Played some more. I am now halfway the 1st dungeon.

One thing I forgot to mention before, the land below the skies are opened by you and not because the story does it for you. That is more empowering than opening areas because the story says so.

After getting my bird and winning the bird race I decided to explore Skyloft before I move on with the story. I explored all the houses and I kinda like Skyloft, it feels nice and cozy. Compared to the city's in Xenoblade, Skyloft is a lot smaller, but also more detailed. In Xenoblade you have a ton of different non named characters that kinda look like each other. Even the named characters in Xenoblade look like a different color copies of each other. In Skyloft each and every character is unique. Also you can enter all the houses in Zelda, in Xenoblade this is not possible.

Some houses are empty because the people are at work, but if you go there at nighttime, they will be there. Skyward Sword is also further proof of Nintendo's hatred of cats.  You will see for yourself.

I got my shield and started fooling around with it. The shield works differently than in previous Zelda's. In previous Zelda's the Shield would block pretty much everything and it was kinda overpowered. Not in Skyward Sword. Basically you have to shake the nunchuck to raise your shield. If you do nothing you keep your shield raised. Strike with you sword and you lower it again, until you shake the nunchuck again. The trick is to raise your shield just before the enemy hits you, it is comparable to the parry system of Soul Calibur. If you time it right you will knock the enemy down and are able to finish him quickly. If you are late, the strike will take away some of your shield meter. Take to much damage and your shield breaks. If you keep your shield up, you can still parry by shaking the nunchuck, but again miss the timing and your shield takes damage. In my opinion a much more interesting system than the previous shield systems that were overpowered.

After fooling around with the shield and exploring Skyloft it was time to take to the skies. You need to jump of designated platforms, but there are so many, that it does not matter. After you jump off and whistle you get a small fade to white loading screen and you are flying around.

Skyloft and the rest of the skies are not one single area. IF you for example fly above a certain point and jump down, you will again get a small loading screen and you will fall down  in the general area, not where you exactly were. That is a disappointment. In the sky you can actually jump of every cliff and call you bird. This works beautifully. You see a island you want to land of, you jump off and then you explore. Had enough, jump off the island and call you bird. No more looking where you left the boat like in Windwaker. The Sky feels kinda like Windwaker, but only more 3-dimensional. There are many rock islands that you cannot even land on. If you try Link will slip away and fall off the rock. You then need to call your bird again to pick you up. But unlike Windwaker, the bird is actually fun to control and it is fast, while the sky is a lot smaller than the ocean.

After exploring some of the Islands I could land on, I decided to go to the surface. You go to the surface by jumping off your bird when you fly above an opening in the clouds. The surface world kinda feels like Metroid Prime. It is linear, but not in a corridor like fashion, more like a Prime like fashion. For instance you go down, then you hit a switch which opens a door, go through the door to talk to a person that opens another door. In this area you can use dowsing to help you track your objectives, but it is not necessary.  Like the hint system in the Prime series, you do not need to use it.

Also there is a fetch quest. I do not mind fetch quest if they are fun and this one was. You had to track down 5 little critters in a huge area. You really need to use your environment to find them. Of course I did it the old fashioned way, but you could use dowsing if you wish to find them that way. It kinda feels like one of the bigger rooms in prime. I found all but one critter, before I was actually given the mission to find them, the last one was just past where I got my mission.

I was rewarded with an item, that item was needed to allow me to proceed. Again very Metroidy. Also I found my first projectile weapon, the slingshot. The first time I tried it, it felt so good, I thought it was using IR. But after checking I found out that it was using the same system as the rest. So that puts all the fears aside when it comes to aiming weapons. It works really well.  Locking on while using projectile weapons works like Prime 3, the camera is locked, but you still have to aim. After the next area I got to the first dungeon.

Before I talk about the dungeon let me talk about the enemies. The game is a lot harder than the previous games when it comes to combat. In the beginning the standard Moblins blocked all my attacks. What I did was to move backwards until they lower their guard and shoot them from afar with my sword. But later I learned if you strike left to right and then right to left in quick succession, they will not be able to block the second hit and if you keep going they will not be able to block the third and fourth hit either. The enemies do much more damage that in previous installments. Some enemies gave me trouble, but usually there are multiple ways to defeat a single enemy. One plant was giving me much trouble, because it reacted to my sword strikes, so it was difficult to land a clean hit. I hit it with a slingshot to stun it and then I sliced the motherfucker down. The second time I met the same enemy, I actually managed to cut him down without stunning it and once I stunned it with my shield parry.

The first dungeon was simple enough, but it was so atmospheric. The music, the colors, everything. The first puzzle ware easy, but still fun. The coolest thing was that the spiders could be defeated in various ways. The miniboss fight against the Stalfos was so much fun. And the flying beetle you get after that is so much fun to control.

I already mentioned about the night in Skyloft. Well you can make it night by sleeping in a bed, any bed. You can choose to wake up in the night and explore Skyloft at night. Stores are close at night, but houses that are empty during the day are not during the night. Enemies roam outside during the night also. But although the system works there is a massive, massive drawback. No more beautiful sunrises and sunsets .

Also there are a ton of uses of rupees. I already upgraded my shield once and I bought stuff like a bigger wallet. There is a ton of expensive stuff I want to buy, but I can't yet.  So that was it, tomorrow more.

The conclusion so far, Windwaker like above the clouds and Metroid Prime like below the clouds.

Stll trying to get it at the third Walmart. The mission may have to be aborted