Be Excellent To Each Other

Fun things to try: Pick one up and throw it into the abyss!

I've only just figured out that Skyward Strikes don't have to be released from the charging position with a vertically downward motion. (That they stay charged as long as the sword is unsheathed, and can be released however you like.) Made a certain boss a lot easier.

I haven't played that many Zelda games so I wasn't exactly amped up to play a Zelda game just because it's Zelda. I finished Wind Waker of course but I was just glad to get it over and done with to be fair. It was alright, I guess, but I wasn't getting a massive Skyward Sword over it (that never took off as a emphamism did it?).

The opening few hours are so boring. The text can't be skipped, and you have to press A for every sentence. Nevermind the motion controls, I was getting a sore thumb skipping through the dialogue. And let's get one thing out the way: it's fucking butt ugly. The world is so flat and square - platforms are so square that it reminded me of playing Tomb Raider on the PS1. The pastal colours are alright I guess but it's jarring after playing the big console games, and even Super Mario Galaxy. I can't help but think that when Ninty finally put out its Next Gen console they're going to struggle to catch up with everyone else who are used to big production values. But that's an aside.

I've finished the first dungeon now and I can't see what the fuss is about. Game of 2011 Edge proclaimed. 10/10's have been given everywhere. So what am I missing?

The big problem that I'm having so far is due to the motion controls. It's so pissing fiddly. I'm regularly having to recalibrate the controller. Sometimes within a few minutes of the last time. It stops you enjoying anything when you know you can do what's asked and you're even throwing the right gesture but the fucking game doesn't recognise what you're doing. I get pressing down to recentre and I've done that enough times, but it's constant. Every fucking minute you notice that you're having problems with the controls - not one minute goes by when youre not fully aware that you're fighting the controls. I can't describe how frustrating it is. I've got two motion controllers so I switched them 'round to see if that sorted it out but no. Same shit.

Fighting should be riotous fun but it ain't just because of the controls. Plus, those red devil things seem to anticipate what direction I'm going to slash at them before I do it. If you fling shots from all directions randomly they block every one. It's cheap. Even the first boss is beaten by simply pretending to slash one direction but throwing down another. These guys ain't hard, mind, but still.

I'm worried about what will happen later on though when we'll move on from horizontal and vertical slashes to diagonals because I don't think the Wiimote is going to cope well. If it punishes me for accidentally slashing the wrong direction when it's not my fault I'll be supremely fucked off. *sigh* It hardly ever picks up a thrusting gesture too.

Is the level design "teh awesomz" too? Not really. I've never played a Zelda where I've thought that the level design was amazing. They're all quite straightforward in my eyes and I'd never use a word like ingenious or inspired to describe them, and I've not seen anything here that changes my mind. Plus, so far it's all been hub, forest, cave, dungeon which is atypical Zelda right? There's nowt here that I haven't seen elsewhere and better. I mean, a forest? Come on, they ain't even trying to think up new ideas for locations. A cave! Wow! And talking of ideas, the whole hide and seek shit was, um, shit. Find 3 wakka wakka wakkas to continue? Bored. And I don't need sweeping cameras to show where I've got to go next, I'm capable of find my way without being spoon fed. And let me play for more than five minutes without that bitch in the sword jumping out and spouting some shit. I hate companions in games like this. Hnnngh.

What I do like though is the flying. It's nice way to get around the outer hub without being too tedious. Some of the characters are fun too.

One character sums up my feelings towards the game right now. The woman slouching in the bazaar who couldn't give two fucks if I bought anything or not. "Yeah, whatever" she says. Yeah, I agree.

nintendo are suddenly sponsoring crime series mainly aimed at a female audience ("the closer" is brought to you by "the legend of zelda; the skyward sword) here with this game, a few months after it appeared.. new strategy

Just had to have a look online whether the next world was Slippery Slidy World. Luckily for Zelda her product with remain out of the bin. For now.

We're persevering with it (though it's been temporarily shelved in favour of Outland while Mrs B is on holiday) and it's not totally awful or anything; but it's almost entirely defined in our heads by how badly it stacks up against previous Zelda games i.e. the gfx are worse, the controls are more annoying, the hub world is tiny, the dungeons uninspired etc. Unless some aspect of the controls really proves to be a barrier I'm sure we'll finish it but, unlike some of the previous games, I'm 99% sure we'll never go back to it and if this was the first Zelda game I'd played it would probably be the last.

Bloody broken motion controls!

I've met a couple of snake enemies that are pretty decent at both blocking and attacking and I'm getting punished. But not cause I'm shit cause this game is child's play, but because of the feckless controls.

The snake blocks one angle of attack and if you strike his shield he'll whip out and knock a heart off you. E-v-e-r-y t-i-me. So every time I throw the wrong move I get whipped and guess what, the incidence of wrong moves is about 80% of the time. So I'm getting killed or my energy down to 1 heart every time I face of one the sods. I stuck the controller about my head and tried only downward strikes and after about two strikes its switched to other strikes. I put the "sword" in front of me in readiness of more attacking (but not moving at all) and fucking link's trying to stick the sword into his arsehole. Christ, you can't leave him alone for 1 minute. I recalibrated but after a couple of attacks its refusing to pick up the motion I'm doing. And sometimes I recalibrated slashed right to left and he's instantly doing something different.

You can't press down to recentre the sword either cause that woman stops everything for an elongated natter. Fucks sake.

For some reason it doesn't come as a surprise that the wii Controller is shit.

Is this with the super whizz bang accuracy upgrade thing. (which I seem to remember it being stated was reauired)

Yeah. I've got two and they're both useless. It's a shame cause it works quite well on Wii Sports Resort but it seems to be having a pissy fit with this. I might try Resort again just to check I ain't sat on them or something.

Thinking about itthe swordfighting in resort needed constant recalibration with the add on.

Overall, I didn't find it added much over the standard.

See: reasons I only bought 4 games for the wii. Of which I got half at the same time I got the wii.

This is getting much better, due in no small part to the fact that everyone has finally left me alone.

It's took 8 hours of grinding but once you reach the desert level (oh hang on, DESERT, for fucks sake. They really pulled out their most creative forces for this one) you get very little of that annoying bitch in your sword and it stops telling you what to do. Which is great because whereas it's not exactly the most difficult game in the world at least it has some challenge.

There are annoying bits:

There's too much reliance on 'find 3 of these' 'bash 5 of these' etc which just seems like unimaginative level design. It's kinda old-skool if you prefer. But I guess the older Zelda's had a lot of the same. I've no idea if the puzzles using bombs are any different from what's gone in the past but I'm guessing there's been a lot of bomb puzzles over the years.

The aesthetics of the level design are still bloody ugly. The world and dungeons are very square. Especially the dungeons. You've only got to look at the maps of some of the levels to see how square they are. And boy do you realise how square they are having played any of the big console games.

The controls are still fucking me off. The lack of control over the camera is a pain especially when lining up jumps. The times I'd tried rushing back to a spot after a death to find Link flying off the side of a platform. It makes you line up the camera behind you completely square to any platform when you want to make a jump. It's fiddly. Oh so fiddly.

I've met monsters who need diagonal slashes and, as expected, they're a nightmare. One monster has three heads and you need to strike all three at the same time to kill it, otherwise it's heads just grow back. The heads move from high, middle and low before resting in a combination for a diagonal slash or a horizontal slash. It's random, as it should be, but the times, THE TIMES, I've done it right but it hasn't translated on-screen is still frustrating.

The story is a load of old bollocks an' all.

Notwithstanding all that moaning, I'm having more fun anyway. It ain't too bad.

It's going out of its way to make me like it now. Hnnngh.

I've a large hair dryer and I'm in a room filled with sand. Gentle fun ensues. The woman in the sword has not once told me how to use the hair dryer. This pleases me greatly. In fact, have I left breathing holes for her? She's been awfully quiet for well over an hour.

Sadly, she's pretty didactic throughout most of the game. Easily the worst 'helper' in the series, and totally inexcusable after the eminently likeable and charming Midna.

She's back. Tch. And only to tell me what was patently obvious.

"Link, the princess can no longer be detected" Yes dear, didn't you catch that fight with the harlequin guy then the big explosion when she ducked into that portal "Link, you will no longer be able to detect the princess with dousing" Hnnngh. I'm going to stick this sword up one of those red trolls anus. "Link..." And I'm not washing the sword. "...we should find the princess" oh do piss off.

Anyway, she's cleared off for a bit now.

I really liked the desert/mining level. The boss was fun too - the big scorpion that hides beneath the sand. Piece of piss but fun. I've quiet enjoyed the last two bosses now and it's definately warming on me. It just baffles me that no one thought that the pacing was too slow and uneventful for those 7/8 odd hours.

Having the same button to recentre the sword and call her up for a natter was a bloody ginormous mistake too, aye.

Now that Mrs Bamba is back we've picked this back up again and we're pretty much at this exact point. The hairdryer weapon is excellent fun to wield (especially in that room when you can blow those otherwise really irritating respawning puffer fish bastards around the place) and that dungeon's been pretty good fun so far.

In the terrible fucking minus column though are the new enemies outside that dungeon with the electric prods. You're obviously supposed to match how they're holding their weapon and smack them around accordingly but, even aside from the speed they switch their stance around, the motion controls really aren't even slightly up to the task of responding to your movements here so you get zapped all to shit. After losing entire life bars to what should be single minor enemies I adopted the approach of stunning them with the catapult first and then just whaling on them as quickly as I could which is annoying. I'm quite worried that this type of enemy will become more common (and, God forbid, maybe a boss fight or two based around it) because that will genuinely be the point where I set down the Wiimote and walk away forever.

Other random thoughts:

• I'm not actually bothered by the 'companion'; I find her less insistently annoying than fucking Navi and, although she does over-explain things, it's pretty easy to just ignore her and click through the text. She actually came in useful yesterday as I was struggling to work out how to kill the laser turret things in that desert dungeon so I was happy she was there to provide some advice.
• After getting a good few kickings from the cattle-prod fuckers yesterday I was reminded of my single biggest issue with all Zelda games ever that I cannot believe they've never sorted: the goddamn motherfucking alarm that sounds every single second you play the game when you've got less than three hearts. I know how much fucking health I've got due to the massive heart icons you've plastered at the top of the screen and, even if I was ignoring that, the fact that my entire character model is constantly flashing red would be a give away enough in itself. It's got to the stage that as soon as the noise starts I literally switch the sound off entirely because it's so unbelievably fucking annoying which is a total design fail. Utterly fucking unforgiveable.

Christ, yes, the low energy alarm is so very irritating. Plus what'sherface wants to jump out and tell you that your health is low. She must be deaf as well as stupid.

It is a good game, but I agree it looks awful. They should have gone for the impressionist kind of thing that it sort of does in the background rather than 'vanilla Zelda' boring.

What I do think Nintendo need to do is either completely revamp/reboot Zelda in some sort of *HD-epic-massive explorathon game world like skyrim* or... actually come out with a new adventure game that's actually good (unlikely!)

I'd stopped playing this for about a week for various reasons and realised tonight, when it came time to fire the Wii up again, that I just couldn't face it so I've officially given up just under two thirds of the way through.

It's not entirely the game's fault, a lot of it is just because the Wii is an awful platform and thus Zelda has to suffer the same bullshit that anything else on the Wii would. Mostly of course I'm talking about having to actually haver motion controls welded in at all, but the Wii controller being a really shit design compared to proper controller doesn't help matters. And I've moaned enough about the terrible graphics the game is saddled with that I don't imagine hammering that point home further is constructive.

I mean there were a couple of nice touches in there --the flying bug tool and the vaccum cleaner weapon were quite fun; and the time travel mechanic in the desert levels was a good idea that was sadly under used-- but the entire game just felt smaller, less coherent and less compulsive than the game worlds in previous Zelda games. Rather than wanting to spend time exploring to find heart pieces or side quests I just didn't give a shit about anything aside from barelling from one dungeon to the next. The only real changes they made to the formula were unwelcome (yeah, I really want my shield to actually fucking break half-way through a dungeon, that's a game mechanic I was begging for!) and everything that was the same was somehow worse.

Incredibly disappointed.

So side quests, aye? Can I be arsed? Fuck no. I don't want to increase the tedium any more than is absolutely necessary. I did of course tell some woman that I'd help her find her cat/daughter (I forget which) but never bothered. Each time I see her she asks how I'm getting on and I give her a pat on the back to stop her sobbing but sheepishly back away knowing that I'm not even bothered. It/she'll turn up without my help in sure. Probably.

Anyway, my in-game clock tells me I'm 23 hours into the game. I was a little surprised by that given that only a tenth of it was actually enjoyable. It's definately dragged on whilst I'd often be astonished that I'd done, say, forty hours on Dark Souls and didn't know where the time had gone.

So where am I? Chapter 11 according to a walk through I'd peaked out to get my bearings. There's apparently 17 odd chapters so in hoping to smash through it as I'm getting back into the swing of things.

Yup, it's making it me like it again. I took a breather after the return to the Woods after careering along and doing a fair amount only to get bored again and having not turn it on in weeks (probably like Bamba had and probably around the same spot by the sounds of things) to get some MW3 time. I'm a real man though so I've managed to switch it back on. And when it's fun it's fun.

Stuff I've done:

A splash of swimming (ho-hum)
A neat little trial or two (which is proper hardcore gaming stuff. You've got to collect fifteen things whilst being chased by some wonky looking knights. I'm sure it's identical to the DS' Phantom Hourglass dungeons. Quite a decent challenge.)
I made some music with a harp (This must be like that Wii Music thing nobody bought. You move the controller for the strings and up and down for the pitch. It's throwaway but nice)
I ate some reggae reggae chicken (in real life)
I returned to the desert to do more time splitting puzzles (really good)
I was blown away by an idea that was awesome (In the desert sea I'm told it used to be water before some event dried the ocean and now all that was left was sand. For miles. But thanks to the time splitting rocks and a boat, the sand becomes the sea once again for a short distance in front of you so you go all Windwaker and bust through the sea that's magically appearing yards on front of you. It's groovy)
I rode a mine cart (with a tremendous sense of speed as you rock the controller from side to side to gain speed on the bends).
I fought the Scorpion. Again. Think up some better ideas Ninty.
I did a second trial (which was harder than the first. Yay! Challenge accepted!)
I moaned about modern hip hop (in real life)
I've been to a shipping yard and a pirate ship that were, get this, brilliant locations that had obviously had some time spent on them.

So, my interest is back up and it's throwing new stuff to do at me every hour or so without much repetition. The combat is still shit but I've been doing well just furiously waving the controller from side to side. I lose hearts but at least I'm not getting frustrated.

They could have cut the time down on this and I'd be raving about it. Tch. Maybe...we'll see.

What the hell has happened here?

A quiet night in as a lonely singleton and I want to play Zelda? Maybe it's the anticipation of finishing it but it's neatly getting under my skin.

Ok, so it's like this: hub world with side quests (Hnnngh) and three worlds. Complete three worlds, then do the three worlds again with new bits and then, you guessed it, complete the three worlds again but each has changed somewhat. Ok, so I admit it, it's become fun even if Zelda is nothing more then a collectathon: get three flames, get three triforce bits, get seventeen musical notes, find five kiwi things, find three switches etc.

As someone who hasn't played that many Zelda games, is this pretty much par for the course? It seems very dated to me.

To be fair, the last round of three worlds went pretty quick and were reasonably entertaining. Essentially the last round of the worlds play a different kind of game on each map you've played: the forest world is flooded and you go on a collecting swimathon, you get captured and have to get your gear back using stealth on the volcano world and the last one is keeping up with a moving platform with a time shift stone on it. Nothing that hasn't been seen before but short enough and different from what's gone before.

If theres one thing this Zelda does admirably is giving you different stuff to do throughout. Some are slight variations and theres nothing here that hasnt been done a million times before but it's always new.

I feel quite angry about the first third of the game, it's a grind and tedious. The tutorial woman is annoying interrupts the flow of the game. The endless DU-DU-DU-DUR as you open a chest or capture a bug or whatever. They slow the game down when it needs to have more pace. I'm gearing up for the final showdown now after the final trial and final dungeon. I think, I... I might have, um ... changed my mind about this. Maybe. Still time to piss me off though. The ending better be fucking awesome.

Loved every second of Ocarina of Time 3D, truly was a compulsive experience for me, but I haven't played SS since February. The trudgery and fuck-awful controls just ruined it. On paper it should be one of the best Zelda games ever, in practice it feels more annoying than engrossing for so many reasons.

These last ten hours have been pretty good. I can happily ignore the bits that fuck me off most (collecting stuff) and just plough on to the next dungeon. Of which I'm on the last one then I'd imagine a boss fight and trade-in.

The thing is, as far as Zelda games go, that's not a good thing. Aside from the actual main quest there were always other things to do in Zelda games to earn heart pieces and money and whatnot and you actually wanted to do them because they were interesting and intriguing. Wind Waker was the epitomy of this as exploring all the islands was pure joy. Skyward Sword though has very little going on aside from the main quest --and what litte there is you don't give a shit about because it's boring and stupid-- so they've failed by their own standards here to create an interesting world to explore. It's Zelda on rails basically and 'ploughing on' is all you ever do.

Legend of Zelda: Clocked.

10/10? Fuck off you Ninty fan boys. It's rife with annoyances throughout but, y'know what, it sort of won me over in the end. The dungeon puzzles weren't exactly taxing but they were occassionally good fun. The last dungeon especially was a highlight. Plus you get used to the shitty graphics by spending some time with it; such that they're no longer a disappointment. Frankly, it's nowt special but still the closest thing I've played to swinging a sword in your living room replicated onscreen. Flawed in many places (and inexcusably on so many basic levels), uninspired in others (I mean, come on, desert, wood and volcano levels...think harder losers) but despite all this the latter third rocks along and you find yourself enjoying yourself and not even thinking about the flaws.

The ending though is a load of guff mind, bar one secret about Granny. Oh and it turns out that the companion was all along some kind of robot ... so frankly when the robot tells you during a particularly lengthy end segment that it had learned about happiness, I sighed heavily knowing that absolutely no one on the planet could have formed any emotional attachment and thought it unfathomable that Ninty thought we were the slight bit interested what happened to the fucker.

Overall: pleasant.

I think we need a graph to illustrate fun over time.

Jesus wept. That's the best thing I've ever seen!

Jonarob: Likes looking at mens cocks rubbing one another.

*Backs away slowly*