Category Archives: Audit

Hey, Look, Listen: Analyzing Handholding in Skyward Sword

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Skyward Sword is a great game.

While watching the ending credits, I was reminded of all the fun I’d had in Skyward Sword‘s tremendous environments and colorful characters for 39 hours and 16 minutes. Many of the most satisfying moments of my Skyward Sword playthrough were found deep in its dungeons, or the instant I dealt a final blow to the end boss with only a lone heart and no health potions or fairies remaining. A smile was also brought to my face many times by Groose’s antics, Peatrice’s outrageous infatuation with Link, and the simple of joy rotating a boss key into position with the Wii Remote.

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Hey, Look, Listen: Analyzing Handholding in Zelda

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One of my biggest disappointments with Skyward Sword was a sense that the game held my hand too often. Skyward Sword felt to me like one of those games where the tutorial never lets up; my sense of agency and freedom as a player felt stripped away because I felt like too many puzzles were explicitly explained to me either by Fi or the camera zooming to an objective. I want to be challenged, but I also want to have some idea of what I have to do in order to progress. A fine line exists between telling me what an item does, and a magic ghost woman flying out of my sword to explain exactly how I need to use an item the moment I enter another room… before I even see the puzzle, let alone get a fair chance at solving it.

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