This review contains spoilers
Weirdly, both the best and worst thing about this is that it's "just" another Zelda game. That means it has some incredible music, atmosphere, puzzles, set pieces, and a story that is both dark, yet whimsical and fairy tale-like. The bad part is that it doesn't do much to stand out apart from that, other than of course the motion controls, which I'll get to.
Other than the sand ship, no temples truly stand out, but the rest of them are still good just by being virtue of being Zelda temples.
The weakest aspect of the game is the sheer amount of backtracking. There's only 3 main areas in the game (other than Skyloft) and you have to visit them all no less than 3 times for main quests, multiple times for smaller things that are still tied to main quests, and then more times for optional side quests. What makes it worse is how slow you move in the sky portions - I wouldn't call it bad by itself, but with the amount of times you need to go back and forth, the speed can definitely get on your nerves when you need to leave the fire area to make a small 5 minute trip to the grass area and back again. Land travel also becomes a chore with the tiny stamina bar that never gets any permanent upgrades. The game would benefit massively for having flight speed and stamina increases later in the game, so that after you've explored these areas for the first time, you have faster ways to get through them when re-treading them multiple times in the future. Also there's two separate bosses that you need to fight 3 times each.
It is very, very clear this game banked hard on the motion control gimmick being THE thing that makes it worth while, which is kind of ironic considering most people are saying the game became better with stick controls.
I actually played with motion controls on since it's my first time playing the game, and I wanted the true Skyward Sword experience. It wasn't awful honestly. Like there were a few annoyances with desyncing and general clunkiness with it, but it led to some unique mechanics like fighting enemies from, specific angles. It just felt too shoehorned into everything. I really did not need motion controls for moving when swimming.
The game suffers a weird artstyle that affects characters faces. They all look very weird... But Impa gets the worst of it, her entire model is just ew.
The finale of the game is super cool though. I loved charging through the horde of enemies to get to the last boss(es). Admittedly the very very final boss lacked a lot of grandeur once the fight actually starts, and was generally too easy.
This is the video game equivalent of trying to stretch a 1000 word essay to 3000 words.
Other than the sand ship, no temples truly stand out, but the rest of them are still good just by being virtue of being Zelda temples.
The weakest aspect of the game is the sheer amount of backtracking. There's only 3 main areas in the game (other than Skyloft) and you have to visit them all no less than 3 times for main quests, multiple times for smaller things that are still tied to main quests, and then more times for optional side quests. What makes it worse is how slow you move in the sky portions - I wouldn't call it bad by itself, but with the amount of times you need to go back and forth, the speed can definitely get on your nerves when you need to leave the fire area to make a small 5 minute trip to the grass area and back again. Land travel also becomes a chore with the tiny stamina bar that never gets any permanent upgrades. The game would benefit massively for having flight speed and stamina increases later in the game, so that after you've explored these areas for the first time, you have faster ways to get through them when re-treading them multiple times in the future. Also there's two separate bosses that you need to fight 3 times each.
It is very, very clear this game banked hard on the motion control gimmick being THE thing that makes it worth while, which is kind of ironic considering most people are saying the game became better with stick controls.
I actually played with motion controls on since it's my first time playing the game, and I wanted the true Skyward Sword experience. It wasn't awful honestly. Like there were a few annoyances with desyncing and general clunkiness with it, but it led to some unique mechanics like fighting enemies from, specific angles. It just felt too shoehorned into everything. I really did not need motion controls for moving when swimming.
The game suffers a weird artstyle that affects characters faces. They all look very weird... But Impa gets the worst of it, her entire model is just ew.
The finale of the game is super cool though. I loved charging through the horde of enemies to get to the last boss(es). Admittedly the very very final boss lacked a lot of grandeur once the fight actually starts, and was generally too easy.
This is the video game equivalent of trying to stretch a 1000 word essay to 3000 words.