Under The Covers is a recurring column from contributor Mary Celeste, where he delivers a review of a featured game in a more intimate fashion than is traditional for a game review. Snuggle up and get cozy!
The Legend of Zelda has always been one of the more religiously devout video game franchises. Game after game, centered around deities and the destinies they’ve carved out for the three primary figures in these journeys: Link, Ganandorf, and Zelda. Sometimes the roles and settings change, but their destiny is always the same. Bound by this thread, the three characters go through this same arc time and time again, as the Goddess decreed. Skyward Sword is no different, providing players with ancient texts decreeing the actions of a long-gone Goddess the moment they boot up the game. More than any other Zelda, however, Skyward Sword subtly but oh-so-deliberately tips the scales as the game goes on. This is a story about Gods, Goddesses, and Demons, a story of divine fate and powers and the battle between the forces of Heaven and Hell… until it isn’t.
There are no atheists in Skyward Sword. How could there be? The only domain inhabited by humans – Skyloft, the game’s primary hub world and only town – is overseen by an enormous statue of the Goddess, watching over her people. Ancient texts and stone scriptures riddle the town, symbols of a long-gone but never-quite-forgotten era where there was One who was beautiful and powerful. Skyloft’s varied NPCs all offer wishes and prayers to the Goddess, and dialogue with them is frequently peppered with mentions of Her and hopes that She is watching over them. These NPCs are all fun to interact with, and while their relationship with the region’s religion is both prominent and unquestioned, it never seems to define who these people are. Throughout the game you’ll have the opportunity to take on many quests for these people, and none of them involve spirituality beyond casual mentions. It’s simply an accepted part of this universe.
As you trek below the surface as part of your divine mission, things are much the same down there. The strange creatures that dwell on the land below the clouds don’t seem nearly as concerned about Goddesses or divine proclamations as the humans of Skyloft, but their belief in these things is brought up and is again unquestioned. It simply is, though unlike the humans, these NPCs don’t offer graces to the Gods. Only to Link, as he solves problems for them and rescues them from the clutches of demons. These NPCs are certainly not as interesting as other Zelda races, though their uniqueness sets them apart. Rather than Kokiris and Gorons and Zoras, we get very different explorations of the same “style” of characters. Instead of rock-eating stone people, the fiery mountains of Eldin Volcano are populated by hairy mole creatures that burrow underground to keep cool and search for treasure.The Kikwis – this game’s replacements for the Kokiri – are especially odd, little squeaky animals that camouflage as plants when danger is present. It’s a ton of fun to see what ancestors of the beloved Zelda races were like, and while they usually serve as little more than set dressing for each given zone you do get little senses of what their cultures are like.
But it’s in that small sense that Skyward Sword’s most divisive element lies: its progression. Unlike every Zelda game before and since, it isn’t a large map divided up into sections, replete with little villages and towns. Skyward Sword does away with this layout entirely, opting for 3 separate zones that never intertwine or branch out. You have your hub of Skyloft, fly through the sky on your Loftwing, and then choose which of the three zones you want to go too. Once you’re down there, you are down there until you choose to go back to the sky and fly somewhere else. You can’t even teleport between zones from one of the plentiful Bird Statues which serve as landing points, which is a source of some small frustration when many tasks take you to and from the different zones in order to bring one item from one place to the other. These fetch quests make up no small part of the game’s overall runtime, especially if you want to do all of the side content and get 100% completion, but the game usually finds little ways of making up for it. For example, a quest to bring a basin full of water from one area to the next isn’t as simple as going to get it, going back, and using it. Getting the basin completely rearranges the layout of enemies in the area, forcing careful play and new strategies as you try to make your way back to the area you need the basin, all without taking damage lest you have to restart.
This sort of task would be a pain in the ass if the game was actually hard, but outside of a few challenging (and extremely good) boss fights, this is never an issue. If anything, the game can feel a bit too easy during normal play. Hearts are plentiful and the game showers you in fairies and bottles to hold them in, so even if you do mess around you’re usually spared the embarrassment of finding out. This both hurts and hinders the game – fun fights don’t feel as satisfying to complete when you’re walking out of the room with as much health as you had when you walked in, but gimmick sections don’t have the chance to frustrate you because you’ll very rarely have to try anything more than twice. This is especially applicable for the Silent Realm sequences – hurried stealth sections where you use your knowledge of the terrain to plot a course to 15 different orbs on the map and back to the start without being captured by enemies. If these took multiple tries to complete, they’d be incredibly tedious and obnoxious, but since you’ll very rarely lose it’s hard to feel especially negative towards them. Personally, I thought they were fun ways to break up the pacing, with the final one being an especially enjoyable surprise.
It’s this pacing that gets so many riled up about Skyward Sword. With the relaxing traditional Hyrule Field equivalent completely removed from the game, what we get in their place are these linear puzzle/action segments that lead up to the dungeons, which are themselves linear puzzle/action segments. The tried and true 3D Zelda formula is broken on its axis, turning into less of a Zelda game and more of a Mario Galaxy game as you’re shuffled almost relentlessly from one setpiece to the next, only getting a breather when you choose to return to Skyloft and goof around finding chests or doing side quests. It can be exhausting to trek tirelessly up a volcano, solving puzzles, platforming, dodging snipers left and right, only to be rewarded by getting to walk into a dungeon full of traps and puzzles and the most challenging combat encounters yet. In this way, it’s perfectly understandable that a lot of longtime fans of the franchise consider Skyward Sword a black sheep: It does things differently from the games before it, but its structure is not different enough to feel like the clean break the Zelda franchise was viewed as desperately needing back in 2011.
In 2021, these differences help set Skyward Sword apart from both its predecessors and its successor alike. And as Skyward Sword climaxes and these characters go through the motion of living out their long-written scripts, a curious thing happens. While the Goddess and her plans become more and more important, the characters of this world stop considering Her. The praises cease. Gratitude begins to show, more and more, towards the humans who inhabit this world. As the age of destinies comes to an end, it’s the people still living who forge ahead and make differences in the lives of others. Skyward Sword begins with a ceremony, giving thanks to the Goddess for all she has done to help them. But it ends with a parting, where the Goddesses figureheads give thanks to the human beings who, set free from any manuscript, are making positive changes in the lives of others of their own volition. The Goddess statue that has kept watch over Skyloft falls away, leaving absolutely nothing in its place but a broken bridge. Humans will rebuild that bridge, and it will take them somewhere new. And they will do it because They are the ones who will it so.
On this week’s Nintendo Pipeline Podcast, we talk with Mary Celeste and WestEgg about this review and get their thoughts on Skyward Sword HD! Once you’ve finished reading this review, please consider listening to the episode!
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