The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, recently released for the Wii, is the latest adventure with our favorite green tunic clad hero; Link. It's a game that when first announced, strived to be the greatest Zelda experience to date and wanted to make Wii motion controls appealing and useful instead of detrimental.

In my experience with the game through to the very end, I've come to make my own decisions about everything the game gives us and can definitely say: Wow.

Visuals

To start off the review, I'll first talk about the visuals of the game. It's garnered some distaste because of the Wii's limited hardware and graphical limitations, and it is definitely there. "Jaggies" are present and the textures aren't HD, but to say that the game isn't absolutely beautiful is completely wrong. I used the component cables on a 54" plasma TV, and I honestly didn't even notice that I wasn't playing an HD game. The style and use of the game's hardware is wonderful and overall looks amazing. with the component cables atleast, The jaggies (while present) were easily overlooked because the game still looked wonderful. Skyward sword is proof that you don't need HD graphics to be a beautiful game.

The background fades into the claimed 'impressionistic' art style, mixed also with a bit of watercolor. The effect is pleasing and works rather well. the characters are charming and vibrant, and everything looks wonderful.

Another amazing feat that skyward sword pulls off is wonderful animations. Every animation is fluid and beautiful and pulled off with ease, creating very convincing, lifelike characters.

Overall: 9.5/10 - beautiful and vibrant and wonderfully crafted, but still present jaggies.

Audio

This is the first Zelda title to have a fully orchestrated score, and it shows with a wonderfully crafted music throughout the entire game. Each musical piece is captivating and beautiful, fitting it's current theme or locale, character or creature. However, the one flaw in this new grand take on musical score for the game comes in its complication. Because the game has more complicated orchestral scores as opposed to the more simple digital creations of yesteryear, they become less memorable. They are unique and fully fitting of what they are given too, but they are simply harder to remember and hum out like the previous songs of the series. That said, each piece, if listened to could easily be linked with the situation it's related to, in particular the silent realm guardian music and Ghirahim's theme. Of course the main theme is more than memorable, so to say the music ISN'T memorable isn't true, it's just lest memorable than it's predecessors.

following the musical score is the sound effects and voice work. the game lacks voice overs, and instead substitutes this with verious grunts, laughs 'hey's and other verbal sounds. This is always the correct approach with Zelda games in my personal opinion. Giving voices to the characters that have been around (albeit in different incarnations) for ages would simply cause many to complain. The game's use of written dialogue and grunts gives you enough clues as to how the characters sound, but allows the viewer to create what they want to hear in their mind. additional sounds in the game such as sword slashes, arrows and everything else are appropriate and work well, but are nothing extraordinary or noteworthy.

overall: 8.5/10 - beautiful music and sounds though less memorable than it's predecessors.

Gameplay and Design

The meat to every game is the actual gameplay and the design of the game itself. Skyward Sword has toted that it is one of the most unique and enjoyable motion plus experiences the Wii has to offer. I believe they were correct, but it is far from perfect.

The controls work exactly as they were intended.... most of the time. We'll start with the good and work to the faulty. Every item works perfectly with it's controls design. the bow, the slingshot, the hook beetle, all wonderful in creation and delivery, easy to use and natural. Swinging your sword is responsive and listens to your commands... granted you use broad gestures. One thing I noticed is that when trying to play more 'casually' (see: leaned back and chillin' on the couch) and relied on more wrist movement, the strikes were far less accurate. when trying to make horizontal strikes I'd slash diagonally. sometimes the strikes felt random all together. This frustrated me slightly, but in the end became a non issue as I'd work into my broader strikes and strokes which are in fact very responsive. After playing through the game I can't imagine going back to a button mashing formula for a Zelda game.

onto the far more negative. Bird flying and swimming. These two things left me slightly agitated. While easy to control and by no means bad, flying and swimming are required to use the 'aiming' and tilting of the remote. this works. it works preciesely how the developers wanted it to. The unfortunate thing about it is, it adds no particular value to the game. I found myself twisting my wrist awkwardly when using the joy stick would have been far easier, more convenient, and offered more options to gameplay. if the flying was steered via joystick, we easily could have had in air combat with the wii remote swinging the sword. many possibilities would have been opened up.

Design-wise, the game is unique to the series in it's overworld. We have our hub world, Skyloft, and the lower world beneath the clouds, and then the dungeons within our worlds. The uniqueness comes in the world beneath the clouds before the dungeons. Each area, instead of large areas with little to do other than talk to the denizens, is filled with stuff to do, from puzzles to enemies. each area also gradully opens up and you're constantly surprised to find new areas as you progress through the game. However, as the game progresses, each addition feels smaller and less significant other than something that was tacked on at the end. It's only with a very few select areas that feel like this, the overall design feels wonderful.

Skyloft and the sky islands are enjoyable and plentiful. At first I was kind of disappointed with what I saw in the sky. It's Skyloft surrounded by a bunch of floating rocks with only a couple of side islands that have anything really going on with them. I was hoping for a more windwaker approach where nearly every island had something unique about it. However, upon playing the game, I was pleased with what I was given. Skyloft is vast and unique and interesting in its own way, while the smaller islands surrounded offer treasures and goodies.

Character design is a wonderful mix of Twilight Princess and windwaker. The main characters have some of the most unique and pleasant designs from any game thus far. The big bust is the enemy designs. Aside from the Lizalfos and Ghirahim and mayble a couple of bosses, the enemies felt.. lacking. everything felt less threatening and more just "okay whatever gonna kill you " Especially with some of the bosses. I was rather dissapointed. However, like I said it's not all bad. Ghirahim has a very pleasing design through and through, and a few of the bosses will be some of the most memorable and enjoyable in zelda history.

overall 7/10 - The game is designed exactly as intended, but in a few key areas leaves some to be desired. Still wonderful, and after 42 hours of gameplay, I was kept involved the entire time.

Story

The game really shined for me in the story department. From beginning to end I felt compelled to complete my quest and conquer my foes. There was reason and purpose in the craft of the tale being told and left me with moments of victory, tearshed, relief and seat gripping suspense. without getting into spoilers, the tale was amazing and was truly THE Legend of Zelda.

my favorite part of the entire tale? Ghirahim. The most interesting villain I've ever come across. He was amazing and gave me true reason to defeat him many times.

(Groose is also awesome, found myself loving him)

Overall 10/10 Spoiler free, I can't say much, but I'll just say. perfect Zelda story.

Conclusion

Skyward Sword is an amazing game, but is not without it's faults, especially in some of it's key areas. However, it is still one of the most unique, enjoyable, and memorable Zelda experiences I've every come across. Beautiful both visually and audibly, super fun to play, and incredibly enjoyable and memorable story left me wanting more when it was all done, but satisfied with what I was given. I really do hope that Nintendo can give us another epic like this masterpiece crafted in the future, and I hope the Wii U will give us an amazing Zelda experience.

Final Score: 8.8/10 - A simply wonderful game, and probably my Favorite Zelda to date. Close to perfect as a Zelda game has ever been for me, but still room for improvement. I look forward to the next installment.