Legend of Zelda The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - NO SPOILERS, USE THE SPOILER THREAD PLEASE

[GwJ]

Ok, so I'm just in the sixth dungeon and I'm gonna make a list of things that make this game sexy for me:

1. The trials (The music and the lighting changes were swowowowowowowow)
2. Scaring enemies away by rolling bombs at them
3. Taking a bokogoblin's monster horn with the whip and pissing him off
4. Fi's snarky attitude
5. Scrapper's "Bender" attitude
6.

Seriously. Some of these people's faces make me want to roll over laughing.

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

One of my if not my favorite point in the game. OMG Zeldaaaaaaa

 

[Luigitoilet]

"Fi's snarky attitude"

WHAT? Fi has no attitude. She has no personality.

The humor in her dialogue mostly comes from her stating the obvious at inopportune times.

 

[Teran]

The percentage likelihood figures always make me lol. Although there ARE times she can be snarky, like when describing the clown guy on Fun Fun Island, she calls him "the.... highly unusual man", as if to show she's about to say something someone disparaging, but decides to keep her diction clean, lol.

Also, the Gossip Stones are ****ing hilarious, you guys should look to summon every single one because they do have some classic lines.

Also since the Milk Bar was closed (wat) I guess I'll just post this her because it has activity.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=314919

 

[LLDL]

I don't understand esrb's rating format. Twilight princess is T, and it's much less suggestive than this game as far as I remember. Lord Demon's licking all up on Link's ears and **** like orochimaru, wtf.

 

[etecoon]

I love fi's aesthetic and that she figure skates in midair, otherwise she's pretty close to being the worst thing in the game to me sadly...which really has more to do with the overall design philosophy of the game than her character design

spirit realm was really nice, I like the lighting effects, just wish the guardians awakening cutscene never played after the first time. still love the atmosphere of it, it's too bad you're on the clock constantly in the trials because it is otherwise so serene

 

[Teran]

What you honestly think SS should be M or something?

Get real.

 

[LLDL]

Did you not see the part where I compared it to TP being a T. Where did M come from lol.

 

[etecoon]

aesthetics matter especially to old americans(people in the ESRB), you can get away with more with a bright and colorful look where TP is perceived to be "dark" and "gritty" because it has that brown dullness working for it

but yeah ghirahim pretty much molests link, surprised at the E rating

 

[Teran]

Did you not see the part where I compared it to TP being a T. Where did M come from lol.

Twilight Princess has this thing in it called violence, you know, killing things with a sword.

Also, there are threatening and unnerving scenes, or what a ratings board would call them.

There are things that influence a game other than some guy being homosexual and licking his lips at young boys.

Edit: Lolwat it's an E? It's a 12+ over here

 

[etecoon]

it's E10+

and sexuality in general, nevermind homoerotic, is more taboo in american culture than intense violence

I've seen peoples intestines and brains being blown out on broadcast TV, yet there was a massive outrage at omgnippleslip during the super bowl.

 

[Teran]

Tbh, it's not really sexuality, he just puts his hands on Link and creeps him out.

Close proximity =/= sexual, we only take that nterpretation because we're older, that's basically the point as to why it's not necessarily T, but I do agree if anything the dialogue and overall themes were far more overtly aggressive and dark than TP.

Although if you remember in TP, the cutscene with the Castle being invaded by Twilight Beasts and Ganondorf's execution were somewhat graphic for a Zelda game.

 

[etecoon]

I don't think anything in TP was unusual for zelda if you look at OoT or MM, beneath the well is worse than anything in TP and ganondorf coughs up a lot of blood. it was a little weird coming after WW and PH but that's kind of an offshoot of the rest of the series, TP was clearly modeled more after OoT from the start

 

[Teran]

Ganondorf's blood was only in 1.0, after that it was taken out and replaced with DA GOOP. Also you have to bear in mind older games pretty much NEVER got higher ratings unless they were in your face violent or sexual. I suppose it was partly due to the graphics being kinda bad or perhaps the lack of mainstream market penetration. Or maybe it was both. I dunno, I will say that ratings boards have done some funny things, but yeah I think Skyward Sword and TP should have the same rating overall neither is particularly more scary or violent than the other.

Majora's Mask was mature in its depth of emotion and storytelling, things that don't affect rating.

I dunno the whole ratings system is pretty tenuous to me /i prefered it when it was just everything that didn't have blood was okay for kids, everything that had some blood was for teens, blood and swearing older teens, LOTS OF BLOOD AND LOTS OF SWEARING = adult.

Oh and sex makes everything for adults because obviously polygon breasts are evil.

 

[ZIO]

I suppose I shouldn't expect much from Nintendo, but I think allowing a KISS from Zelda wouldn't have hurt too much, hell, it may have made the player become that more attached to her and to what Link and Zelda have in SS and gave them more of a feeling for wanting to go out and save her.

BTW - I haven't played through the whole game, so don't say anything that I don't know. I'm at the desert.

 

[Luigitoilet]

This game should be rated AO for the pedophile who lives under the island and dresses up as a monster to abduct children.

 

[Teran]

I suppose I shouldn't expect much from Nintendo, but I think allowing a KISS from Zelda wouldn't have hurt too much, hell, it may have made the player become that more attached to her and to what Link and Zelda have in SS and gave them more of a feeling for wanting to go out and save her.

BTW - I haven't played through the whole game, so don't say anything that I don't know. I'm at the desert.

It always works better to have things be implied or mysterious.

Besides it probably keeps the SHIPPERS happy to have them write up some sort of love story theory that they contrive.

Link x Groose even though Link obviously has to get with a woman for the hero bloodline to continue, BUT IT'S SO OBVIOUS GAIZ

 

[ZIO]

Hero bloodline.

I always thought Link was just chosen by some divine right. No one knows the person who's been saving Hyrule was named Link other than us. Oh well, doesn't make a difference to me.

 

[etecoon]

Also since the Milk Bar was closed (wat) I guess I'll just post this her because it has activity.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=314919

I was going to suggest that it be renamed the lumpy pumpkin but then I remembered that it was closed

 

[Teran]

Hero bloodline.

I always thought Link was just chosen by some divine right. No one knows the person who's been saving Hyrule was named Link other than us. Oh well, doesn't make a difference to me.

There is a hero bloodline, descended from the order of Hylian knights (which the original Link is a part of on Skyloft).

But you're right, Link isn't allowed to have sex.

 

[Spire]

This game should be rated AO for the pedophile who lives under the island and dresses up as a monster to abduct children.

I lost. What makes this funnier is Batreaux was captivating enough of a character to keep me venturing down to his shanty shack. Like the master pedophile he is, his allure is unbreakable! The only way to save a pedophile is to give them the gratitude of every single person.

 

[etecoon]

if he becomes human doesn't that just make it easier for him to lure children to his shack?

 

[Spire]

Speaking of, if the max Gratitude Crystals is 70, I only have 4 to go. How many are there?

 

[etecoon]

dunno, I know there are some loose ones around skyloft at night that you can dowse for but I never did that

 

[Spire]

Oh, there are 80 of them. I really want to see what Batreaux becomes without spoiling, so I think I'll go collect the rest of 'em.

Also, notice how the Gratitude Crystals look just like Star Bits from Super Mario Galaxy?

 

[Luigitoilet]

I just got a bunch of extra dowsing slots.

which is pretty dumb, considering when I only had four there was never a moment where all of them were filled up.

 

[ZIO]

But you're right, Link isn't allowed to have sex.

An issue with Nintendo.

It's in the contract.

Poor Links (of all generations). All cause one man signed that contract, of which we're not even sure we've met him yet.

 

[etecoon]

the original link was a robot obviously

 

[Teran]

if he becomes human doesn't that just make it easier for him to lure children to his shack?

The crystals will cure his paedophilia, because obviously the whole idea is that a paedophile is a monster. :3

I just got a bunch of extra dowsing slots.

which is pretty dumb, considering when I only had four there was never a moment where all of them were filled up.

You will be able to dowse for a lot more after this, for stuff like Goddess Cubes and treasures.

 

[Jam Stunna]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/a...da-skyward-sword-by-nintendo-review.html?_r=1

Even though it's pretty critical, I actually think this review is right on the money. I just don't think there's anything Nintendo can do to make The Legend of Zelda relevant to new gamers, so they might as well give us geezers what we want.

 

[megabbaut]

Has anyone tried out the bonus music CD yet?

 

[Jam Stunna]

It's great. The Twilight Princess Medley is my favorite.

 

[Spire]

I've done mostly everything you possibly can in this game, and yet I still have 4 or 5 empty dowsing slots. I've yet to understand why they gave us the rest. Can we assign certain items to them? Doubt it.

Great NY Times review. It's honest and I can't help but agree with it entirely.

The Bonus CD is fantastic. I've listened to it countless times now. The opening track and TP medleys are the definitely highlights, but nothing falls short of fantastic. At a balanced 45 minutes, it's something you can listen to from start to finish with ease. Excellent move on Nintendo's part. I've been using the soundtrack to convince people to buy the game.

 

[ZIO]

That review was well written, and the one thing I do like is that it didn't rate is based off of a number scale.

 

[Spire]

Did you guys read the CNN review?

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/25/tech/gaming-gadgets/zelda-skyward-sword/index.html

Prepare yourself.

 

[ZIO]

Guaranteed views.

That's all that says to me.

 

[Jam Stunna]

That was just a poorly written version of the NYT review. The lack of quality in the writing offends me way more than anything the review said.

 

[Teran]

So when can we build extermination camps for the masses?

 

[MuraRengan]

I love how "adding something new to the formula" is the big buzzword when it comes to evaluating Zelda games. I'm not sure if I know of a single game series that radically changes its formula. And that's because "changes" to a formula depend on how broad of a spectrum one views the formula from. You could look at a game like Super Mario Galaxy and ignore all the innovations such as the amazing gravity effects, the improved level design, and all the other great new things the game did and say, "Well it's still just Mario stomping goombas, collecting stars, and trying to find Peach. They haven't changed the formula." Pretty much EVERY series out there could be considered guilty of it, especially FPSs and RPGs. But for some reason, Zelda gets targeted for being unoriginal at every turn, whereas Skyward Sword made some of the best and most obvious additions to the series that Zelda games will ever see. People need to pull their heads out of their ***** when it comes to this series. It's like the only reason they can come up with to hate Zelda games is to call it unoriginal in some horridly broad scope. I've got a friend whose said the same **** about being "tired of the Zelda formula" and he's literally only played Twilight Princess. This is a really bad joke.

 

[Jam Stunna]

I disagree. There definitely is a Zelda formula, and it's one that hasn't changed dramatically since OoT (and I would argue even longer; OoT was basically LttP in 3-D to me, and the only REAL departure from the formula was Zelda 2). But that's what we love about it as Zelda fans.

What I think the NYT review is correctly saying is that the formula works for those of us who had our minds blown by Zelda in the 80's and 90's, when triple A titles had years between them, and you knew that Zelda was one of the few showstoppers. Now though, when a single month has five or six triple A titles, what really does make Zelda stand out amongst a crowd that includes Skyrim, Arkam City, Modern Warfare 3, and others? This is the world for new gamers today, and I can totally understand why they could care less about a new Zelda game. Sure, they're missing out on a great game, but they could make the same argument to me since I'm playing SS instead of Skyrim or [insert game name here].

Zelda pretty much lives on the memories of people like us, because Nintendo's refusal to significantly change things makes Zelda more and more irrelevant to the larger gaming world. The perfect illustration of this is the expansion of voice acting debate. Where you come down on that debate almost guarantees whether or not you'll be buying the next Zelda. Many of us in this thread have played Zelda since before VA was common in gaming, so it doesn't bother us. But do you think that someone who's first gaming experience was Halo will understand why no one talks?

I wish we could see how many people bought Skyward Sword who've never played a Zelda game before, because that would end this debate one way or the other for good.

tl;dr- Yeah, every game has a formula, but not every game has been around for 25 years. If Nintendo is content selling Zelda to the same people, then more power to them. If they want to attract new audiences, then the formula does need an overhaul.