Skyward Sword: Nintendo’s Icarus
There are few video game franchises as well known and as beloved as Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda. From its humble beginnings as a 2D, top-down NES game all the way to its newest installation as a massive, open-world adventure on the Switch, the Zelda franchise has experienced some serious changes over time. As with any new piece of media, these changes were always met with great praise and excitement, but they also received a fair share of backlash. But among a collection of fifteen games that belong to this classic series, there is one that has faced much more controversy than any of its associates. That game is The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
Nintendo has one thing that has pulled them through the entertainment system in times of turmoil and uncertainty: a legacy. This company’s icons are recognizable all throughout our culture today. People know Pikachu, Mario, Kirby, and Link — even if by the wrong name, at times — whenever they see them on posters or t-shirts or even just as little plush toys at the mall. And this recognition isn’t based on the majority of the population having played even a single one of these games. These characters have become self-marketing in the wake of the vast successes of their games of origin. There then becomes a precedent — anything following up these classic masterpieces with such iconic characters should be inherently good. Therefore, whether or not it actually is exceptional, it will be perceived as such. So next, as seems to always follow effortless success, came the downward spiral.
After finding immense success with the first installment in 1986, Zelda games began rigidly following a common formula: save the princess, get the magic artifact, and defeat the bad guy. Of course, the world was graphically improved and expanded, and the story became a lot less dependent on player inference, but at the baseline, very little has changed. Call them crazy, but Nintendo is very good at doing the same thing over and over again. And to their credit, it’s worked. Nothing changes. People have long bought their products without fail, and eagerly too, often snatching up the newest release the moment it hits the market. So the question becomes — what happened with Skyward Sword — a game that ultimately did little more than lean into the straightforward and detailed storytelling that had been a growing trend in all its predecessors?
While Nintendo may be masters of pattern-replication, they aren’t shameless with their reliance on legacy. With the Zelda franchise, there seems to be a distinct personality to each game, even if the core hasn’t been altered. Each new game would introduce a variety of unique elements, like new items, characters, enemies, or mechanics to establish a “different” version of the world of Hyrule. And many games even added new controls to alter the physical experience of playing the game. Skyward Sword’s immediate predecessor, Twilight Princess, introduced the idea of motion controls. At the time, this was limited to making your character swing the sword whenever it sensed motion from the Wii remote, alongside some rough aiming controls for projectiles, but the game’s creator felt as if this sold the mechanic short, and he wanted to utilize it in a more advanced and broader sense. Unfortunately, due to a series of setbacks, this mechanic absorbed an immense chunk of the money and time budgeted for the game, and much of the rest of it was forced to rely on the tried and true patterns of the Zelda legacy.
These motion controls were the selling point of the game, boasting one-to-one sword combat and precise aiming controls. Its goal was to immerse you in this fictional world and allow you to physically swing the sword of legend against any enemy standing in your way. To capitalize on the immersion provided by these precisely-tracking controls, they sought to make Link more relatable. These motion controls created a precedent that whenever the player picked up the remote, they would essentially be taking the place of the protagonist. This isn’t necessarily a huge leap from how players interacted with the game in the past — after all, video games are an exercise in escapism at their core. But by adding mirrored physicality, there was a greater depth to the immersion this game offered, allowing a player to further lose track of the real world and fall into the world and story of the game. The developers poured so much time and energy into this one fundamental change so the player would be able to truly step into this universe that they created — donning the hero’s classic green attire and striking the final blow against the evil that threatens to take over yet again. It was then only sensible to create Link to behave as more of a human than a legend. They altered the story to where Link was no longer the stoic hero of time. Now, he was just a dumb kid who cared about his best friend enough to challenge uncharted territory and daunting adversaries. He was someone who often wasn’t good enough to face the tasks before him, but no matter what, he pressed on. He was flawed, and he was uncertain, and he faced the classic human conundrum of setting out against what everyone says can’t be done. He was relatable. They also made Zelda more personable. No longer was she just the wise and beautiful princess — she was a sweet girl with a heart of gold. And more than this, now that their new controls allowed for deeper immersion than before, they used this new personality to make you, the player, care about her as if she was your friend, not just Link’s. And to be fair, the immersion they were so worried about did work. But funny enough, that’s probably what hurt them so much in the end.
Of course, there were circles in which the game was received with the unconditional love and acceptance that all the other games had received. But the developers made a critical mistake in waging all their bets on the impact of these motion controls and the immersion they offered. People did in fact fall into this world, but they were anything but lost in it. Rather, as soon as they got there, they took a good look around, and said, “Hm, this looks familiar.” Skyward Sword’s creators flew too close to the burning sun of their legacy, and people started noticing this was just Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Twilight Princess and Wind Waker with…well, less. But hey, you can strum a harp with realistic instrument-playing motion! You know, like…like the ocarina in Ocarina of Time. Although it doesn’t control as precisely or sound nearly as good. But you can aim a bow with motion controls! Like…exactly what you did in Twilight Princess five years ago. But you can aim it at the boss’ giant eye! Also like you did in Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask and The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Except this time, it just so happens to be with a boss that looks like they stole a model from Monster’s Inc and changed up the palette to avoid a copyright dispute.
And it is worth mentioning, Skyward Sword is not the only Zelda game that borrows from that which came before it. All throughout the franchise’s history, they’ve recycled the foundations of the play style as well as the story. The difference here is that this time, with such an intense focus on adding these revolutionary motion controls, the creators just didn’t add much of anything else.
Ocarina of Time added seven sages whose stories enrich and complicate the plot.
Majora’s Mask added a lost fairy and a motivated, semi-compelling antagonist.
Twilight Princess added a cursed queen and her unstable usurper.
Skyward Sword…didn’t really bother. Even though it was set up to be the prequel to all the Zelda games that came before and presumably all that would come after, it seems the creators had a stronger interest in just spotlighting the story we’ve already heard a million times instead of actually enhancing it. And for all its focus on story, the free exploration fell to the wayside. In fact, it seems to be more than the game’s role as a prequel that pressed the creators to focus so intensely on the story.
The world is smaller, more simplified, and especially more path-locked than any of its predecessors, as if they were scared that in wandering off the proper course, you’d notice how flat and empty the map really is. The developers provided you with characters who time and time again felt the need to remind you that you were on a great adventure, more incredible than anything in all the land’s history, because in full truth, you wouldn’t really feel that was the case unless you were informed that it was.
You’re confined to three regions — four if you count the overworld that is basically empty save for a few treasure chests and flying enemies here and there — and you’re constantly going back and forth between the isolated segments, just to do the same thing in different places and different things in the same places. It makes this grandiose, epic adventure that was classic enough to survive for twenty-five years feel like it’s taking place in a sandbox. And ultimately, the desolate world they created forced them to step away from any dicey plot decisions that could turn the fans against the game entirely. After all, the basic formula had succeeded every time they used it in the past. They felt they couldn’t take chances on a story that might not find that same success. Little did they know, they were already taking a chance in putting so much pressure on a frail story that’s been warped and stretched and twisted too much to hold the weight of an entire game.
Skyward Sword’s neglected world, reliance on clichéd plot and motion controls, and its formal status as a segment of the ever-expanding Zelda series all poured into a failure that became a wake-up call for Nintendo, just as they thought they had this series figured out. It was an immense lesson that maybe their pattern-replication had been focusing on the wrong patterns. They were forced to look all the way back to the original Legend of Zelda, where there was no goddess or sword-spirits or islands in the sky. But what they did find was a (for the time) massive, free world to roam and explore and conquer as you were able. What came next was Breath of the Wild, arguably one of the highest-praised Zelda games in the company’s history — but that’s for another essay. Breath of the Wild proved that Nintendo was just as good at pattern-recognition as replication, and the spotlight fell on a boundless Hyrule, where every surface was climbable and every crevice, mountain peak, and deep valley could be explored. In fact, they even made the story optional this time around, scattering it throughout several skippable cutscenes. Love it or hate it, Skyward Sword was an essential part of Nintendo’s legacy, because it set right a critical misunderstanding that went on for just short of three decades: The Legend of Zelda doesn’t derive its success from a story that’s so rudimentary, it can be retold in fifteen different ways in just ten more years, and that doesn’t even account for spin-off variations. While story is a wonderful addition to games, it was never meant to be the whole experience. And nowhere is this proven more than in the failure of Skyward Sword and the following prosperity of Breath of the Wild, its polar opposite.
So where do we go from here? To bigger and fuller worlds, it would seem. Games that are free of rigid courses and an emphasis on experimentation instead of following instructions. Perhaps it would be too optimistic to hope that Nintendo will realize it’s possible to have a deep, convoluted story and a vast, entertaining world all at once. But for now, they seem to be on a good track. The story of this famous series — the legend of Zelda, if you will — has worked for years on end because it’s simple. It’s so sheer that it seems effortless to work your way into the shoes of the hero. After all, haven’t we all loved? And wouldn’t we do anything for that love? But in this simplicity, it can not stand alone — this is a mistake Nintendo paid considerably for. But as all creatives should, their next step was to learn from their failure and adapt to the demand of the endless escapism and new experiences the world seeks in video games.
