UPDATE: I have joined the think-entertainment.net writing team! This article will be posted there soon, too, if you’d like to give them some traffic and commentary. They’re seriously awesome. This blog will still be used for all of my articles and video game musings, though, so I won’t be ditching it in the slightest. Enjoy!
“I thought people universally hated Twilight Princess, not Skyward Sword,” I said to my friend one lazy afternoon, browsing through forum thread upon forum thread filled with hatred directed towards the Wii’s most recent original Zelda venture.
“It’s the Zelda cycle, Alec,” he responded nonchalantly. “Everyone hates the latest console Zelda game until the next one comes out. Just watch: in a few years’ time, everyone will be screaming about how ‘Zelda Wii U‘ doesn’t have Wii MotionPlus. Or birds.”
While the existence of a “Zelda cycle” has been disputed to great lengths, the unfortunate truth is that The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is currently one of the universally less loved games in the franchise. When a game contains constant backtracking, a myriad of fetch quests, lack of minor character development, and a linear overworld coupled with linear dungeons, it is not hard to see why so many Zelda fans were angered by the title.
Personally, I love Skyward Sword. I have never played a Zelda game to 100% completion, and yet I spent over 80 hours playing Skyward Sword by the end of my first file. With all of this time spent calibrating the Wii MotionPlus and trudging through all of the problems listed above, I was fully aware of the game’s glaring flaws. There is no denying that these facets of the game affected my overall experience, but, upon further analysis, I noticed that Skyward Sword makes use of these flaws through its mythological themes and character.
Skyward Sword is an origin story through and through. It is the very first game in the canonical Zelda timeline, establishing the origins of Ganon and Hyrule, as well giving an interesting explanation for the first green tunic in the series. Because of the game’s nature, though, I also consider it a piece of in-universe mythology.
Skyward Sword introduced three new races: the Kikwis, the Mogmas, and the Parellas. One complaint I originally had was that none of these races were fully fleshed out compared to almost every other race featured in the Zelda series. Compared to Gorons and Zoras, for example, these three new races are dull and underdeveloped, used as mere plot points instead of interesting characters that players can truly grow attached to. They are sidelined quickly, and no further information is given about them besides basic information found in dialogue.
Let us take Skyward Sword and imagine it as a true piece of mythology, or possibly written in the style of an old epic poem. These races would never be fully characterized in one of those tales. They would serve their purpose, and then be sidelined in favor of moving the story forward. They may leave a lasting impression thanks to an interesting conversation or two, but they are more of a means to an end, a footnote in the hero’s journey. Likewise in Skyward Sword, where the three races are simply there to help you along. No cultural notes are given because in the context of this particular legend, they are not necessary.
Two often cited flaws in Skyward Sword are the linearity and constant backtracking. In the game, there are three main surface locations that you will keep coming back to, with Skyloft being the main hub in the sky which connects them. Sometimes, revisiting areas expands more places to visit on the surface map, like the Lanayru Sand Sea within the desert. But the harsh reality of the game’s design is that the areas for the most part remain the same. Side quests only worsen the matter, with each one usually being a simple fetch quest, making you backtrack even more. As a game design decision, this makes the game more frustrating to play, but when we look at it from a different perspective, this supposed flaw fits the game’s themes.
We must remember that Skyward Sword‘s incarnation of Link has absolutely no experience being on the surface nor interacting with any other species besides those found in the sky. Even the very concept of sand is foreign to him. This is a game centered around a protagonist who has never experienced the physical world as we know it on the surface, and his adventures within this realm. We guide him through rocky volcanic terrain, a lush, dense forest, and even a desert filled with patches of quicksand. From a player perspective, none of this really matters, but when we put ourselves in Link’s shoes, we understand how vastly different the surface is from his home, and the culture shock he must be experiencing. Without a guide like Fi “holding his hand” through most of it, we can only imagine what would happen to Link. As players, we may understand how this in-game world works from the outset, but Fi proves invaluable in areas where Link as a character would otherwise be unable to move forward.
Finally, the side characters within Skyloft feel dull and developmentally stunted, especially compared to older Zelda titles such as The Wind Waker, in which detailed character arcs were prevalent.. Once again, with the nature of the game in mind, we must remember that the focus will always be on Link. More often than not, these mythological pieces have no room for fleshed out side characters as we know them in video games, as the most important facet of the story is the hero’s journey.
Skyward Sword has overarching themes of discovery wrapped in a mythological shell, which the story uses to create the traditional hero’s journey, full of obstacles and fascinating characters that would read well if translated into an epic poem. The main drawback of the game is just that: Skyward Sword is a video game, and the design of the title should have been more focused on the overall game experience. Yet Skyward Sword is still packed with mythological feeling and delivers an adventure worthy of being the first in the Zelda timeline. Truly, it is the stuff of legends.
outsetalec 