The game had good overall dungeon design. Several dungeons, particularly those featuring time-shift mechanics, were very well put together. A few hiccups (second fire dungeon really dragged), but overall pretty good.

It also had a good artstyle. Some people knock it, but the game does look pretty in motion. If you stop to admire it, it starts to come apart, but while playing it was quite pleasing.

Above all, I think the game had a great concept, both in terms of story and gameplay. An origin story, featuring 1:1 controls, was very intriguing. Pretty much every idea in this game, in concept, I liked.

The execution, however, was terrible.

In terms of characters, only one (Groose) was developed to an acceptable degree. Zelda and Link's relationship was, again, an interesting concept, but they and their characters went nowhere. No one else in the game's story even comes close to being well-written or well-developed.

The plot was completely insubstantial. Hours upon hours between significant story-relevant events, jam-packed with fetch quests and monotnous busy-work, accomplishing very little.

The story itself is both incredibly simplistic and utterly baffling. Characters make unbelievable decisions to enable rote storytelling.

The upgrade mechanic was ill-conceived and poorly executed, but the presence of upgrade components interrupting gameplay when collected means it cannot be ignored.

Traversing the world is needlessly time-consuming, and the inability to skip cutscenes, along with the repeated re-use of canned animation for transitions drags out the game's length without contributing anything of substance.

The basic swordplay is a boring mess. As movement is not required outside of boss fights, combat is little more than a series of timed motion swings; basically, QTE. It's only underscored by how easily the system is broken and exploited. Because enemies never adopt new strategies, and the same enemies are fought throught the game, this part of the gamplay gets really repetitive, really fast if you aren't dazzled by the idea of not-quite 1:1 sword fighting.

The game balances between telling the player too little and not enough. The signposting is either over-the-top or completely non-existent, and the game never misses an opportunity to throw Fi at the player, to almost no benefit.

In the end, the game is simply a massive waste of time, with almost nothing of substance to show for it, and the best I can say is that it was ambitious.

Overall a fantastic game, with for me only 3 huge problems.

1. The "hints" provided by Fi were useless and only annoying. This is something Nintendo started with Navi which has only gotten worse. Miyamoto was shocked when a lot of people didn't finish OoT and since then Zelda games have been pulled down by useless support characters that only makes the game less enjoyable.

2. Text scrolling is soooooooooooo slow. For me, even tho I thought the game was fantastic, it's almost impossible to replay as I have to read through all those text boxes again. You visit a shop for the 50th time and the NPC says the same thing super slowly for the 50th time. In the japanese version, the text is super fast, so I have to think this is simply a mistake that was not caught in english language QA, because there is no reason to make it like this. Very disappointing.

Also the "lots of information about the item you picked up" when you load a save, if I have 50 blue feathers, I know what a blue feather is.

3. Too little interactivity, especially in the beginning. The first 30 minutes you barely get to play. Seriously Nintendo, whatever happened to "IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE. TAKE THIS." ? Zelda is a game, not a movie.





But yes, FANTASTIC GAME, I choose to focus on the negative as that what I want changed.

I hope future Zelda games take from the areas in which each dungeon was found, because those were great. The way you slowly discovered more in each area as you progressed through the game was a great idea, and they almost felt like dungeons themselves.

I hope future Zelda games never take anything from the barren sky. It was far too empty and those tiny islands with perhaps one chest on them were a waste of time.

I think Nintendo should really consider not having musical instruments or alternate worlds in the future Zelda games for a while. Also I'd like to see vast areas to explore but with actual content in them besides small spots where you might kill a few enemies or find a heart container/treasure once and nothing else once it is collected.

I liked the game a lot. A LOT - motion control done right...

Really wish this Zelda could have been in at least 720 resolution though, as on my 65" some parts were just down right blurry. But overall the artistic nature was great, and the final boss was BAD ASS.

I did miss the large, ground based overworld though.

Agree on the bold.  Seemed like they rushed it a bit.

Also, depite the story being great, I remember the very first part of the intro being quite long.

Haven't finished it yet but it's my favorite Zelda so far.

Enjoy the motion controls mostly except for needing to recalibrate it, especially in the middle of a boss fight.

Fi - Ugh. Didn't Nintendo learn from Navi? Fi would have been fine if you have the option turn off her useless and blatantly obvious advice giving.

Found the pirate section really boring and uninspired myself. Finished it but in no hurry to play more now. Many of the game play mechanics also feel really dated.

But overall the story and gameplay has maintained my interest more than any other Zelda I've tried.

Skyward Sword is the 2nd best Zelda in my opinion and I the flaws it had were few.
These are the flaws on the top of my head -
- Shitty Sky World
- Collectibles showing their description each time after reset.
- Collectible grinding for some things

The game had an excellent story and one of the best gameplay experiences in the franchise.

Yeah, they only took 5 years to develop the game.

In short, I hated the game! Hated the forced motion plus controls where IR/analog woulda been better, hated having to fly around so much, hated how main villian was a such a pushover that none of the NPCs even mentioned him, hated how Link was such a pushover that Zelda didn't even need him for half the game, hated the annoying pacing as every dungeon is basically 2 dungeons. Just hate it hate it hate it! Glorified exaggerations asside, I quit playing it halfway through, making it one of the two games I never beat completely within the last 8-10 years. Now to summon my red pikmin for a flame shield!