I’m not so sure it would have helped at all. Most discussion from people who played it had good things to say, but looking at player numbers and general engagement online, the problem I see is complete apathy. They just failed to build any interest in the game. 10 years ago I could see it doing well but it’s a combination of ideas that just aren’t popular right now.
And that’s pretty scary to me. I know well how it feels to work hard on something, put it online, and no one even sees it. No dislike or liking of the thing. It’s just sucked down the algorithmic black hole. Can’t imagine working several years on a game, and then no one cares to even try it.
Skyward Sword is bullshit and I don’t like it.
It was a lot longer than it should of been; it’s in line with the rest of the 3D zelda playtimes, but the waggle controls makes the game become a chore in the last 3rd of it.
And my biggest complaint was the accessibility issues. Link is left handed in every other game in the series** except Skyward Sword and there isn’t any options to make him left handed. Being a left handed person, it’s not really fun having to sword fight with my non dominant hand for 30+ hours.
I’ll admit I don’t know how hard it would be to make a “handedness” option available in the game, but it’s still sucks that Nintendo was fine with putting out a game (twice) that feels bad to 10% of the population by default. Especially considering that Wii Sports had handedness options.
**-I played Twilight Princess on the Gamecube, and Link is left handed in that version of the game. I understand that he’s right handed in the Wii version, but I specifically did NOT play that version because of being left handed
funny you mention Skyward Sword as it relates to my “most ashamed” video game experience which was just how enraged I got at the Tadtones. Didn’t like the man I had become, in that moment
I am typically expressive in my dissatisfaction, but the last tadtones segment in Skyward Sword is the only time in my life a neighbor neighbour (I lived in London back then) came to my flat to complain about me making too much noise playing video games; I screamed “Fuck” way too loud and for way too long around 1AM.
Asking people to start with Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan! is very rude, in my opinion.
The tadtones are the worst part of any Zelda, maybe any Nintendo first-party game. I cannot believe that passed playtesting in the house of Mario.
If Nintendo’s going to be so litigious towards the public, maybe we can strike back and get a class action thing going for emotional damages from tadtone abuse.
It’s interesting to hear about Nintendo’s insistence that on-screen prompts are hyper-accurate, as this means that until very recently they were HUGE LIARS AND HYPOCRITES.
The Nintendo Switch version of Mario Kart 8 asks you to press L + R to start. When it was originally released, you could also just press any face button and the game would start anyway. It stayed this way until they updated the game to add all those new tracks in 2022. Then they fixed it. Has to be L + R now.
A few Switch games do this. I imagine it’s some kind of final ‘are you DEFINITELY holding the correct controller’ check as L + R syncs and connects an inactive controller and pairs separate joycons to operate as one.
I love when people hate games i enjoy (and can articulate why) because i love hearing those diff perspectives. You’re right, on the Wii Skyward Sword is bullshit.
On the Switch it feels closer to what it should be.
Yeah, L+R is the button combo used to determine between a joy-con pair vs a single joy-con on its side. Wild that Mario Kart 8D waited so long to change it!
I design UI/UX and this is a sneaky and messy hack. My assumption is that Nintendo had no faith in people’s understanding of the single/dual joycon thing and had to put this final fail-safe in there to trick people into syncing their controllers. A few years in they realised that it wasn’t necessary (or that people now understood the controllers better) and they tidied up the inelegant workaround.
A bit late to this episode, but still felt compelled to post after watching it. Just wanted to say what quite a few people already have, but the recommendations this week were all great and I needed to hear them. Ash’s especially, it brought me to tears.
I wouldn’t say I hate Skyward Sword, but I was frustrated and disappointed by it. I bought that game as a poor college kid to take back home and play over winter break and it kind of pissed me off that it didn’t blow my socks off. Part of the disappointment was that IGN gave the game a 10/10, and as a impressionable and immature 19 year old I felt lied to.
BTW: Amazing way to end the episode! I really need to listen to the whole thing before I start replying to the threads
Also Skyward Sword is great! Its biggest problem is that it is, like most classic 3D Zeldas, too easy. Even in hero mode. People can and should speak their truth about the tadtones but I don’t remember having a ton of trouble with them when I replayed the game in 2021. It’s also the last game in the series to build on swordplay as a pillar of the series’ gameplay going all the way back to Zelda II although I agree there should have been a left-handed mode, and further: it should have been the default. I’m right-handed and would have played it that way. A missed opportunity that I hope someone mods into the game someday.
I think Jaffe saying “Frank’s pussy’s still strong. It’s still tight.” is the moment where it fully hit me like “oh yeah this show is totally a new thing now” lol
