Divorced from the motion controlled days of yesteryear, Skyward Sword is a fun time with some interesting ideas. I don't think it plays around with it's ideas enough to be completely interesting, but my guess is that it's primary focus was on getting the motion controls right. I can only guess this, given that I've only played the HD version, but that's the impression I've gotten.
The gameplay plays around with things like flying the Loftwings, a stamina mechanic, an entire boating mechanic that's accompanied by one of the best ideas I've ever seen in a Zelda game with the time shifting stones, etc. But these elements tends to feel half baked in their execution. The Loftwings are really only necessary for a small percentage of the game, and the gameplay consists of just flying to objectives with barely any threats or interesting maneuvers. The stamina mechanic, and how it's used in Skyward Sword, doesn't make much sense to be included. These areas aren't big enough to warrant a need for this mechanic, and it rarely provides for much interesting gameplay scenarios. There's an entire section of the sandlands that was once water, and using the mechanics of the time shifting stones, which are already a really cool mechanic, you go exploring on this once existing ocean and find a pirate's ship, which is one of the best dungeons in the entire game. It feels like it's so drenched in potential lore and gameplay ideas, but it just barely does much of anything with them, and the final boss misses all the potential to carry on with the pirate's story and giving the game more potential lore behind these automations. The robots could have been so much more interesting! But they're just kind of... there. Which is disappointing because it had so much potential.
This game also tends to reuse the same 3 areas a LOT. Some of the remixes can be fairly clever, but often times it ends up making this world feel rather small and limited. Though, in part, Zelda has been facing this problem for a while now. The same few biomes in the same old Hyrule tends to get a bit boring after a while.
All that being said, I enjoyed Skyward Sword. It's combat was fun and was fun to learn how to maneuver, with some really great bosses. The puzzles and dungeons tended to be really well executed—the final dungeon especially was a really cool concept for a dungeon. They iterated a lot of what Twilight Princess did with the Tears collecting and made them a bit more interesting. And more importantly, the story this time around was delightful at times.
I think they learned a bit from Zant in Twilight Princess, because Ghirahim is fantastic. He's a mix of evil bastard, but has a baseline level of respect towards you that's fascinating from a Nintendo villain. He's a bit more nuanced than your average baddy. Groose is a fun side character that has a nice little arc, along with Impa. Zelda and Link are great in this game, and have an emotional connection that actually made me tear up. There's a part where Zelda says to come back for her, and to wake her up, and you get the dialogue option to say "I promise". For some reason that just hit me so hard. I really love these two characters, their relationship rarely ever gets touched, but it's so sweet to know they really care for one another. At the same time though, these characters don't seem to get enough time to spend with one another. Their arcs don't feel like they've reach their full potential, which is a bit of a shame.
Lore wise, this game has been interesting. The first in the timeline, and it seems like the God's of this universe are considered the new God's, and Demise seems to hate these old God's for some reason. There's still that technological background element that seeped into my brain since my Twilight Princess Review, and it's been interesting trying to piece together that theory with this game. There's a curse for Link, Zelda, and Demise to all be cursed to this cycle for generations, but why? Why would these "gods" cause these 3 in particular to be so symbiotic to one another? I'm not sure, but these legends are not as medieval as they appear on the surface.
Skyward Sword is fine, good, and great at times. It's got some heart that I appreciate. It makes complete sense to me though why BOTW had to happen. The series' formula had reached it's limit, and instead of trying what was already done before and perfected as much as it could, they decided to step back and reexamine what made Zelda so interesting in the first place. And as a stepping stone to that, I appreciate this game.
The gameplay plays around with things like flying the Loftwings, a stamina mechanic, an entire boating mechanic that's accompanied by one of the best ideas I've ever seen in a Zelda game with the time shifting stones, etc. But these elements tends to feel half baked in their execution. The Loftwings are really only necessary for a small percentage of the game, and the gameplay consists of just flying to objectives with barely any threats or interesting maneuvers. The stamina mechanic, and how it's used in Skyward Sword, doesn't make much sense to be included. These areas aren't big enough to warrant a need for this mechanic, and it rarely provides for much interesting gameplay scenarios. There's an entire section of the sandlands that was once water, and using the mechanics of the time shifting stones, which are already a really cool mechanic, you go exploring on this once existing ocean and find a pirate's ship, which is one of the best dungeons in the entire game. It feels like it's so drenched in potential lore and gameplay ideas, but it just barely does much of anything with them, and the final boss misses all the potential to carry on with the pirate's story and giving the game more potential lore behind these automations. The robots could have been so much more interesting! But they're just kind of... there. Which is disappointing because it had so much potential.
This game also tends to reuse the same 3 areas a LOT. Some of the remixes can be fairly clever, but often times it ends up making this world feel rather small and limited. Though, in part, Zelda has been facing this problem for a while now. The same few biomes in the same old Hyrule tends to get a bit boring after a while.
All that being said, I enjoyed Skyward Sword. It's combat was fun and was fun to learn how to maneuver, with some really great bosses. The puzzles and dungeons tended to be really well executed—the final dungeon especially was a really cool concept for a dungeon. They iterated a lot of what Twilight Princess did with the Tears collecting and made them a bit more interesting. And more importantly, the story this time around was delightful at times.
I think they learned a bit from Zant in Twilight Princess, because Ghirahim is fantastic. He's a mix of evil bastard, but has a baseline level of respect towards you that's fascinating from a Nintendo villain. He's a bit more nuanced than your average baddy. Groose is a fun side character that has a nice little arc, along with Impa. Zelda and Link are great in this game, and have an emotional connection that actually made me tear up. There's a part where Zelda says to come back for her, and to wake her up, and you get the dialogue option to say "I promise". For some reason that just hit me so hard. I really love these two characters, their relationship rarely ever gets touched, but it's so sweet to know they really care for one another. At the same time though, these characters don't seem to get enough time to spend with one another. Their arcs don't feel like they've reach their full potential, which is a bit of a shame.
Lore wise, this game has been interesting. The first in the timeline, and it seems like the God's of this universe are considered the new God's, and Demise seems to hate these old God's for some reason. There's still that technological background element that seeped into my brain since my Twilight Princess Review, and it's been interesting trying to piece together that theory with this game. There's a curse for Link, Zelda, and Demise to all be cursed to this cycle for generations, but why? Why would these "gods" cause these 3 in particular to be so symbiotic to one another? I'm not sure, but these legends are not as medieval as they appear on the surface.
Skyward Sword is fine, good, and great at times. It's got some heart that I appreciate. It makes complete sense to me though why BOTW had to happen. The series' formula had reached it's limit, and instead of trying what was already done before and perfected as much as it could, they decided to step back and reexamine what made Zelda so interesting in the first place. And as a stepping stone to that, I appreciate this game.