Five Ways Skyward Sword Went Wrong

How Nintendo’s latest Zelda dropped what once made the series so legendary.

By: Bob Mackey
January 26, 2012

Since its humble 8-bit beginnings, Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda series acted as the frontrunner for both game design and technology, offering well-crafted worlds much larger and content-heavy than its competitors. Just as Link’s debut proved the true potential of the NES, Ocarina of Time convinced the world that polygonal third-person gaming could be more than an ambitious-but-clumsy mess. Soon after Zelda’s monumental N64 installment, the series expanded its scope by playing with time travel (Majora’s Mask), and opening up an entire ocean of possibilities for young Link to explore (The Wind Waker); but from 2006’s Twilight Princess onwards, The Legend of Zelda swapped its once-daring nature for a more eager-to-please, conservative philosophy which proves irritating for those who’ve stuck with the series for more than two decades. Skyward Sword is the latest victim of Nintendo’s one-size-fits-all style of game design, and as a result, falls short of the potential possible from a studio overflowing with talent.

Skyward Sword is not a bad game, but a deeply frustrating one. Baby steps like user-dictated UI options, impeccable motion controls, and an evolution in dungeon design show that Nintendo may be on the right track in some respects, but the following flaws of Skyward Sword do their best to pin down this formerly free-roaming series.