The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword -- All-In-One.

I have fully completed The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Wii. By fully completed I mean that I completed all the side quests, collected all the crystals, and found all the hearts on my way to completing the game. The game was developed by Nintendo EAD (Entertainment Analysis and Development, for those who may have wondered) and published by Nintendo. Much like Majora's Mask before it requiring the Expansion Pak and its 4MB of memory for the Nintendo 64 to be able to play it, Skyward sword requires Wii Motion Plus and its enhanced motion control to play. The game has been built from the controls up. The gameplay has been designed entirely around the controls. The Wii Motion Plus allows for 1 to 1 tracking of motion. Meaning wherever you move the Wii Remote Plus, the on screen image of Link moves his sword. Right down to the tilt of the blade's edge. Whether the edge is facing the ground or the horizon can be controlled. You'd think with this much degree of control that the sword play would be rather complex. It's really not. You essentially have forehand and backhand slashes for the horizontal and diagonal strikes. You also have the top to bottom and bottom to top vertical slashes as well as a stabbing thrust. Your shield is essentially turned on with the shake of the nunchuck. And you can perform a shield thrust with a further shake of the nunchuck. You also have Link's trademark spin slash for lawn care and some combat use. The enemies play into these controls. The humanoid ones especially tend to defend themselves so you'll need to pay attention to how they're blocking. If they're blocking for a vertical strike a horizontal strike will normally be able to land. The more advanced encounters will require you to shield bash their attacks which will stun them for a second allowing you to get in a sword combo. All of the game's tools also use motion control and for the most part the motion controls are a success. They will still fail from time to time. And especially in the tool usage, the controls will become misaligned. Nintendo has that covered this time around. You merely need to point the Wii Motion Plus at the center of the screen and hit down on the D-pad to realign the controls. It's a built in hot fix. Something Nintendo really isn't going to advertise as it really says, hey we know our motion control crap doesn't really function a hundred percent of the time. Graphically the aesthetic of Skyward Sword is a mix between Twilight Princess' supposedly more mature style and the cartoon look of Wind Waker which results in a decidedly watercolor look. I like the graphic style. It's a shame that the graphics will depend heavily on how your high definition television deals with standard definition input. Mine doesn't especially like working with the Wii so all of the seams are clearly visible for me. None of this would be there on a standard definition television and the game would look great. The sound design of Skyward Sword fairs much better. The game uses more than a few fully orchestrated tracks and the sound quality is great. The main themes are especially well done. It does take a while to get used to the classic treasure get fanfare being done with real instruments. At first it sounds a little weird. I felt the need for voice acting this time around. I think it would have helped with the emotional impact of the story they were going for. Skyward Sword is the first game in the time line, such as it is. You're getting a lot of origin story with this one. There aren't any great surprises and everything fits rather well. I liked it a lot for what it is. Although I will say I was a little surprised at how heavily Nintendo borrowed from Lunar: The Silver Star and Lunar: Eternal Blue. I'm being polite with the use of borrow. There are a couple of things I really liked about Skyward Sword. One of those is in how thorough the developers were in pulling aspects from every other game in the series into Skyward Sword. There are shades of every single game in the series baring the CD-I titles in Skyward Sword. It results in twinges of nostalgia whenever one of these nods are recognized and that plays into the feeling of playing through a great Zelda adventure. Some of them are as blatant as 'It's a secret to everybody' and some are more obscure as the shape of certain headgear having the similar design as Midna's headgear from Twilight Princess. Another aspect I liked is the game feels full. The original Zelda, and A Link to the Past essentially had a secret on every screen. The games felt packed with content in that regard. The 3D Zelda games have lost that feeling. It's back with Skyward Sword. While not quite as true as a secret on every screen, Skyward Sword is as close to that as you can probably get in a 3D title. The game doesn't feel empty or small. Even when it doesn't really have a true overworld anymore. The dungeons and puzzles are great. The dungeons are large and varied with interesting new concepts and packed with puzzles. The game's bosses are also a treat. A lot of them break free from typical Zelda concepts and they make use of the tools and Wii Motion Plus in interesting ways. I really enjoyed my sixty-five hours with the game. Like a most great games, I didn't want it to end. I'm giving The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword a 9.5. Now bring on the Zelda games for the 3DS and the Wii U.