Category: Zelda

It’s been a long, winding journey, but I have finally completed The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (for the second time). But that’s putting the horse before the cart there. We’ve still got a lot of ground to cover!

Be warned: there are so many words here. Like, maybe pack a lunch before you dive in.

When last I left off, I had just revived the Thunder Dragon and gained a quarter of whatever magical song unlocks the last dungeon. It was a simple task that required me to traverse a new area while using tools I’d acquired to solve puzzles. This also unlocked the boss rush and let me replay the Silent Realm challenges. It didn’t feel like padding at all!

The next two dragons… didn’t fare so well.

The chase for the Fire Dragon made me climb up Eldin Volcano for a third time. Only this time around, it was a stealth mission and all of my equipment was taken away. This part really felt like padding. It would have been 100% improved if at the very least I was sneaking through a new area, like a monster base or something. But it was just the same old Eldin Volcano, this time with some new barricades and guard towers.

Meeting the Fire Dragon was a lacklustre scene as well, he just popped out of the lava, sang his song, and disappeared without so much as introducing himself. It felt unusually stunted to me, in a game where characters are constantly over-explaining everything.

Continue reading Skyward Sword Replay: Finale!

As much as I’ve been enjoying it, I wanted to clear Skyward Sword off my plate so that I could focus my leisure time into other activities. Namely, a pair of games about tracking down ferocious and/or adorable monsters. So I hunkered down to play through what was left of the game. Once again, I failed in my quest to make it to the end, because there was a lot more game left than I had thought.

Like, after loading my save, I was standing there at the door to the Fire Sanctuary, thinking “okay, I’ve got this and then Sky Keep to go, then the final battle and we’re done.” That was not the case.

To open the Fire Sanctuary, I needed a “really big container of water” which had me thinking Water Dragon. No problem. Just warp over there, get her to do her thing, and we’re gold. Deities never give away help for free, though, so I- oh, wait, no. She did just hand over the big basin full of water, no questions asked. Well I certainly like how easy that was and how there was no pointless sidequest associated with it!

Oh, but then the little robot who was carrying the basin didn’t want to fly all the way to the top of the volcano, so I had to play a stupid escort mission all the way up Eldin Volcano. This is what, like, the fourth time I’ve had to climb this thing? Eugh.

Continue reading Skyward Sword Replay: Week 8

Between Monster Hunter Generations and the new season of BoJack Horseman, I barely touched Skyward Sword last week. Didn’t accomplish a whole lot, which shouldn’t come as a surprise.

My first objective was to round up some treasures from Goddess Cubes. Which, of course, was a short nightmare because it required flying to and fro in the sky. I know I’ve said it before, but flying is super tedious. Absolutely the worst part of the game. The sky isn’t really that big, just enough to create a good sense of scale, but it feels so massive and empty when you have to fly from one end to the other. Gah.

I also discovered that I had secretly gotten a new power: the ability to dowse for certain types of collectibles. I learned this after collecting a few more gratitude crystals and visiting Batreaux for a prize (rupees). Fi popped out afterward and told me I could now dowse for gratitude crystals. Then she popped out again after I upgraded a few weapons and gave me the ability to dowse for upgrade materials. I suppose it’s a good power to have, but most of the time, random materials lying around are just amber relics, which I already have like thirteen million of.

The best one, when I went back on plot, was when Fi let me start dowsing for Goddess Cubes. Which is mostly great, because they’re the big treasures, which can be great things like power-up medals and heart pieces but are sometimes less helpful things like rupees. Maybe extra ammo satchels? I kind of hope not. I just spent a lot buying and upgrading a new quiver because 20 arrows isn’t really enough. It’d be a shame to find one for free now.

Continue reading Skyward Sword Replay: Week 7

It was a mad rush to burn through the last few dungeons of Skyward Sword last week, as Monster Hunter Generations came out on Friday and, well, Monster Hunter trumps all else for me. Even then, I only had Tuesday and Thursday evening to play, and those were also shortened by the need to prepare food and engage in physical activity. Needless to say, I did not make it to the end.

To begin, here’s one of those stray observations: Fi is super creepy when she “sings.” With those big, dead eyes and a mouth that flaps open and closed like a wooden dummy, she is right up there with the Five Nights at Freddy’s animatronics on the Nightmare Fuel scale. Considering that the design docs in Hyrule Historia suggest that she’s supposed to come off as a shy teenager, they really missed the mark there. Simply animating her mouth better would have solved the problem, but it slides up and down so mechanically, and not at all synced with the music, that it just comes off as unsettling.

Continue reading Skyward Sword Replay: Week 6 (for real)

I didn’t play at all last week!

Opps!

Well, I was wrong. At least one dungeon in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has multiple floors. Indeed, the Ancient Cistern has both a 1F and a B1. Also, like the first two dungeons, it is a teeny-tiny little thing. Seriously, it’s like five rooms. Two of those rooms are massive, but that’s besides the point.

It’s also worth noting that the Ancient Cistern is aesthetically my absolute favourite dungeon in the entire series. It’s bright and vibrant, full of gold, blue, and green. It has a very pleasant Buddhist temple aesthetic that jives so perfectly well with the game’s painterly visual style. It’s just really nice.

Continue reading Skyward Sword Replay: Week 5