Gaming Journal: Skyward Sword Part 5
After completing the Skyview temple there was a brief story beat that didn’t really reveal much. I got the next map piece and headed to the sky. Fi informed me there was some signal from one of the sky boxes I opened up and I ended up at the pumpkin cafe. I did a brief side quest delivering pumpkin soup, and then went back to Skyloft. I briefly thought about exploring, but my desire to progress through the story got the better of me. I recalled playing Wind Waker for the first time. When I first played that game the ocean seemed vast with many mysteries to uncover. I instantly dove in and set out on my own path. In Skyward Sword I don’t really feel that urge so I moved on with the main objective. At this point you should be used to me saying this, but I think this is more due to my age rather than a fault of the game. However, when I played BotW for the first time the sense of wonder and desire to explore was very present in a way I don’t sense it now. I’m still not willing to say this is a fault of Skyward Sword, but I at least wanted to share my thought process as I progress through my playthrough. If I had played Skyward Sword as my first Zelda game as a kid, it would probably be my favorite even as an adult. Nostalgia is a powerful drug.
Anyway I made my way to the Elden region and encountered the Mogmas, which I thought were more endearing than the Kikwiis. They seemed to have more personality and for some reason seemed more natural in that part of the game than the Kikwiss did. I encountered bomb bowling which I didn’t really mind. Yes it can be annoying at times, and possibly the Switch port fixed a few things that made it frustrating on the Wii, but mostly I thought the puzzles were cool. Like having to throw a bomb into a geyser to have it float to where you needed to blast. I’m sure at this point I could have asked for Fii to give me a hint to figure that out, but the hints are optional and I was able to put it all together on my own based on what I’ve observed. In a similar vein there was one point where you come across a collapsed wooden tower that doesn’t seem like it serves any purpose. A few minutes later you see a similar tower standing upright next to a pit you need to cross. Putting two and two together I quickly understood that I needed to make this tower fall, and I’m using a new item that destroys stuff with a big blast. I tried a bomb, and it worked. The tower fell, and I crossed the pit. This might seem like a no brainer, and as far as puzzles go it kind of is. But the point I’m trying to hammer into you with this playthrough is that when a game doesn’t treat you like an idiot, playing the game is much more rewarding. There were just enough context clues to point me in the right direction. I liked this, and I think many players actually like well designed puzzles whether they know it or not. To quote Red Letter Media, “You probably didn’t even notice… but your brain did.”
Enjoying the simple puzzles aside there was something that irked me in the same way the Kikwii hunt irked me. Finding the keys to the door to the next temple. This wasn’t difficult. Found them all without much of a problem while enjoying the environment and level design. What bothered me was that it was just another fetch quest that didn’t really serve much purpose to progress the narrative or build the world. I already used the example of the side quest in Ocarina of Time when you need to play Saria’s song for Darunia, so this time I’ll use another example. To get the second temple in OoT you need to somehow move King Zora so that you can access Jabu Jabu. To do this you need to find a letter in a bottle. Once you encounter King Zora and determine you can’t get by him, the game directs you to the left where you find yourself at the top of a waterfall. The Zora encourages you to play a diving mini game. You complete the game and get a scale that enables you to dive deeper in the water. While you play the game you are supposed to notice a tunnel under the water that you can’t reach. Now with your new scale you can. After diving into the tunnel you are transported to a completely different part of the overworld map, Lake Hylia. Once there you immediately see an item right in front of you that is just what you need to progress. A simple fetch quest, but it does a few things in addition to padding game play. The first is that it gives you practice with the new game mechanic of diving. The second is that it establishes that there are “warp points” in the overworld that will help you traverse the landscape much more efficiently. Lastly, it gives the player a sense of the vastness of the game world by exposing you to a whole new area to explore and get distracted by. Keep in mind when this game came out in 1998 the game world was pretty big by 3d standards. The fetch quest we encountered in SS so far haven’t really done much other to pad game time, and give you practice with your abilities. I am not against fetch quests in games, but there are ways to utilize them that make for a far more enriching game experience. My next entry will cover the Earth temple.
Also Impa's design is really cool
