1077 Red Dawn.

I finished Skyward Sword today. I have to say, all the complaints that people had with the motion controls just weren’t a problem for me. I Knocked the shit out of pretty much every enemy with no trouble. The lazer towers were a pain because I didn’t instantly realize you could slash them, and I often swung the wrong way in a pancic, but that was about it. Oh wait, electric enemies! I hated those. Anything with electric powers was a bitch because I didn’t want to finesse my way past their shit. Except you can’t just wail on them. You have to wait or they will zap the shit out of you.

A large portion of Skyward Sword’s gameplay is directly lifted from Wii Sports Resort. Which is fine because I liked playing Wii Sports, but it was really weird when I realized it. Wii Sports must have been basically a test game for Skyward. Just to work out the bugs or something. Anyway that may have contributed to me already being good at the controls because I played a lot of Wii sports and the skills carry over directly. The controls for swimming were the best for any game I’ve ever played where you had to swim, by the way. It made water levels much less of a chore.

I never needed to grind for money. The world was swimming in it. I bought out Beedle’s shop long before the end of the game. Even though there’s nothing much to buy they keep giving you bigger and bigger wallets. Apparently to carry around the tons of money you’ll never need to spend. Bug hunting alone made me so wealthy I only opened chests hoping there might be a new weapon inside.

I was actually pretty annoyed that I couldn’t just buy the best shield about halfway through the game. Not that I ever had to worry about using them, but still. Once it was available I had the magic one upgraded to the max and was set. Pretty much the second I got any item I was able to max out the upgrades as soon as I was back in Skyloft. Honestly that shouldn’t sound like a complaint. I love games that let me get gear that seems really strong early. Especially if it seems like I’m getting one over on it. It really seemed like I was being rewarded for being super smart and thrifty with stuff and I liked it.

I also really enjoyed the boss fights. Skyward Sowrd is one of the few games I’ve ever played where I felt like the fights were really fair. Like, if you knew how to use the sword it didn’t matter how strong anything was. And there were very few cheap attacks. Not much is unblockable or undodgeable. Not until the last boss anyway. He’s kind of cheap in some ways. Although still not that bad. I actually enjoyed playing the boss rush mode to get the unbreakable shield. I pranced through it like a champ and didn’t mind going back in to get the heart container. I didn’t take it to the end because I assumed the last present was just cash and I didn’t need it at all. I’m sure I could have beaten he whole run though.

The dungeons weren’t particularly annoying. In fact these were the least annoying of any Zelda game I’ve played. Except for a couple of parts I didn’t feel like I was fighting the controls while trying to do puzzles or whatever. They very kindly left save points scattered on the ground like pebbles, so you never had to worry about redoing a bunch of shit. Not that I ever had to, or was in danger of it, but it was nice to be able to walk away if I wanted to. The triforce dungeon was actually really clever in my opinion. I can’t remember ever seeing one like it before.

There was one thing I really hated. The skydiving clown game… I hate games of chance for important gear. To its credit Skyward only had the one, but FUCK. THAT. CLOWN. I almost got that fucking heart container so many times only to have the wheel dick me at the last second. It was the only part of the game that I almost ragequit. The actually part of the game that’s skill based isn’t hard at all. I won a ton of money my first two tries, but once I knew I could get a heart it was torment trying to land on the right part of the wheel.

Skyward Sword is now, easily, my favorite Zelda game with Twilight Princess a close second. I had a lot of fun playing it and would have played hours more if it had been available.

On the topic of the comic, this isn’t the first page I tried adding in animated effects to. I actually went back in yesterday and changed it. I couldn’t actually make the thing do what I saw in my head, but this gets the point across. I don’t have any animation training so it’s just a monkey banging a rock against another rock and hoping for the best. As long as the animation is simple I can make them pretty easily so you can look forward to little treats from time to time now.

“Constance” is speaking Japanese in the last panel there if you want to go bablefish it. She’s basically saying Whoa! It’s been a long time! I think… My friend Amber helped me with it because I hardly remember any of what little Japanese I ever learned.