Nintendo showed off a playable demo of its newest incarnation in the Legend of Zelda Series, “Skyward Sword†at this year’s New York City Comic Con. Reviewfix.com was there to try out this new Zelda title before its release. The demo at Comic Con featured three different modes of play: ‘Bird Flying,” “Dungeon†and “Boss Battle.”
Graphically, the game has the same art style as “Twilight Princess,†which looks like the “realistic†Zelda that Nintendo showed off many years ago. The art would’ve looked better if the graphics weren’t so jagged. The character models look like they have spikes coming out of their bodies. Hopefully, this issue will be fixed by the time the game is released.
The newest gameplay option to the Zelda series is the bird flying. The demo had a race where Link and three other participants had to jump on their birds and grab a statue that is attached to a bird. This sounds like fun at first, but the controls destroys whatever fun expected out of this section. In order to control the bird, you need to hold the Wii remote vertically, twist the Wii remote to move the bird, press A to charge and press B to slow down. Anyone who has ever played a game with this control scheme knows how awkward it feels. It would’ve been better if you could hold the Wii remote horizontally like an NES controller. This feels more natural and is easier. Lets hope the finished game will give you an option to change this control scheme.
The Flying Beatle, a new item in this game, uses the same controls.
As far as the regular gameplay is concerned, “Skyward Sword” plays exactly like “Twilight Princess.” Waving the Wii remote will swing Link’s sword, A is an all around action button and B is an all around cancel button. The control stick on the Nunchuck moves link and the Z is used to raise your shield. This is good for Zelda fans because they won’t need to learn a new control scheme for another Wii Zelda game.
Some other new additions to the game are Link now has a stamina gauge and his shield has hit points. The stamina gauge depletes every time Link swings his sword and his shield takes damage whenever something hits it. Nintendo has confirmed that Link can repair and upgrade his shield. This should be a fun new gameplay aspect if Nintendo pulls it off properly.
Also, according to the Nintendo booth attendant, the game utilizes the Wii Motion Plus. Whether this is required or optional is still unknown.
Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword looks like it will be another great Zelda game. All Nintendo needs to so is fix the jagged character models and the flying controls. This could end up being the best Zelda game on the Wii. Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will be released in North America on November 20th.
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