... And so i gave Skyward Sword a second try, but...

[F0X]

SvennoJ said:

F0X said:

 

As for what SvennoJ said, I've 100%'d Skyward Sword, and I can tell you that there are definitely things to do in the sky. Side-quests, minigames, Goddess Quests, hidden secrets... but I can see that compared to Wind Waker, it's pretty lacking. But that's to be expected. After all, the sky is really only one part of the entire game. The narrative got off to a great start (much faster than Twilight Princess did) by making Zelda a character well worth rescuing. Interesting plot twists reshape the player's perception of Link's journey and his relationship with Zelda, and the development of the main characters pays off in a satisfying finale. As for the puzzles... were we playing the same Zelda game? Were you not surprised by the design of the final dengeon, which was a difficult and satisfying puzzle by its own layout? Or did you not get even get far enough to see the Timeshift Stones in action?

I can't seem to comprehend why people are saying things about Skyward Sword that blatantly contradict my own experience.

I found the narrative pretty boring in SS, just chasing after Zelda. It didn't help I gave up on the game twice before before finally deciding to trade it in after the third time. Over a period of 4 months the nuances of the story were lost on me.
I never saw the final dungeon. I stopped playing at the 2nd and 3rd battle with Thunderhead. I read in a walkthrough that there was only one dungeon left and revisiting Faron woods again for another collection quest (but now underwater, how original) and didn't bother to get through the tedious boss fights just for that.
It didn't grab me. The world and dungeons felt too small, the gameplay too predictable.

Yet who knows, maybe if I had played this 9 years ago and windwaker now it might be the other way around. I really don't think so since exploration is what is most rewarding to me. The empty overworld and re-used areas were the biggest disappointments to me. I can't be 100% sure though until windwaker gets a HD remake. I tried playing it again on a 52" lcd and tbh it just looks awful smeared out like that

"The world and dungeons felt too small" doesn't make much sense to me. Most of the game is a dungeon, which is what I find compelling. The sky area is comparatively empty, but I feel the same way about most Zelda overworlds (though in this case it really is a hub world). And as I'll reiterate in the next paragraph, I couldn't care less about the size of the game world. As for Skyward Sword's collection quests, I didn't find them to be very tedious... especially compared to, say, Wind Waker's Triforce quest (many of my playthroughs were ended at that point). Re-used areas are is par for the course for Zelda (and Metroid), so perhaps you're just getting tired of the series formula (understandable). After all, you did consider the gameplay to be too predictable.

Perhaps you don't enjoy the puzzle and combat aspects of the Zelda series as much as I do. Perhaps you prefer going far off the beaten track to find a Piece of Heart of some other little secret, something Wind Waker excelled at. Me? Not so much. I don't like it when content is spread thinly over a massive overworld. I especially don't care if it's side content, since it's ancillary by nature. This may be why Skyward Sword is the first Zelda game I've 100%'d, because there were less side activities to do (but more required puzzles and such), and I rarely had to stray far from the beaten path to complete them.

Don't get me wrong. I love Wind Waker, too, but I'm very pleased that Skyward Sword adopts a different design approach. Experimentation with new controls, structures, systems, etc. is a good idea in my book, though purists would have every right to abandon ship.