Skyward Sword = Best Zelda Game Ever?

[wilco64256]

LOL would it seem at all strange to say that I mainly like video game reviews for the pictures?

[dark-daventry]

LOL would it seem at all strange to say that I mainly like video game reviews for the pictures?

Um, honestly, yes. I read a lot of my reviews from Joystiq, and they don't have many pictures. But hey, whatever floats your boat, man.

[MusicallyInspired]

We'll see. I hope you're right. I have learned never ever to trust hype or reviews again.

Not trying to say there's no truth to what you say, bust out of curiosity, what games have you been disappointed in that have been collectively praised to the max by the press? I normally find a very good sign that a game will be very awesome.

No game in particular. It's just a repeated thing that proves itself every time. There is the fact that they always praise mindless crap like Call of Duty and stuff I'm just not interested in. I take everything with a grain of salt. I was looking forward to Duke Nukem Forever. And I wasn't even hyped up, just happy it was coming out, and it turned out to be less than satisfactory. That doesn't really count though because the magazines were giving it low scores out the yin yang.

There's also the unfortunate fact that game companies and publishers pay magazines and review sites to give their game a higher score and good review. It's incredibly sick, twisted, unreliable, and political.

[Sousuke]

Yea, I am not putting too much stock into what the reviews say. I heard similar proclamations about Twilight Princess and Wind Waker, which were both disappointing to me and weren't nearly as good as OoT. One thing that bugs me was Nintendo was throwing around these gameplay estimates of 80 hours or so, when it turns out to actually be 30-40 from what some previews have been saying. Same thing happened with TP.

The last time the reviews were spot on for a game I enjoyed was the original Metroid Prime, but then again I'm hardly a hardcore gamer these days and barely play anymore, though I still make it a point to get the flagship (aka non-DS) Zelda games if they're worth it.

I was surprised how fast the gold wii plus SS bundle sold out on Amazon. Glad I preordered when I did, as it doesn't look like they will get any more in stock, and the usual suspects on the marketplace were trying to gouge people for $250 a copy until Amazon took the product page down completely.

[MusicallyInspired]

I loved TP and consider it better than OOT.

[dark-daventry]

I loved TP and consider it better than OOT.

While I enjoyed Twilight Princess, I personally wouldn't call it better than OoT, but to each their own. Both games are good.

[Sousuke]

TP started out good once you got outside all the twilight zones and could start actually exploring a little, but there were just too many things that took away from it for me. Such as Hyrule castle being surrounded by that magical barrier and the townspeople just going on about their merry lives as if nothing's out of the ordinary. Once you finally were able to get in the castle, it was pretty much barren and empty outside the confrontation with Ganon. I would have preferred a more lifelike Hyrule castle like OoT's or Link to the Past, personal preference.

I also felt most of the items were way underutilized, most only being useful in the dungeon they were found in or else relegated to a limited role outside such as the fetch quest with the Dominon rod. I liked the older Zeldas where the new items you got were well utilized from that point forward to the end of the game and didn't just rot in your inventory.

The enemies and especially boss fights were not nearly as challenging as in previous zelda titles like oot and lttp, and there came a point in the game (don't remember exactly where since it was 5 years ago I played it) where it became apparent the developers went into "rush this game to completion to meet the deadline" mode. I was surprised to see that in a game whose release date had already been pushed back multiple times. I just was expecting more out of a title that had been hyped up for so long and had spent so much time in development. It had the makings of a truly great game, if only some things had been done differently and more thought put into them.

The money grab Nintendo did when releasing it on wii only for the first month when it was originally supposed to be a gamecube title, along with them breaking their earlier promise to release the wii and gamecube editions side by side also didn't sit well a lot of people.

I actually had link to the past as my all time favorite zelda for a long time, it was only recently when replaying that and then Ocarina of Time afterwards that I switched them, I hadn't played either in over ten years and wanted a fresh perspective of the two side by side.

[Fierce Deity]

I enjoyed Twilight Princess' atmosphere over Ocarina. It was very dark and mysterious. I would have liked to see more titles take that kind of risk, but sadly, Hyrule has been blase for awhile. It's very "copy and paste".

[Sousuke]

Agreed, that part of TP was a nice change, I just wish they'd fleshed it out more than they did. Hyrule itself seemed empty, for lack of a better word. If instead of making a wii version they'd put that time into perfecting the gamecube one, it could have benefited quite a bit.

[Lambonius]

No voice acting?  Then not the best Zelda ever. 

[Fierce Deity]

No voice acting?  Then not the best Zelda ever. 

If Link ever got a voice, don't you think it would have to be near-perfect? Link's been a mute for so long, I couldn't take it seriously, unless his voice fit him to a T. The same would have to go for any of the other characters, especially Ganondorf.

[Blackthorne]

Link had a voice almost 20 years ago, what are you talking about?


http://youtu.be/EsvXOkISR9E


Bt

[Lambonius]

No voice acting?  Then not the best Zelda ever.  

If Link ever got a voice, don't you think it would have to be near-perfect? Link's been a mute for so long, I couldn't take it seriously, unless his voice fit him to a T. The same would have to go for any of the other characters, especially Ganondorf.

I never said you had to do away with the staple silent protagonist.  There are plenty of games that have voice work, but a silent protagonist.  Pretty much all Bioware games pre-Mass Effect, for example.  When they started to put more focus on plot development with Twilight Princess, they ended up with a game that contained a number of emotional plot moments that felt empty because they didn't have emotive voices speaking the parts.  In this generation of gaming, no voicework in a game like this is really ridiculous.  All secondary characters should have voices.  Period.

(Posted on: November 09, 2011, 02:46:44 AM)

Link had a voice almost 20 years ago, what are you talking about?


http://youtu.be/EsvXOkISR9E


Bt

Hahahahahahahahaha...I love that throughout that entire clip, Link is not wearing any pants.  No-pants Link fighting Moblins: *grabs pillow*  "PILLOW FIGHT!!!!"   hahahahahaha  

So gay.

[MusicallyInspired]

Half-Life is another. Also, Elder Scrolls.

[Fierce Deity]

No voice acting?  Then not the best Zelda ever.  

If Link ever got a voice, don't you think it would have to be near-perfect? Link's been a mute for so long, I couldn't take it seriously, unless his voice fit him to a T. The same would have to go for any of the other characters, especially Ganondorf.

I never said you had to do away with the staple silent protagonist.  There are plenty of games that have voice work, but a silent protagonist.  Pretty much all Bioware games pre-Mass Effect, for example.  When they started to put more focus on plot development with Twilight Princess, they ended up with a game that contained a number of emotional plot moments that felt empty because they didn't have emotive voices speaking the parts.  In this generation of gaming, no voicework in a game like this is really ridiculous.  All secondary characters should have voices.  Period.

I agree, completely. Secondary characters should have voices, but I'd be against the recurring characters having voices cause they would end up sounding like this.

[wilco64256]

And IGN's review is up today:

http://wii.ign.com/articles/121/1212220p1.html

To call this a glowing review is putting it mildly, this is one of the best reviews I've ever seen IGN give any game.  There's basically three full pages of total praise for every aspect of the game and then like three sentences of extremely minor complaints about occasional camera angle oddities or a controller needing to be re-calibrated.

This game pulled a pretty solid 10 from them, and it also got a perfect score from Game Informer and Edge among some others.

[MusicallyInspired]

Then it's almost certainly not that great. In fact, this will probably be the most compromising Zelda title ever.

[Blackthorne]

Stick to this Zelda game!  It's awesome!  I spent many a day a night wandering around this one in the 80's!


The LEGEND OF ZELDA


Bt

[Sousuke]

I don't trust reviews too much. The whole game review process in general is riddled with factors that affect the reviewers' ability to give an unbiased opinion. I saw the same kinds of reviews about Twilight princess and Wind Waker before they were released. I will withhold my judgement and expectations about Skyward Sword until I've had a chance to play through the game myself. Just another week to go!

[Fierce Deity]

I don't trust reviews too much. The whole game review process in general is riddled with factors that affect the reviewers' ability to give an unbiased opinion. I saw the same kinds of reviews about Twilight princess and Wind Waker before they were released. I will withhold my judgement and expectations about Skyward Sword until I've had a chance to play through the game myself. Just another week to go!

The double-edged sword of reviews is that they are taken with a grain of salt, but they're also all that people have to judge a game before playing it. So in the end, the only way someone will know that a game is bad is if they've already bought it and played through it. Thus, the review is at least a preconceived notion of what you are getting into. Luckily, there are things like Gamefly that allow you to try an abundance of games (some good and some crappy) for a subscription fee. But that's not everybody's cup of tea, I know.