compartmentalized, which is something I've been wishing the 3D entries would move away from. With that said, the areas are gorgeous and I really love the Desert with the Time Mechanic. That was easily the highlight of the game. The dungeons were okay, with only the Desert and Water Temples being memorable. I did hate the final puzzle dungeon though, probably one of my least favorite dungeons in the series.

I'm somewhat use to the series gating content, but I kind of felt like SS was a bit less imaginative about dealing with it. It just seemed like the game went out of its way to prolong the journey, which was something I really hated about Wind Waker as well but I feel SS did it all the time whereas WW just had two elements (filling out the map and the Triforce of Courage quest) that did it.

My other beef was the lackluster boss battles, with the game being more focused on swordplay, the bosses never felt that imaginative since most of them were kind of built around this one element of combat as opposed to being the traditional "puzzle boss" of older entries.

I did enjoy the music, art direction, and mythos of the game. A bit annoyed about the whole Hylia and Demise reveal, but I'm starting to come around to the idea. The game also had some great characters in it. This game had probably my favorite incarnation of Impa to date, and I loved the Item Bank chick Peatrice and her quest. Groose was also amusing, being a less dickish and more bumbling expy of Biff Tannen in my eyes.

Overall, it was a lackluster Zelda, but I don't regret playing it. In fact, Breath of the Wild has me thinking about charging up the Wii Mote Plus and giving the game a second spin, maybe it will do a better job charming me now that I know what to expect?