The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was released today, and the game is already buzzing with controversy. Specifically, some reviewers and players are insisting that the game's motion controls are fantastic while others are reporting that they are "clunky" and intermittently unresponsive. That's part of the reason why I gave the game a 9.5, though I personally felt that the game's controls were just about perfect. I thought that Nintendo was going to potentially alienate a lot of players by preventing them from playing the game with standard controls. By definition, a perfect game does not alienate fans.
I caught some flack for expressing that idea, but I'm not surprised. People have a right to be confused or even annoyed by that point, as I didn't have the space to really flesh out my reasoning in the review. For that reason, I threw together this addendum to fully explain why it was a mistake to force motion controls on players with Skyward Sword.
First off, it's not a double standard to criticize Skyward Sword for having mandatory motion controls but leave games like Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Donkey Kong Country Returns out of that argument. Those two games utilize motion controls as minor parts of the experience, employed to perform actions that are not at the heart of their designs. In Skyward Sword, just about everything besides character movement and sub-screen activation are done with motion controls. They are a constant part of the Skyward Sword experience.
That said, I wouldn't say that Skyward Sword is game that is about motion controls. It's not like Dance Dance Revolution, Wii Fit, or Wii Sports Resort. All three of those games work like a high-tech mirror -- the player does not take on the role of another character. They play as themselves, and the game reflects back how effective (or ineffective) their physical actions are at achieving the game's particular goals. These are games about focusing on your body, not about leaving your body and being transported somewhere else.
The Zelda series (Skyward Sword included) is about doing the opposite thing. It's about leaving your room, leaving your body behind, and entering the world of Hyrule through Link as your avatar. For some, motion controls are definitely going to get in the way of that process.
Some find that motion controls make them constantly aware of their bodies in a way that button controls do not. Button and stick controls have become second nature for most "diehard" gamers. For them, button and stick controls work as the most direct and non-intrusive connection between our world and the game world. Just as they don't have to think about moving each muscle in their body when going for a walk, they don't even have to think about what button to press on the controller when playing a game. For these players, the standard controller truly is an extension of themselves.
That's why they hate motion controls so much. Where standard button controls are something their muscle memory has fully embraced, motion controls are still a relatively new and awkward thing to adjust to. Even though many of the motions in Skyward Sword only require a flick of the wrist (or the elbow at the very most), the game's controls are still likely to distract and annoy them.
For "casual" gamers, the roles are reversed. Button controls are typically strange and disorienting to them. Twelve buttons, two analog sticks, and a D-pad are just as intimidating to them as being presented with the controls for a 747 and asked to "just fly it a round a bit." Constantly looking down at the controller to figure out which button to press takes them right out of the game, and the frustration of not being able to just "get the game to do what they want" can be enough to turn them off to gaming for good. Motion controls have been such a revelation to these gamers, allowing them to play games by using actions and motions that are already second nature to them in real life and destroying the barriers that once existed between them and the game world.
This brings us to Skyward Sword, a game that seems to try to have it both ways but isn't quite willing to go the extra mile to get there. According to certain reviews, the game's motions controls have clearly taken at least one person out of the game. Now, as the video from TheBitBlock above clearly demonstrates, to fault the game's controls for your inability to play it properly is an inaccurate assessment. That would be like giving a bad review to a perfectly good basketball because, every time you try to get it in the hoop, it bounces off the backboard. Good reviewers would know when it's their fault, not the game's, for their inability to enjoy it. That's often not true of reviews of motion-controlled games. A lot of reviewers fail to understand that if a motion-controlled game works some of the time, then that means that it would work all the time if they were playing it properly. I could go on about that topic, but I'll save it for another time.
In addition to being able to differentiate between personal flaws and a game's flaws, it's also their job to speak from their heart as well as their head. Though I felt like Skyward Sword was a perfect 10, I thought that the game was too potentially alienating to be considered flawless from a design perspective. To get a 10/10, the game has to give all players everything they could possible want or expect out of a title. The forced motion controls are just enough to keep Skyward Sword from getting there.
It would be one thing if it were impossible to adapt the game for standard controls, but that's definitely not the case. Anyone who has played the Ape Escape series will tell you how the second analog stick can work to control swords, remote-controlled vehicles, and other Zelda-like items. It would be different, though not unheard of, for a game to have both classic and motion controls; the practice is becoming more and more common as gaming moves forward. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, Monster Hunter Tri, No More Heroes 2, Conduit 2, Punch-Out!!, Mario Kart Wii, GoldenEye 007, and many others on the Wii give us that option. The same can be said of No More Heroes: Heroes' Paradise and Dead Space: Extraction on the PS3. Even Twilight Princess gave you the option to play with standard or motion controls. Nintendo may have required players to buy a separate game for that option, but it was still possible. Players who aren't interested in the prospect of a motion-controlled Zelda have every right to feel disappointed that Skyward Sword doesn't allow us to play it the way they want.
It seems even stranger that Nintendo would make this call when you consider that the Wii U is potentially less than a year from launch. The upcoming console's main input device is basically a Wii classic controller with a touch screen. Wouldn't it have been great to have the option to play Skyward Sword on that controller, on your own private screen without the shackles of motion controls, while the rest of the family uses the TV for other purposes? Maybe Nintendo built in the option to play the game that way, or maybe the company will release a Wii U edition later on. Either way, it's strange that the company is moving towards making dual-analog controls and motion controls part of the core experience with the Wii U on that end, while completely abandoning the idea with Skyward Sword on the Wii.
The fact that the Wii U exists says that Nintendo understands how much players appreciate being provided with control of how they experience their games. The same goes for the 3DS and its ability to turn off the 3D effect. If Nintendo ever makes a 3DS game that forces you to play with the 3D on, you can be sure that it will alienate some people. So far, that hasn't been an issue. As excited as Nintendo may be about 3D, it still seems to understand that, if 3D is as great as it hopes, it won't need to force us to accept it. We will gravitate to it naturally if it truly enhances the experience.
I bet the same thing would have happened if Skyward Sword's motion controls had been optional. If that's the route Nintendo had taken, I think it's likely that many players who were initially turned off by the idea of playing a fully motion controlled Zelda would have picked up the game. Maybe they would have started off with the Classic Controller then tried out the motion controls over time. Over even more time, they may have come to find that the motion controls are so responsive and exhilarating that they do even more to make them feel connected to Link and the game world than button and stick controls could. Maybe Nintendo was right. Maybe motion controls really are better than button controls for the Zelda experience.
One thing's for sure: there are a lot of people who will never be convinced if they feel like the idea of motion controls is being forced on them. If you want to get someone to willingly try something new, the last thing you should ever do is make that person feel forced. I find that's especially true with gamers. By nature, we're the ones who want to be in control. When developers and publishers try to take that control away from us, it usually leads to bad things. Let's hope Nintendo keeps that in mind with their next Zelda title and that Skyward Sword doesn't miss finding its full audience in the meantime.
Jonathan Holmes is the most lovable Associate Editor on Destructoid. Catch him on videos, original editorials, and on back episodes of the Destructoid Show and MTV's Road Rules. Jonathan is a retro gamer's gamer.
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People want button controls because they're A. stupid, B. have no coordination, C. will just shake the remote because they're too dumb to actually stop and think about what they're doing and then blame the controls for them sucking at it and D. are afraid of any form of change in any way.
For a game that is as beautiful and amazing as Skyward Sword, you'd have to have something seriously wrong with you to let motion controls be your excuse to not play. Fucking suck it up, you whiners. Learn a new control scheme, move your arms once in your lives, and enjoy the perfect game. Your life will improve as a result. You have absolutely nothing to lose by getting this game and playing it.
The motion controls in Skyward Sword involve a learning curve. Beyond that, they work excellently and really add to the experience. And I've been gaming since Sonic 2 on the Genesis. Not as long as other people, surely not as long as Holmes, but I've still gone my whole life with buttons. I love buttons. I hate bad motion controls. Skyward Sword does not have bad motion controls. They're FUN.
The only exception I take with you, Holmes, is that you suggested a 10/10 is a perfect game. There's no such thing, of course. A 10/10 still has a minor issue here and there. It's just that those minor issues in no way detract from the experience, as is the case with Skyrim, for example, which earned a 10/10 here on dtoid recently. No one would call that a perfect game, but it did absolutely earn its perfect score.
None of this is to say that Skyward Sword deserved that extra half point. I don't know if it did or did not. Just debating a minor point.
I wrote this earlier but it fits well here because we did not own any "Motion Plus" garbage and my GF could not play the game when we got home.
I have not been paying attention to this game at all.
I really don't like the Wii Zelda games, though my GF loves them, I prefer the non Wii system ones as I don't want motion controls stuffed down my throat. I saw the date it came out and bought it and I have not touched a Wii controller in a good 5 months.
So yeah if this was a controller based game I would enjoy it much more than waggle enabled, I loved the Gamecube Zelda and stopped loving them once they hit the Wii.
I would've liked a button-only way to play this game. I would say that I am one that hates unnecessary waggle controls and dislike the wii to a certain degree but SS has actually won me over. Its evident that this is a game that was built from the ground up with Wii controls in mind, unlike Twilight Princess which had those tacked on which resulted in tired wrist from excessive waggle to attack.
SS only required you to attack enemies once or twice to defeat them, providing you attack them using the proper angle. Didn't really have trouble with the controls when it came to combat, you just have to be really patient and time your attacks properly.
The real problem here is that Aonuma was originally gonna make this game without Link using a sword, and apparently wasn't going to use motion controls, either. Programming that sort of stuff takes an engineer and painstaking work and effort to make feel natural and fluid. Since Aonuma isn't an engineer and his background is sedate boring PC adventure point-and-click games and not twitch-reflex action (which is what the older Zeldas were), the fact that the motion controls turned out being meh isn't a shock.
When you got the equivalent of a liberal arts major trying to build a bridge it shouldn't come as a shock that the bridge is a faulty and slipshod piece of crap.
I really think marking the game just shy of perfect because it didn't give plays an option is really fair. I mean a game can't be perfect if it alienates fans.
I'm sure the motion controls work great, and I'm sure I'm gonna love the game, but there are still times that I want to just sit and not use motion controls.
Holmes, my problem with your Skyward Sword review is that you seemed to "deduct" that half point (I use quotes because I stand by Jim when he says no games "starts at 10") simply because of what you assumed other people might think. As Tristrix said, there's no such thing as a "perfect" game, the 10/10 is used for games where the few flaws are tiny and trivial enough that they can be easily overlooked in the entire experience. Based on your write-up, I feel like you believe Skyward Sword is a 10/10.
I don't care about the scores and certainly don't care about metacritic nonsense. I just don't want to see you walk on eggshells and feel like you need to paint an imaginary blemish on a game just because you think somebody else might not agree with you.
It would have been nice. I don't like motion controls, myself. And I think a developer should take into account the preferences of those people who will play their game. Customers will accommodate such forced changes in control schemes as this, but hey, they don't have to like it (although they certainly can enjoy it).
I'm sorry, I don't agree with what you just said. Saying that motion controls are being "forced" is like saying that ocarina "forced" 3D visuals, or that Katamari "forced" the player to roll a ball. The entire game was built around motion controls, so yeah, you should expect to be using them.
I still think motion controls are a mistake. Nintendo themselves are the ones that have to come out in front of the herd to show other developers how to innovate correctly, but it took nintendo themselves until the end of the wii's lifecycle to create a hardcore wii game that legitamitely justified the wii's controller (as opposed to every other one of their hardcore games that would have been better with a regular controller).
This only makes me more afraid for the WiiU. Once again, I'm saying that I don't want to play ninja gaiden 3 with that giant bulky controller, with the little analogue nubs, and the battery draining screen. This is the part where people call me stupid because the wii u will be able to use the classic controller, but whether the game themselves use the classic controller is up to the developer. Wii games could use gamecube and classic controllers, but barely any gave the option because developers wanted to justify their games being in the wii, so the map some essential actions to motion controls, and as soon as that happens, the option to use a classic controller disappears. I can totally see rocksteady adding some stupid touch screen minigame or some bat gadget that uses the wiiu's tablet controller just to justify the port, and as soon as they add those things, the tablet becomes mandatory.
Also getting a little off topic, but how many ds games ACTUALLY make full use of both screens? Sure a lot of games make good use of the touch screen, but pretty much EVERY SINGLE one of my games (except TWEWY) just uses the second screen as a map or something that could easily be in a start menu, which sounds like a muh better option than increasing the costs of millions of dses and significantly draining the battery life of the system by sticking a second screen in the system. It's especially bad when once again, nintendo themselves have barely justified having two screens in their first party games as all of their games I can think of just use the second screen as a map. Nintendo needs to stop forcing these cumbersome innovations on us if they themselves can't even make good use of them outside of minigame compilations
I didn't like the motion controls in Skyward Sword because they didn't make the game any more fun than if I were able to play it with a controller (which is not to say a controller would have necessarily been *more* fun, or that the game is bad at all). I love good motion work like NMH, and I even loved Other M's implementation, but the new Zelda just felt uncomfortable. As accurate as the controls are, lifting the wii remote above my head or holding it down never felt natural.
To Holmes' point about alienation, I really felt halfway between solid, familiar controller methods and outstanding motion controls. The moves in SS just didn't help. If I'm not having fun playing a game then what the hell am I doing playing it?
Development barely started before the decision to use MotionPlus was made, though. And "slipshod piece of crap"? Maybe if you play the way the guy at GameSpot did, sure.
Half the issue is Nintendo's fault for deploying the Wii without the motion plus, putting in most minds "motion = waggle".
The other half is people thinking technology doesn't change and think that swinging a sword will be like the baseball bat from Wii Sports. Have an open mind people, the controls are new. You haven't actually used them before, you don't know how they feel.
Nintendo didn't add an option because they were confident in their tech, as they should be. Try it, you'll like it.
Thank you for being so open to other's opinions, Jonathan!
I am willing to Skyward Sword complete attention, despite not seeing any intrinsic benefits of motion controls; every experience with motion controls has lead me to form the opinion that it's actually worse, and the commands could be more precisely entered with standard controls. I am in the group that would physically intuit with buttons, though...
I'm willing to see if Zelda SS's implementation changes my mind.
"Even Twilight Princess gave you the option to play with standard or motion controls."
Yeah, but the motion controls were far more basic than Twilight Princess. The swordplay is way, way more complex in this game, as you (Holmes) must know. Having an option to revert to standard controls would likely inevitably take away from the overall motion controlled experience, as combat is dependent on both the angle of the sword strikes and many other things, and as far as I can tell there is no way they could've replicated that without a full motion controller.
One thing that has historically been under-discussed in game reviews, IMO, is controls, and control flexibility. If one doesn't like the control scheme, or the controls are poor and unreliable, it impacts the enjoyment of the game. First-rate games have always had flexible controls.
Occasionally controls are so bad that they become widely discussed, like the sluggish controls in Killzone 2, but I'd appreciate if these sorts of discussions became a regular part of a review like graphics or gameplay. Controls are really important and bad controls sink a game.
Whenever the occasional poster comes forth to report that keys cannot be re-binded or an axis cannot be inverted, they always get hammered down by the trolls saying it is easy to get used to, or whatever.
I found it a little tricky/finicky to begin with, but I can't see how people aren't getting into the swing of it. Maybe I'm building up new muscle memory? Anyway, I think they've brought something fresh to Zelda.
I stopped playing Zelda on Twilight Princess due to motion controls (I had a Wii copy naively thinking it would also have button controls).
I have more gripes with motion-control in general than the publishers utilizing it. However, the fact remains that it is the only reason I don't play Zelda anymore (or Wii for that matter) D:
Also, Ocarina should have been playable with the DPad! Stop shoving analog controls down my throat! Polygons? When I bought this N64 I didn't think it would have polygons! /sarcasm
1) Whether or not a game alienates people has nothing to do with the quality of the game. That's a rather arbitrary line you're drawing there. Would a game with a story that some people found offensive lose points for that, for instance? If you say that's different because it is narrative and not game play-oriented, you're only strengthening my point that you are drawing an arbitrary line.
2) You'll notice that almost everybody who reviews the game mentions, that at least for a while, the controls did not click for them. The reality of the situation is that most of those people would have switched to classic controls.
3) You mention that it would not be impossible to translate the game to standard controls. This is true. It would not be up to Nintendo's standards of qualities though. It would be unusually clunky for a Zelda game.
4) Back to number two, this is a game that Nintendo believes would be worse if people played it with standard controls. So by that logic, wouldn't reviews for this game be worse if they had given people that option? Perhaps sales as well? Certainly the legacy of the game would suffer.
Basically, Nintendo made the right call on this one. This is coming from someone who is usually in favor of as many control styles as possible.
"It's about leaving your room, leaving your body behind, and entering the world of Hyrule through Link as your avatar"
oh please. does anyone (possibly over the age of 18) actually feel like this when they play video games? cause i for 1 am self aware and know i am playing a video game and not pretending i am the person in the game. do people really fantasize like this when playing video games?
What I mean is that Aonuma has openly admitted that he couldn't play the original Zelda. The original game was a twitch-based action-RPG that focused heavily on exploration and combat. The combat should have felt more fluid. Instead because of his background, the combat is said to be "like a puzzle". The enemies have a pattern and you have to hit them "just so" to hurt/kill them. That's not exciting. It just makes combat boring. Likewise it allows the developers to half-ass the motion controls so as to not be nearly natural as they could be. In the older Zeldas it wasn't like this at all (maybe the bosses). Regular enemies would swarm you and you'd have to Johnny-Be-Quick to not get killed. Now the enemies just stand back while they fight you one at a time.
What I'm saying is that Aonuma is the worst thing to happen to Zelda since...well, the CD-i games, and honestly at this point that's actually almost being cruel to the CD-i Zeldas. He got hired by Miyamoto because he made wooden dolls in college. I want someone with actual game development skills, because the only thing that Aonuma made outside of Zelda was some crap PC adventure game that utterly bombed. All Aonuma has done is turned Zelda into a lame PC-point-and-click adventure game with half-hearted combat tacked on as an afterthought as though that is going to appease the very old-school fans of the originals, when it doesn't.
At this point Skyrim has more in common with classic Zelda than the Zelda of today does. Fire Aonuma and put the series back in the hands of people that grew up with and understand what the original games were. Preferably Retro.
I had no problems whatsoever with the motion controls except for the frequency of having to reallign the pointer with the down button on the D-pad. I think the real problem here is that so many gamers have assumed that motion controls = waggle like a furious spastic, that when a game with real motion controls comes along like skyward sword, they can't figure it out.
Oh boy here come the "your playing it wrong people" Anyway from what I have played nintendo has far more important things they need to work on (though the game should have been playable with a standard controller)
Oh, why I hate motion controls. No feedback. If I'm swinging my arm around I want to get feedback. My sword hitting a shield should give me something significant, not some little vibration I barely feel.
If I'm using my hand to swing around I want my ENTIRE body to get involved. It feels really bad when I'm only using one part of my body like that. That's not in the game though...
Honestly, EggmaniMN summed it up on the second post. No, they should not have options for standard controls. This is ridiculous. Realize that the entire world does not cater to your whims people. Buy the game or don't. It's a motion control game.
Skyward Sword kicks ass, I've been playing videogames since Nintendo and I could care less that there isn't a non-motion option. I wouldn't even bother with it if there was, and it's astounding that there are people out there not down with this. I wouldn't want every future Zelda release to be like this, but it's a nice change of pace at least.
I feel that motion controls take away a lot of the sense of immersion. Being constantly aware of my body and surroudings give me a sense of multi tasking when i want to focus on my game
I am trying to figure out how you would use the buttons on the Wii to replicate the attacks in Skyward Sword. This is not a "Mash A to attack" game, and there just aren't enough buttons to do it.
To see how ridiculous the whole argument is, try reversing it: "Skyrim should have motion controls. Both the 360 and the PS3 have controllers that would support it, therefore not having them is a major problem with the game."
No, actually, it shouldn't. A game's controls are chosen to support the gameplay of that game.
Great article Holmes! I still don't really agree, but you explained your reasons very well and have certainly provided an interesting point for discussion. In fact, if the motion controls were utilized in the ways that TP, NMH2 and Monster Hunter Tri used them for example I might have agreed with you that they should have implemented optional classic controls.
But the motion plus and 1:1 swordfighting is just too much of a gamechanger for me. Though they might technically could have, I feel that trying to make those things work on a classic controller would have made the game a lot less interesting and engaging for me and actively less fun as a result.
But I totally respect your opinion! I also understand now that you as a game reviewer feel that you have a responsibility to look beyond just yourself and try to write and review for as many people as possible, which is very respectable and admirable.
I do have a little bit of a problem with the following statement though: "To get a 10/10, the game has to give all players everything they could possible want or expect out of a title.". If this were true, no game could ever possibly score a 10. Take a game like RE4 for example, which I remember you saying was a 10/10 game in your RE4 HD review. There are tons of people out there who think RE4 is disappointing compared to RE1-3 because the focus is much more on action instead of survival horror for example. Going by your logic RE4 should then not be a 10/10 game. Maybe you can elaborate this statement a bit?
@Jonathan Holmes: Very interesting article. I liked the insight on the tendencies of core gamers to reject motion controls and casual gamers to embrace them. Obviously exceptions exist, but it really does seem to hold true with the people I know, at least.
For me the DKC Returns waggle significantly reduced my enjoyment of the game. It was totally forced and basically barred me from the time trial stages because of need to constantly waggle AND make precise jumps. Just no. DKC Returns would have been a 10/10 for me, but with the waggle roll I would give it 8/10, NOT COOL NINTENDO.
I'm actually more ok with forcing motion+ on the new Zelda. This is a complete integration of the concept, not some tacked on BS. Yes it would be possible with a controller, but I'm sure one of the endless ports to a future Nintendo console with implement standard controls so I'm not too worried. Alternatively, you could emulate motion+ onto standard controllers in Dolphin and play in HD today if you have a super computer.
motion control is like masturbating with your weak/off hand.
normal controls is like using your normal hand.
its easier when you have your normal controls cause you know what each button does. and its fast and more accurate.
but when you try to use motion control it just doesnt seem right. your all over the place and its nothing but waggling till you get it right. and by that time you just dont care anymore.
But in all honesty, I was wildly excited for the potential that motion controls could bring to a game, and I'm pretty upset that it took five years for a game to finally deliver on the initial promise. The game is amazing though, and I can safely say that I do not wanna play Skyward Sword with a regular controller. No More Heroes 2 lets you do it, but trust me, removing motion controls from NMH2 makes the gameplay pretty mediocre in comparison to what Bayonetta and even God of War lets you do. That being said, most video games force me to use a controller with two analog sticks and 10 buttons, and nobody complains about that. What if (hypothetically) I wanted to play Street Fighter with a motion controller. I can't. Capcom is forcing me to use a regular controller! :P
But what if the critics are right though? What if motion controls, by design, are inherently broken? Recalibration is something I occasionally have to do in Skyward Sword, but it's not a game breaker for me by any means. Learning how to accurately place my sword strikes gives me a level of immersion no other game (save the NMH games... kinda) has really given me before.
If you don't like motion controls, that's fine. It's okay. I'll be playing Skyward Sword with my sword held high up in the air, yelling my battle cry, Skyward Strike all charged up. :D
I don't know. I was skeptical myself about the sword play in SS at first, and then I got to the first boss. There is no way that fight would have had the impact on me it did without the motion controls. You really feel like a total bad ass up to that point squashing spiders, and killing Moblins or whatever the hell they're called now, and then you get to the boss. I don't think I've ever felt as helpless against a boss as I did against him in the first phase.
Just made it to Ghirahim at the end of my play time last nite..... what a cool -ass character he is!!
On the motion controls, I think they work well, not as good as I expected though.... but we'll see.... I'm going to kee an open mind and hopefully master it.... my arm got tired after about 5 hrs. Of play... I'm thinking I just need t get used to a wii mote, again.
WHOA! Bringing up the CD-i games! Let's... let's no go there! I've played the CD-i games. Comparing Aonuma's involvement with the franchise to the CD-i games is a huge, huge, HUGE exaggeration.
And maybe combat is boring for you, but it isn't for me and the other people enjoying the game. The whole point of this game is that being "Johnny B. Quick" can get you killed. You need to approach each battle with focus and an eye for your opponents' weaknesses. You know, like actual combat. Ever sparred against someone who knows what he's doing? Connecting blows isn't as easy as "swing like a windmill." It requires looking for openings and misdirection. It's like a dance.
That is, unless you picture a "fight" as two drunken bar patrons just wildly flailing on each other. Neither one usually comes out unscathed.
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Contest:
1:30 PM on 11.21.2011
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What a horrible idea.
For a game that is as beautiful and amazing as Skyward Sword, you'd have to have something seriously wrong with you to let motion controls be your excuse to not play. Fucking suck it up, you whiners. Learn a new control scheme, move your arms once in your lives, and enjoy the perfect game. Your life will improve as a result. You have absolutely nothing to lose by getting this game and playing it.
The motion controls in Skyward Sword involve a learning curve. Beyond that, they work excellently and really add to the experience. And I've been gaming since Sonic 2 on the Genesis. Not as long as other people, surely not as long as Holmes, but I've still gone my whole life with buttons. I love buttons. I hate bad motion controls. Skyward Sword does not have bad motion controls. They're FUN.
None of this is to say that Skyward Sword deserved that extra half point. I don't know if it did or did not. Just debating a minor point.
I wrote this earlier but it fits well here because we did not own any "Motion Plus" garbage and my GF could not play the game when we got home.
I have not been paying attention to this game at all.
I really don't like the Wii Zelda games, though my GF loves them, I prefer the non Wii system ones as I don't want motion controls stuffed down my throat. I saw the date it came out and bought it and I have not touched a Wii controller in a good 5 months.
So yeah if this was a controller based game I would enjoy it much more than waggle enabled, I loved the Gamecube Zelda and stopped loving them once they hit the Wii.
SS only required you to attack enemies once or twice to defeat them, providing you attack them using the proper angle. Didn't really have trouble with the controls when it came to combat, you just have to be really patient and time your attacks properly.
When you got the equivalent of a liberal arts major trying to build a bridge it shouldn't come as a shock that the bridge is a faulty and slipshod piece of crap.
I'm sure the motion controls work great, and I'm sure I'm gonna love the game, but there are still times that I want to just sit and not use motion controls.
also @EggmaniMN that's silly, you're being silly.
I don't care about the scores and certainly don't care about metacritic nonsense. I just don't want to see you walk on eggshells and feel like you need to paint an imaginary blemish on a game just because you think somebody else might not agree with you.
True. Lets see how things unfold, shall we? Anyone got some popcorn.jpg?
This only makes me more afraid for the WiiU. Once again, I'm saying that I don't want to play ninja gaiden 3 with that giant bulky controller, with the little analogue nubs, and the battery draining screen. This is the part where people call me stupid because the wii u will be able to use the classic controller, but whether the game themselves use the classic controller is up to the developer. Wii games could use gamecube and classic controllers, but barely any gave the option because developers wanted to justify their games being in the wii, so the map some essential actions to motion controls, and as soon as that happens, the option to use a classic controller disappears. I can totally see rocksteady adding some stupid touch screen minigame or some bat gadget that uses the wiiu's tablet controller just to justify the port, and as soon as they add those things, the tablet becomes mandatory.
Also getting a little off topic, but how many ds games ACTUALLY make full use of both screens? Sure a lot of games make good use of the touch screen, but pretty much EVERY SINGLE one of my games (except TWEWY) just uses the second screen as a map or something that could easily be in a start menu, which sounds like a muh better option than increasing the costs of millions of dses and significantly draining the battery life of the system by sticking a second screen in the system. It's especially bad when once again, nintendo themselves have barely justified having two screens in their first party games as all of their games I can think of just use the second screen as a map. Nintendo needs to stop forcing these cumbersome innovations on us if they themselves can't even make good use of them outside of minigame compilations
To Holmes' point about alienation, I really felt halfway between solid, familiar controller methods and outstanding motion controls. The moves in SS just didn't help. If I'm not having fun playing a game then what the hell am I doing playing it?
Development barely started before the decision to use MotionPlus was made, though. And "slipshod piece of crap"? Maybe if you play the way the guy at GameSpot did, sure.
The other half is people thinking technology doesn't change and think that swinging a sword will be like the baseball bat from Wii Sports. Have an open mind people, the controls are new. You haven't actually used them before, you don't know how they feel.
Nintendo didn't add an option because they were confident in their tech, as they should be. Try it, you'll like it.
I am willing to Skyward Sword complete attention, despite not seeing any intrinsic benefits of motion controls; every experience with motion controls has lead me to form the opinion that it's actually worse, and the commands could be more precisely entered with standard controls. I am in the group that would physically intuit with buttons, though...
I'm willing to see if Zelda SS's implementation changes my mind.
*slow clap*
You nailed it on the head!
They should allow motion controls to be optional, like inverting. Not everyone plays the same way.
Yeah, but the motion controls were far more basic than Twilight Princess. The swordplay is way, way more complex in this game, as you (Holmes) must know. Having an option to revert to standard controls would likely inevitably take away from the overall motion controlled experience, as combat is dependent on both the angle of the sword strikes and many other things, and as far as I can tell there is no way they could've replicated that without a full motion controller.
It's not that hard to get used to, anyway.
Occasionally controls are so bad that they become widely discussed, like the sluggish controls in Killzone 2, but I'd appreciate if these sorts of discussions became a regular part of a review like graphics or gameplay. Controls are really important and bad controls sink a game.
Whenever the occasional poster comes forth to report that keys cannot be re-binded or an axis cannot be inverted, they always get hammered down by the trolls saying it is easy to get used to, or whatever.
lawl
I have more gripes with motion-control in general than the publishers utilizing it. However, the fact remains that it is the only reason I don't play Zelda anymore (or Wii for that matter) D:
1) Whether or not a game alienates people has nothing to do with the quality of the game. That's a rather arbitrary line you're drawing there. Would a game with a story that some people found offensive lose points for that, for instance? If you say that's different because it is narrative and not game play-oriented, you're only strengthening my point that you are drawing an arbitrary line.
2) You'll notice that almost everybody who reviews the game mentions, that at least for a while, the controls did not click for them. The reality of the situation is that most of those people would have switched to classic controls.
3) You mention that it would not be impossible to translate the game to standard controls. This is true. It would not be up to Nintendo's standards of qualities though. It would be unusually clunky for a Zelda game.
4) Back to number two, this is a game that Nintendo believes would be worse if people played it with standard controls. So by that logic, wouldn't reviews for this game be worse if they had given people that option? Perhaps sales as well? Certainly the legacy of the game would suffer.
Basically, Nintendo made the right call on this one. This is coming from someone who is usually in favor of as many control styles as possible.
oh please. does anyone (possibly over the age of 18) actually feel like this when they play video games? cause i for 1 am self aware and know i am playing a video game and not pretending i am the person in the game. do people really fantasize like this when playing video games?
its just a game.
What I mean is that Aonuma has openly admitted that he couldn't play the original Zelda. The original game was a twitch-based action-RPG that focused heavily on exploration and combat. The combat should have felt more fluid. Instead because of his background, the combat is said to be "like a puzzle". The enemies have a pattern and you have to hit them "just so" to hurt/kill them. That's not exciting. It just makes combat boring. Likewise it allows the developers to half-ass the motion controls so as to not be nearly natural as they could be. In the older Zeldas it wasn't like this at all (maybe the bosses). Regular enemies would swarm you and you'd have to Johnny-Be-Quick to not get killed. Now the enemies just stand back while they fight you one at a time.
What I'm saying is that Aonuma is the worst thing to happen to Zelda since...well, the CD-i games, and honestly at this point that's actually almost being cruel to the CD-i Zeldas. He got hired by Miyamoto because he made wooden dolls in college. I want someone with actual game development skills, because the only thing that Aonuma made outside of Zelda was some crap PC adventure game that utterly bombed. All Aonuma has done is turned Zelda into a lame PC-point-and-click adventure game with half-hearted combat tacked on as an afterthought as though that is going to appease the very old-school fans of the originals, when it doesn't.
At this point Skyrim has more in common with classic Zelda than the Zelda of today does. Fire Aonuma and put the series back in the hands of people that grew up with and understand what the original games were. Preferably Retro.
If I'm using my hand to swing around I want my ENTIRE body to get involved. It feels really bad when I'm only using one part of my body like that. That's not in the game though...
Fuck motion controls.
To see how ridiculous the whole argument is, try reversing it: "Skyrim should have motion controls. Both the 360 and the PS3 have controllers that would support it, therefore not having them is a major problem with the game."
No, actually, it shouldn't. A game's controls are chosen to support the gameplay of that game.
But the motion plus and 1:1 swordfighting is just too much of a gamechanger for me. Though they might technically could have, I feel that trying to make those things work on a classic controller would have made the game a lot less interesting and engaging for me and actively less fun as a result.
But I totally respect your opinion! I also understand now that you as a game reviewer feel that you have a responsibility to look beyond just yourself and try to write and review for as many people as possible, which is very respectable and admirable.
I do have a little bit of a problem with the following statement though: "To get a 10/10, the game has to give all players everything they could possible want or expect out of a title.". If this were true, no game could ever possibly score a 10. Take a game like RE4 for example, which I remember you saying was a 10/10 game in your RE4 HD review. There are tons of people out there who think RE4 is disappointing compared to RE1-3 because the focus is much more on action instead of survival horror for example. Going by your logic RE4 should then not be a 10/10 game. Maybe you can elaborate this statement a bit?
I'm actually more ok with forcing motion+ on the new Zelda. This is a complete integration of the concept, not some tacked on BS. Yes it would be possible with a controller, but I'm sure one of the endless ports to a future Nintendo console with implement standard controls so I'm not too worried. Alternatively, you could emulate motion+ onto standard controllers in Dolphin and play in HD today if you have a super computer.
After all, Sony has marginalized PSMove, and look how that turned out for them.
normal controls is like using your normal hand.
its easier when you have your normal controls cause you know what each button does. and its fast and more accurate.
but when you try to use motion control it just doesnt seem right. your all over the place and its nothing but waggling till you get it right. and by that time you just dont care anymore.
That's why Sony has no hardcore Move games. ;)
But in all honesty, I was wildly excited for the potential that motion controls could bring to a game, and I'm pretty upset that it took five years for a game to finally deliver on the initial promise. The game is amazing though, and I can safely say that I do not wanna play Skyward Sword with a regular controller. No More Heroes 2 lets you do it, but trust me, removing motion controls from NMH2 makes the gameplay pretty mediocre in comparison to what Bayonetta and even God of War lets you do. That being said, most video games force me to use a controller with two analog sticks and 10 buttons, and nobody complains about that. What if (hypothetically) I wanted to play Street Fighter with a motion controller. I can't. Capcom is forcing me to use a regular controller! :P
But what if the critics are right though? What if motion controls, by design, are inherently broken? Recalibration is something I occasionally have to do in Skyward Sword, but it's not a game breaker for me by any means. Learning how to accurately place my sword strikes gives me a level of immersion no other game (save the NMH games... kinda) has really given me before.
If you don't like motion controls, that's fine. It's okay. I'll be playing Skyward Sword with my sword held high up in the air, yelling my battle cry, Skyward Strike all charged up. :D
On the motion controls, I think they work well, not as good as I expected though.... but we'll see.... I'm going to kee an open mind and hopefully master it.... my arm got tired after about 5 hrs. Of play... I'm thinking I just need t get used to a wii mote, again.
WHOA! Bringing up the CD-i games! Let's... let's no go there! I've played the CD-i games. Comparing Aonuma's involvement with the franchise to the CD-i games is a huge, huge, HUGE exaggeration.
And maybe combat is boring for you, but it isn't for me and the other people enjoying the game. The whole point of this game is that being "Johnny B. Quick" can get you killed. You need to approach each battle with focus and an eye for your opponents' weaknesses. You know, like actual combat. Ever sparred against someone who knows what he's doing? Connecting blows isn't as easy as "swing like a windmill." It requires looking for openings and misdirection. It's like a dance.
That is, unless you picture a "fight" as two drunken bar patrons just wildly flailing on each other. Neither one usually comes out unscathed.