NGamer

Zelda Skyward Sword: 10 facts preview

Announced with a flurry of slashes, slices and lops, it was hard to leave E3 not jabbering about Zelda’s all-new MotionPlus controls. But as visitors swung remotes to bury hot steel in Bokoblin belly, Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma buried hot words in journalist ears. A while back we covered the Skyward Sword basics – the controls and general design decisions. Now we collect the best of Aonuma’s bombshells in ten easily digestible points, and explain why they’ll make the new Zelda a likely must-play.

          
               1) Skyward Sword is the first Zelda
          

Above: Talking weapons? Has Aonuma been reading 2000AD’s Rogue Trooper?

The Zelda timeline has baffled academics for eons. A writhing mass of contradictions, alternate universes and multiple Links, it ranks up with kite strings on the Fiddly Knot-O-Meter. Joker that he is, Eiji Aonuma encourages such debate by dating Skyward Sword as a precursor to Ocarina of Time (currently held to be the earliest Zelda). This is the tale of how the Master Sword came to be, born from the Skyward Sword and setting the whole Hyrulian shebang in motion. Aonuma also confirmed our suspicions that the sword transforms into the female figure spotted in the 2009 E3 concept art, giving Link some Midna/Navi-ish company.

          
               2) Link takes to the skies
          

Above: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa *blacks out* (pause) *reawakens* …aaaaaaaaargh!

Link begins the tale in Skyloft, a cloudy realm high above a chaotic Hyrule (an echo of Minish Cap’s Cloud Top?). As the adventure unfolds he travels between the two realms (alas, not by winged Epona as predicted before). Aonuma is yet to reveal how Link makes the journey, though we’d bet on skydiving a la Wii Sports Resort. Resort inspires lots of what we’ve seen so far – swordings and archery – and Aonuma speaks of a big debt to its development team. Oh, and the E3 trailer shows our elfin go-getter hurling himself into a cloudbank. We assume this means skydiving. That or he’s sick of this adventuring lark and wants to end it all. Hopefully not.

          
               3) The director has quirky Zelda pedigree
          

Above: So far only the flying bug really dazzles on the equipment front. Snapping the whip’s quite fun, mind

Hidemaro Fujibashi takes the director’s chair. Formerly of Flagship (a studio jointly owned by Capcom, Sega and Nintendo) he was responsible for Link’s Game Boy Color Oracle adventures and GBA’s Minish Cap. With Phantom Hourglass also nestling on his resume, Skyward Sword sees him finally graduate from handhelds. Could this inform the Wii game’s design? Miyamoto wants Skyward Sword to offer a more compact play experience after a bloated Twilight Princess – a portable sensibility fits the bill. We just hope he brings his eye for item design too. Minish Cap’s Gust Jar, Mole Mitts and Cane of Pacci boasted innovation that’s been lacking in more recent Zeldas.  

          
               4) The sword has secret tricks
          

Above: Ah, the classic spinning slash, now also available in horizontal. Just swing the remote and Nunchuk in unison

On Ocarina of Time Shigeru Miyamoto had a vision: Link riding Epona with his sword held high. A vision unattainable until the age of MotionPlus. The demand for dramatic combat poses calls for a new projectile system. Steadily hold the blade outstretched – above or to the side – and it charges with energy unleashed with a swipe (a beam traditionally reserved for a full-health Link). Aonuma also says the sword can be used to hunt for treasure. He’s been shy with the details, but we can envisage pointing the blade as a divining rod and listening for remote speaker noise to guide us to the treats. If that isn’t the idea, Aonuma can have that one for free.

          
               5) There will be beetle racing
          

Above: When the beetle flies Link is frozen to the spot. Best check for nearby enemies before zooming off

Sadly not a sequel to Beetle Adventure Racing but a new Hyrulian pastime. Aonuma hinted in a recent interview that Gorons and Zoras might challenge Link to test his flying beetle might. The beetle, for the uninitiated, is a tilt-controlled bug that flaps around like a miniature biplane. It’s responsive and zippy, and we can easily imagine taking it for a spin around a shrunken racecourse. Aonuma also talks up the beetle as an exploratory device, flying ahead to scout out areas before Link wanders blindly in. With a few stealthy leanings in play (see point eight below), an eye in the sky would certainly come in handy.

          
               6) Skyward Sword challenges Zelda conventions
          

Above: Offing the scorpion requires careful slicing between its open pincers. Aonuma is holding this particular git back for later in the game

You know the score: field, dungeon, field, dungeon, field, dungeon (repeat for 16 games). But it seems Nintendo is trying to do something about it. Aonuma promises to tackle architectural cliches, restructuring Skyward Sword into an adventure unlike any before. He proposes fields (the overworld area) that incorporate more choreographed dungeon ideas, and dungeons that feel a little more open. As a result, fields will benefit from puzzling and bosses (like the scorpion in the forest demo) while dungeons will drop room-by-room puzzling for more of a themed challenge.

          
               7) The E3 demo will be butchered
          

Above: Thankfully the horrible translucent remote slapped on the right-hand side is there for demo purposes. Panic over

Where most lazy devs whip out any old chunk of game to demo at E3, Nintendo prefers mix tapes – bits torn from all over the game and stitched into a demo environment. The woodland glade we gamboled through appears early on in the Hyrule side of things, but the two boss monsters we saw (scorpion and skeleton) won’t appear until later levels. Other things we can expect to change? The eight-item inventory wheel is a placeholder – Aonuma says more items are quite possible. Likewise, the garish, remote-adorned HUD (offend your eyes with the screen below) was for helping gormless journos. Expect sleeker things to come next year.

          
                Dungeons are in for an overhaul
          

Above: We liked the rudimentary stealth sections in Wind Waker’s sea fortress. Will Skyward Sword build on them?

Dungeons are an integral and beloved part of Zelda lore. Their twisted, clockwork-tight puzzling gives us some of the best level designs gaming has ever seen (although we still haven’t forgiven Aonuma for Ocarina’s Water Temple). Even so, they have grown a little familiar. Familiarly genius, yes, but familiar nonetheless. Aonuma’s new dungeons sound more like adventures than traditional tests. He suggests players might see Link lose his sword, forcing him to navigate via stealth. Using Link’s items to avoid enemies instead of fighting them sounds like a great idea. Spirit Tracks’ phantom knight dungeons were among its highlights, after all.

          
               9) Hyrule is looking grand
          

Above: The more you look the more detail you see. Noticed the Bokoblins’ spotted thongs yet?

In our last preview we spoke at length about Link’s grown-up cel-shading. Inspired by the works of impressionist painters, it sees the vibrant colors of the foreground blur and smudge into painterly vistas in the distance. Eyes are easily distracted by such a novel party trick, but focusing on minor details reveals other visual splendors. The forest demo teems with life as rodents skitter around Link’s feet and sunlight cuts through the leafy canopy. After Twilight Princess’ eerily deserted plains it makes a difference. We’re also taken with the rippling air effect seen when swords smash against shields, perfectly hammering home the oomph you’re putting into the swipes.

          
               10) Hyrule is sounding grand
          

Above: Imagine this screen, only moving. And with amazing orchestral sound. The finished game will be like what you’re imagining

With eyes thoroughly pleasured by our ten minutes in Hyrule, ears were happy to hear they’d be fully catered to as well. Zelda is somewhat notorious for realizing grand orchestral scores with MIDI and sampled instruments, but not for long. During Nintendo’s E3 round table, Miyamoto was asked whether Skyward Sword would make the leap to fully orchestrated majesty. There’s a good chance, according to the All-Knowing One. “I don’t think we could do what we did with Mario Galaxy 2 and not try to match that with Zelda,” said he. With Galaxy, and now Metroid: Other M, boasting blockbuster sound, we wouldn’t expect anything less.

Gamesradar preview

Skyward Sword uses MotionPlus in two ways – for swordplay and for flying sequences. First, let's talk about swordplay. Since it's easy to mimic the motions of using a sword, it's therefore easy to assess how well the controls work, because a 1:1 correspondence should be possible between your movements of the remote and Link's use of the sword on screen. From what we've played so far, the controls do seem to achieve a 1:1 translation of your movements. Anytime Link's sword is drawn, you can hold out your arm and move the remote around, and you can clearly see that Link moves his sword along with you accurately.Yes!


Of the three areas we played in the demo, the boss fight with new antagonist Ghirahim showed off the sword controls best. Like all good Zelda bosses, there's a trick to defeating him. As creepy as he is (and seriously, he's creepy – there's a point in the lead-up to the battle where he licks Link with his nasty, almost phallic tongue) we let him approach Link and then slowly made a circular motion with the sword while Ghirahim tracked our movements with his hand. At the moment his copycat skills faltered, we quickly slashed at him with the sword. The attack animations seem to correspond to the player's movements quite well too, although the actual attacks don't quite have the same 1:1 feel.

The flying controls didn't work nearly as well for us. In our demo, there were two instances of flying: controlling one of the big birds that we've seen Link and Zelda riding in official art, and then also in using the new beetle item that Link acquires. Both the bird and the beetle work essentially the same – you just hold the Wii remote like a TV remote and tilt it up, down, left and right as if the remote represents the flying object. With both the bird and the beetle, the handling felt fiddly and unresponsive at times, and was overall difficult to get the hang of. In one portion of our demo, Link rode the bird in a race against other CPU-controlled birds, and getting into the lead was surprisingly difficult and frustrating.

Why are we getting new previews of old areas?

bugsonglass said:

i want this so much.

Want want want ... now

i think dungeons will still be traditionally "elemental" for the most part.  they won't all be wind/air themed.

bugsonglass said:

i think dungeons will still be traditionally "elemental" for the most part.  they won't all be wind/air themed.

I think I'll be pretty sick of forest and sand temples by now too. Or lava ones.

I keep my gamers badge in my underpants. You still want it? It's like a scratch and sniff card.

I will ditch you in hobo town and the rioters will get you. They will strip you down to your underwear.