Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn

Released on November 5, 2007 for the Nintendo Wii by Nintendo after development by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo SPD, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn features tactical RPG gameplay across 37 chapters in a medieval fantasy setting.

"Who can account for taste?" asked my American Lit professor in a comment on my paper for Cormac McCarthy's drag of an overlong romance western adjective vomit, All the Pretty Horses. My English professor's favorite all-time book was All the Pretty Horses, and while he insisted that the fact that I disliked it would not affect my grade, the B he gave me in his lower level class sure looked conspicuous next to the A's I made in literally every single other English class I took as an English major. 19 A's and a B. "Who can account for taste?" my ass.
I don't like Fire Emblem games. I can see that now. About halfway through Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, I decided that continuing to play the 2007 Wii tactical RPG would be about as fun for me as...reading All the Pretty Horses again. By why isn't this storied series my cup of tea?

Game Over? But I just started!

Radiant Dawn starts well enough, with some cool, action-packed, atmospheric cinematics. Some magical girl with a cute bird is on the run, and some guy shows up to protect her. There's all kind of societal strife and war, and a bunch of over-complicated political mumbo-jumbo, and then you're suddenly looking at an overhead view of a city street, controlling some characters on a playing field.
When each of your respective characters gets their turn, a movement grid appears around them, upon which you can direct the character to any spot. The grid moves with you as you progress across the playing field, at times growing smaller according to more difficult terrain, like slopes. If you move close enough to an enemy, you can choose to attack them, whereupon a screen showing an animation of that attack appears. You also have the choice to end the turn using an item, like a healing herb, instead of attacking. Complete the chapter goals, like defeating a boss, or staying alive for a certain amount of turns, and you complete the chapter. There are 37 chapters.

I told you the stupid bird was cute.

And that's...the gist of it. As the game progresses, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn adds more and more complexity to the basic core of its gameplay, like missions geared specifically toward defense, missions involving prisoner rescue, allies added to the playing field the player can't control, and playable characters who can shapeshift. So much minutiae is added with each consecutive mission, that the corresponding tutorials become laughable--really, I'm 15 missions and 30 hours in, and you want to show me another instructional video?
I had a good time to start. Radiant Dawn felt like an onscreen board game and turn-based-RPG rolled into one. The game allows you to utilize many different types of characters: swordsmen or ax men who have to land right next to an enemy square in order to attack, archers who can attack from two squares or more away, lancers who can do both, and many more. There are even mage characters who can heal the rest of your party. Sure, you don't really get to know these characters, and they start to become more and more interchangeable as the game goes on, but early in, when the fields of play and mission objectives are simple, strategizing how to best use them is a thrill. For the first 10-15 hours, I was truly enjoying the game. Then cracks began to appear in the facade.

Look, it's Ike from Smash Bros.! Uh...I think I'm gonna go play Smash Bros. now.

First, I started to notice I wasn't interested in Radiant Dawn's needlessly complex, emotionlessly told story: Here's some prince. Here's some king. Here's some other prince who doesn't like the first prince. Here's some tyrant doing tyrant stuff. The people are restless. War. Famine. Repeat.
Radiant Dawn introduces character after character, location after location, and it's all just narrative white noise. Seven or eight missions in, I started skipping the cutscenes, which had become a time-wasting drag. You can access each mission's objective at any point during the chapter anyway
That's fine, I thought. I'm only playing this for the gameplay, anyway.
Then, it happened.
I reached the final chapter of the second part of this five-part game. Each part focuses on a different set of characters in a different location of the game's kingdom, which ensures you not only won't get too attached to any of them, but will be even more confused by the convoluted plot. When the characters die in a mission, they're dead permanently, anyway. Okay, so back to the end of the second part of of the game...
As I hinted at before, every one of Radiant Dawn's chapters has a condition that must be met to progress. They also have conditions of failure, such as allowing a particular character to die,or giving up on certain square on the playing field. The second part's final mission features many, many enemies and allies, and has a winning condition of surviving for 15 turns. A turn finishes when every character for you, your enemies, and your allies have had the opportunity to act. The game was already starting to get stale, when I, with a horror, realized I would be wasting time just sitting there, watching enemies and allies moving around for a vast amount of time. I eventually pulled out my stopwatch, and found that during each turn in the chapter, the enemies and allies took at least 3.5 minutes to complete all their moves...and I didn't have the option to skip watching their moves take place.. 15x3.5 is...more than 50 minutes. That's more than 50 minutes of just one of Radiant Dawn's 37 missions that I had to spend just sitting there watching what was going on on the screen. And this is a mission that occurs before the halfway point. I nearly went out of mind.

Why does your game hate me, Ike?!

That's not going to work for me. Ever. That chapter also included the failure condition that two particular characters could not die without the chapter automatically ending in defeat. I once made it to the final turn, after two hours of chapter gameplay, only to have one of these characters perish. So much time wasted. Thankfully, you have the option to save during a battle, but save at the wrong time, like say, right before the turn where your vital character has already been trapped and is about to die, and you're screwed. This type of pacing just isn't for me. At that point, I realized that, in order to keep my happiness and general well-being, I would need to quit playing Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.
And so I did.
I should mention, though, the music up to that point was solid Nintendo stuff, but not good enough to make me want to finish the game. There's some voice-acting, but it's rarely utilized, mainly just in certain cutscenes. The graphics are solid, particularly in some of said cutscenes. Really, everything about the production values is solid. The gameplay, though...as much fun as the more straightforward missions can be, just becomes too tedious...
To me. As I said, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn just isn't my type of game. Perhaps I'm being too hard on it. Then again, the overly convoluted narrative is a legitimate complaint. The way the game introduces too many characters to allow the player to emotional connect with any one of them is a legitimate complaint. The way the player has to sit through long patches of video game AI making its moves is a legitimate complaint. Cormac McCarthy taking 100 pages just for the kid to ride his damn horse home at the end is a legitimate complaint! Yes, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn isn't my type of game--but I'd have the same complaints about these issues if they existed in a game in any genre that I enjoy. Imagine having to watch K. Rool putz around for an hour before you, as Donkey Kong, are allowed to defeat him? That's not very enjoyable...and life's too short to spend 60 hours playing a game you don't enjoy.

My better tomorrow will be spent playing a different game!

I can say, when the missions didn't involve me waiting a million years, I enjoyed the strategy involved in moving my characters in a grid like pattern against enemies. I enjoyed leveling up my archer (your characters level up, growing stronger after enough fights, but you can also level them up from a group pool between chapters, as well), buying him better arrows (there's a camp store you can visit between chapters), and turning him into a genuine weapon. I enjoyed maneuvering my stronger fighters, like Sothe (during the parts he was available) into a group of enemies that were giving my other characters trouble, and waylaying them. There are certainly many elements here to enjoy--but the flaws, piled on top of my personal taste--because who really can account for taste, right Dr. McKinnon, you jackass?--were just too much to bear. I don't like reviewing a game I haven't played to the final credits, but in this case, for my sanity's sake, on to the next game.

8.0

Graphics

They're fine. It's the above average, higher-res GameCube graphics you've come to expect in Wii prestige titles. Cutscenes look nice. 

7.5

Music and Sound

It's fine. Decent voice-acting in the cutscenes. Effective, if unmemorable music.

6.5

Gameplay

Some great, grid-based tactical RPG fun, saddled with overlong missions that force you to watch your enemies move for hours.

7.5

Lasting Value

There are at least 37 missions, and lots of options, but does that really matter when I have no drive to finish the game?

6.8  FINAL SCORE

Super Mario Galaxy

Released in North America on November 12, 2007, Super Mario Galaxy launches the titular character in the gravity-challenged expanse of space.

Well, I've got an interesting perspective here. I love Mario--while I started playing games with my dad on his Atari 2600, seeing the red-clad plumber run across a TV screen after being beamed out of an NES hooked me. Super Mario Bros. is one of my favorite games ever. We all know the strange story of not-really-a-Mario-game, Super Mario Bros. 2, but I played it...and sucked at it anyway. Then there was the deservedly incredible hype for all-time great, Super Mario Bros. 3. Then the zesty plumber jumped onto the 16-bit SNES with two games that are arguably better than his 8-bit adventures. Then he made the jump to 3D on the Nintendo 64 in a game I believe is pure magic. Then, some cracks started to show. The once infallible plumber suddenly seemed mortal on the GameCube adventure, Super Mario Sunshine. The once legendary Nintendo quality control seemed to have been in a hurry to get that one out the door. The hose mechanic and camera seemed to need at least another 6-months of refinement. The 128-bit game isn't a total disaster or anything--it just doesn't live up to the usual Mario standard of excellence. Then came Super Mario Galaxy.
Launched on the motion control-centric Nintendo Wii, a year after the console hit stores, Super Mario Galaxy received the ravest of reviews, won major awards, and due to circumstances I've already detailed ad nauseum, I missed it completely, along with the entire seventh generation of home video game consoles (obviously meaning I missed Super Mario Galaxy 2, as well). However, I jumped back into the fray with the eighth, absolutely loving Super Mario 3D World for the Wii U, and being slightly underwhelmed by, but still really enjoying the Switch entry, Super Mario Odyssey. Still, the fact that I've never played the Galaxy games has been bothering me.
GameStop recently had the first game on sale for $9.99, complete and in mint condition, and I bit. I've spent the last couple of months playing. Here, nearly 12 years after Super Mario Galaxy was released, is what I think.

The first hours of Super Mario Galaxy are invigorating. It's like the game launches you out of a cannon into the open, loving arms of its universe. This is technically the third 3D console main entry game in the Mario series. The first, the previously mentioned Super Mario 64, opens similarly, as the thrill of first having the once 2D plumber run around in a three-dimensional field of play is exhilarating. The second, the GameCube's Super Mario Sunshine, contains no such feeling, as it simply upgrades its predecessors graphics, and weighs Mario down with an unwieldy water-based jetpack. Sunshine is a weird, funky game, and I'll get around to reviewing it one day (first, I'll have to finally finish it!). For the third, Super Mario Galaxy, it's back to wonder mode, as 3D Mario, upgraded visually above even Super Mario Sunshine, is now running around planetoids in every possible direction, sometimes while upside down. Yes, spheroid gravity is the big hook here, as many stages, particularly early on, feature gameplay where the mustachioed plumber is launched from one little planet to the next, each full of various challenges. Often, those challenges incorporate the fact that you are no longer bound by 180 degrees of movement in relation to up and down, left and right movement.  Flat surfaces are mostly gone, and round (and other-shaped) gravitational surfaces are now in.

I often felt like I was riding a roller coaster in those first hours, even getting a little sick when I'd have to make Mario run upside down for too long. The mechanic is nicely implemented, though it takes a minute to rewrite your Mario-controlling muscle memory. here, Mario is maneuvered with a Wii Remote and Nunchuk combo. Once you're used to it, getting Mario from here to there in the game's earlier portions is a cinch. There's a catch, though...motion controls.
Motion controls were the Wii's initial hook in 2006. They helped the Wii sell over 100 million units--far more than any other Nintendo home console. They were supposed to level the playing field between gamer and non-gamer. Indeed, relatives of mine who never played games before still have Wii's sitting in their living rooms, 13 years later. Of course, most of them only played some Wii Sports, picked up a few Karaoke, Dancing, or Guitar Hero games, and called it a day.
Super Mario Galaxy sold 10.4 million copies, but that means barely 10% of those who purchased Wii's brought Nintendo's flagship character into their home along with it. In the intervening years, a narrative has been created: the Nintendo Wii was a motion control-relying gimmick. That narrative, along with the fact that few realized that's Wii successor, the Wii U, was a separate console, likely contributed to the Wii U's failure.

All of that to say, while the motion controls may have been a gimmick to draw in the non-gamer, there are some great games for the Wii. There are even some great games, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, in particular, that make excellent use of the Wii's motion controls...even utilize them so well, they become a strength. Super Mario Galaxy is a very good game, but the way it utilizes the Wii's motion controls are not a strength.
Do you like violently shaking your wrist? You'll have to do so time and time again to perform Mario's spin-move as an attack, or to use it to launch from a star portal from planet to planet. I don't like violently shaking my wrist, so these portions of the game, which are interspersed into much of its run, did not thrill me.
How about holding your arm out and delicately pointing the hypersensitive Wii remote in what you hope it will interpret as the direction you're trying to head in? You'll have to do so in areas where Mario rides atop a large ball on tiny, twisty platforms over a bottomless pit, or when he surfs through a winding course of razor-thin, cage-less, airborne rivers. These segments are the most frustrating in the game, and perhaps in any Mario game. The entire reason the first Mario games found such success, and received such acclaim, is the purity of the controls. Running and jumping feel absolutely perfect to this day. Even as an eight-year old, I knew that any time I died in Super Mario Bros., it was my fault, and not the game's. I should have jumped earlier. I should have run, then jumped.  I wasn't paying attention to that Goomba's location. The twentieth time I died on the stupid, worthless Gizmos, Gears, and Gadgets level in Super Mario Galaxy was not due to my own negligence. It was due to Nintendo implementing an imperfect, unreliable mechanic into their flagship series.

I may be biased, as the Italian plumber showed me just how great video games could be, but Mario deserves as near perfection as possible. Sticking him with a lousy mechanic, just to utilize the selling point of your new console, is not fair. Any area of the game involving Wii Remote aiming of Mario in locomotion should have been jettisoned for traditional controls. If not, and the motion controls absolutely had to be utilized in this way, the game should have been delayed so that they could be greatly polished. I gave myself a month after I completed the game to review it, so that I could cool off about the things I hate, and reflect more on the things I loved, but I feel the rage already returning. While I am raging, let's talk about another element of Super Mario Galaxy I hate, that works in conjunction with what I've already negatively mentioned, to create several nightmarish moments.
When Mario originally entered the realm of 3D in Super Mario 64, his ability to take damage increased. It had to--moving through a 3D space, gauging 3D jumps, and attempting to take on multiple enemies in a 3D game is more difficult to do than it is in a 2D game. That feels like a subjective statement...but for me, it is most definitely true. Add to that the fact that Mario can be completely surrounded from all directions in a 3D space, as well. Death can come quickly. By nature of the fact that there are obviously far more directions to travel in a 3D space, exploration is more of a factor. Nothing discourages exploration like quick death.

As I alluded to above, Nintendo countered this difficulty by giving Mario an 8-hit meter. In the old 2D games, Mario could take one hit if he was small, two if he was "Super." This addition to the damage Mario can take seemed very fair, and made Super Mario 64 far more enjoyable, while not taking away from its difficulty (which, in later levels like Tick Tock Clock and Rainbow Ride, is considerable). It also made exploring the open worlds of Super Mario 64 a joy. Thankfully, Super Mario Sunshine kept the 8-hit mechanic (the lousy camera would have been even more maddening if it hadn't). Super Mario Galaxy ditches it.
In Super Mario Galaxy, Mario's hit-meter sits at a whopping three. This adds a sense of...danger to the game that I don't exactly love. Now, the impetus is more on staying alive than exploring. I realized early into the game that I wasn't quite finding myself as relaxed as while playing previous Mario games...even World 8 in the original NES game, the last levels in Super Mario Bros. 3, or even during Champion's Road on Super Mario 3D World on the later Wii U.
In Super Mario Galaxy, I was almost always worried about dying, which most definitely sucked out a little of my enjoyment, particularly considering all of the planets the game offers to explore...then again, each world has a bit more of an on-rails feeling than the ones found in previous 3D Mario games. And frankly, despite the galactic vibe and number of planets found in Super Mario Galaxy, there's actually a lot less to explore.

Super Mario 64's worlds each have six power stars to collect (stars open new worlds in Super Mario 64, and new galaxies in Super Mario Galaxy), which are received by performing various tasks (involving exploring, platforming, boss-fighting, etc.), as well as a 100-coin challenge. Super Mario Galaxy's galaxies have three stars each to collect, on average. Galaxy's stars take considerably longer to obtain on average than the ones in Super Mario 64 do...which makes the ease of dying even more frustrating...especially when it involves motion controls.
Of course, in Super Mario 64, Mario's hit-meter can be refilled by finding coins. Each level has more than 100, and one coin replenishes one bar on the meter. It's the same for Super Mario Galaxy, though coins are far harder to come by. This also brings up the one major blessing of Super Mario Galaxy's motion controls, that at select moments doubles as a curse: the star bits.
Super Mario Galaxy adds a shiny, colorful collectible called star bits to the mix. They are collected by pointing a Wii Remote-controlled cursor at them at any given moment that they appear on screen...and they appear onscreen a lot. Collect 100 star bits in any given galaxy, and you receive an extra life. Star bits are also used at selects moments to access special new galaxies.
It's undeniably fun to point the Wii Remote at the screen, and attempt to scoop up as many star bits as possible. Super Mario Galaxy even brings back question mark blocks, which, when Mario jumps up and hits them from below, often give him star bits. That's the thing, though. When you're down to one hit, you don't want star bits...you want coins. In those instances, receiving star bits is frustrating.

Then again, Super Mario Galaxy does give more opportunities to attain extra lives than in any other Mario game...but I'd much rather stay alive to complete a challenge, than get an extra life that just grants me the opportunity to start the challenge over from the beginning, or from one of the game's galaxies' scattered save points, if I die, over and over again. These extra lives are really just sparing me the indignity of having to start over from the game's title screen, and having to traverse the game's hub area to get back to the galaxy I had challenged again. I'm having a lot of trouble with the verb tenses in this review.
Thankfully, the game offers many opportunities to save: after each power star is attained, when the game is quit, or even when the player experiences a game over. After that game over, it's back to the hub. Galaxy's hub world is a roving space station, full of rooms connected to the game's many galaxies, but once you unlock the rooms high up in the space station, it's quite frustrating to climb there over and over again after a game over...particularly considering you'll be getting more game overs from the galaxies the higher rooms offer...

...Frankly, I only complain this much about stuff I care about...check the five paragraph brevity of my review of the awful Armorines. Super Mario Galaxy truthfully offers many hours of fun--in the long run, far more hours of fun than frustration. The majority of its galaxies are not motion-control-centered, quick death hell. A significant enough portion are to rankle me, but the lion's share of Super Mario Galaxy has that Mario magic. When motion controls are not, or are minimally involved, the titular plumber controls just as great as expected. Jumping, flying through the stars, bouncing on a Goomba's head--all a joy. The music, the first symphonic Mario score, is beautiful, featuring some truly gorgeous string pieces, evocative of the stellar settings. The game isn't a huge graphical leap over its GameCube predecessor, but it still looks great, a primary color visual bath. Some of the stages, like the both super chill and challenging Gold Leaf Galaxy, are among my favorites of the series. The general star-going vibe the game achieves is primal video game escapism at its best. And the feeling of soaring through space is so very, very blissful.

Super Mario Galaxy may not have aged as gracefully as its brethren due to its strange controls. It may not tick off all my "ideal Mario game" boxes due to several of its mechanics. However, it is distinctly a Mario game, with that Nintendo seal of greatness, even it isn't as shiny as usual. For that reason, despite my own reservations, I can't help but recommend it.

9.0

Graphics

Nothing absolutely mind-blowing, but what on the Wii is? It looks great.

9.0

Music and Sound

Excellent symphonic score, along with the classic, Charles Martinet-voiced Mario exclamations.

8.5

Gameplay

Mario 3D platforming magic, slightly flummoxed by some lousy motion controls, and an emphasis on frequent death over exploration.

8.5

Lasting Value

So many collectible stars, and once you beat the game, you can play through the whole thing again as Luigi...but by that point, will you really want to?  

8.6  FINAL SCORE

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Review)

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
North American Release Date: November 20, 2011

I'll be honest (always am here). The Legend of Zelda is my favorite long-running video game series, and it is time for me to tell a certain story for the last time:
For my fifth wedding anniversary, my wife and I did dinner and a movie. In between, we hung out in Barnes and Noble and read magazines. The cover of a video game magazine I grabbed sunk my spirits. Nintendo was releasing yet another Zelda game. Five years before that moment, when my wedding coincided with the launch of the Nintendo Wii, and Twilight Princess, a corresponding Zelda game, I had decided that video games, my key hobby, were childish things that I should leave behind. In 2011, as I sat in that Barnes and Noble cafe, I felt a huge pang of regret. This new Zelda game, Skyward Sword, not only looked awesome, but would now put me TWO Zelda games behind. Would I ever play video games again? Truthfully, I had recently pulled out my old Sega Dreamcast and dabbled, but would I ever play new games that had come out post-2006? Thankfully, the answer was "yes." Shortly after that anniversary night, as my son gained interest in video games, my love for them was rekindled. I discovered something I think many gen-X'ers eventually come upon--just because you enjoyed something when you were a kid does not make it childish. While Millennials might never grow up, many of us Gen X'ers, dismayed by our hippie me-generation forebears, can get over-cynical about the worthwhile nature of our childhood favorites. It would be easier to say all that Atari 2600 I played with my dad was frivolous, if I hadn't recently experienced such fulfilling times playing video games with my own child. There's a difference between "childish" and "fun." (All you damn millennials still need to grow the hell up, though, and get off my lawn!)
Thus, five years after its release, I finally played through The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. My Skyward Sword play-through comes as the last of three console Zelda's I've completed over this past year, in release order, finishing The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess directly before it. I must confess, Skyward Sword suffers slightly, by comparison.



Skyward Sword is posited as a prequel to all previously released Zelda games. It begins in a small town on an island in the sky, creatively titled, Skyloft. Here we meet the very first incarnations of Zelda and Link, looking very teenager-ly, and not so epic hero-ly.  Skyloft looks like a cheery medieval town, patrolled by townsfolk soaring through the skies on large, furry birds. As you would expect, Zelda gets kidnapped, and Link, with the aid of a robotic, yet chatty blue spirit sent by The Goddess, has to dive through the clouds to find her. You might not expect the dive through the clouds part, I guess.
It seems that a land beneath the clouds is rumored, even though no living person has seen it. However, young, wet-behind the ears Link discovers there is indeed a land beneath the clouds, from which a clear, blue and strangely not blocked by clouds-sky is visible. He also discovers that this more modern, though ancient and prototypical Zelda is in little need of saving. Seems she has gone off on her own mysterious adventure with a strange woman named Impa. This leaves Link with the afore-mentioned blue spirit, who looks like an attractive, blue-skinned woman in a mini-skirt. Considering this spirit had previously greeted and introduced herself to Link in his bed in the middle of the night like a Succubus after Zelda vanishes, making him chase after her in the darkness before she inhabits his sword, the game has some interesting sexual subtext I'd rather not explore here. Actually, I'd rather like to, but my reviews run long enough as it is, so I'll just leave it at that.



The blue spirit's name is "Fi," and she becomes Link's companion for the entirety of Skyward Sword. Much has been meme'd about how annoying a companion Navi the fairy was in the seminal The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. She actually didn't bother me that much, but Fi drives me crazy. She is constantly popping up in your face (from your sword), telling you stuff you already know, or could figure out with simple deduction. If you do need help, her verbal assistance generally adds up to, "You need help." Curious about how to fight a certain monster? "To defeat this monster, you must fight it," is about par for the course. She also does this C-3PO-esque thing were she tells you odds of things all the time for seemingly no reason.  Unfortunately, there's no switch on the back of her neck to turn her off.
Anyway, you, as Link, are stuck on the surface doing seemingly random tasks, fighting monsters, and being sent on quests Link can't really comprehend, other than they will help him catch up to Zelda. Along the way, Link runs into a strange enemy named Ghirahim, a prancing, flamboyant foe who looks and acts like a tall, thin, androgynous screamo-revival band golem of re-animated rotten fruit thrown by the groundlings at The Globe Theatre. As in all other Zelda games, Link also has to duck down into complex dungeons, full of traps, puzzles, and enemies, usually finding useful items therein, like a bow, or a jar full of eternal wind, fighting a mini-boss halfway through, and a not-so mini boss at the end.
As not in all other Zelda games, Skyward Sword is the guinea pig for Wii Motion Plus controls. This means, when you play this game, you've got to get physical. Link's walking direction and geographic movement is handled with a Wii Nunchuk joystick, but his sword-fighting (the primary way enemies are battled), is controlled by waving the Wii Remote around like a sword. Swing to the left, and Link swings to the left...in theory. Many other items in the game are wielded with these motion controls. The immediate feeling for most players used to traditional controls will be confusion and frustration. You know what you want Link to do, but getting Link to do it is another matter.



Meanwhile, the surface world you've landed in, a bland forest, is graphically unimpressive, and anything more than ten feet from you blurs with some strange impressionistic painting effect in order to keep the graphics engine running smoothly.  While you are running around in this world, the background music, an area in which Zelda games are generally an industry standard-bearer, is childish and simplistic.*^(1) 
When you finally make it to another area, a volcano, things don't get any better. You also find that, after four consecutive Zelda 3-D games where the interconnected overworld got bigger and bigger, you are in a smaller world where each respective region isn't even connected to each other!  I'd say "by this point, you'd be thinking," but I don't know what you'd be thinking, so I will say, by this point, I be thinking, How is a Zelda game this mediocre? This is supposed to be the greatest franchise known to video games, which has given me some of the all-time great highlights in my four decades of video-gaming life. Why. Is. This. So. Boriiiiiiiiiingggg???!!!
Then, suddenly, 10-15 hours into the game, something happens.
When Link arrives in Lanayru, the last of three provinces found under the clouds, the game suddenly opens up. I don't mean that you can now travel between the provinces freely--you still have to go back up to Skyloft, then dive back down to which ever respective region you want to visit. What I mean is that, all at once, the control learning curve, game design, graphics, and music all come together.
Lanayru is non-Alanis Morissette ironic*(^2), in that deserts are generally known for their vast emptiness, and Lanayru Desert Province is the best, most interactive region in any Zelda game ever, pre-HD-era. Tumbleweeds roll over shadows of windblown clouds racing across the desert floor, a beautiful ambient/percussive theme breezes out of the speakers, and the player, as Link, gets to explore to their hearts content. Lanayru's unusual hook, which I won't spoil here, is one of the most innovative in any Zelda game up to 2016. At the same moment in the game, the controls suddenly begin to seem intuitive, and the given tasks, fun. The next 30 or so hours of Skyward Sword are pure Zelda bliss, as the previous two areas, and then Lanayru, are expanded in creative ways, also making them more graphically satisfying, and somehow causing them to feature better music than what came before. Even the dungeons become more interesting, particularly one called The Cistern, which is a personal favorite.
This portion of Skyward Sword, which is truthfully, the majority of gameplay time, gives me everything I want from a Zelda game: the thrill of exploration, the joy of solving inventive puzzles, and the general feeling of being a hero while I fight huge, menacing bosses, and armies of wicked foes. Once I had the motion controls down, I often found myself standing to fight the trickier bosses, or when I came across mobs of lesser enemies. The fights involve quite a bit of strategy due to advanced enemy AI, and the direction you swing your sword, and the way you time defense maneuvers with your nunchuk-controlled shield, really matter. The experience is absolutely immersive. More than ever, the player truly feels like they are Link!



And then, for its last five hours, Skyward Sword comes back down to Earth, in a third back-tracking quest that just seems like filler, an insult to the player after the second time through felt so fulfilling.  Skyward Sword took me far more time to beat than any other Zelda game, neither because I was floundering (I don't think I remember ever dying), or because of wide-ranging exploration. It took me forever to finish because of filler quests. After all, in the time it takes just to make this game interesting, I would have been halfway through my perfect-all-the-way-through initial experiences with say, Ocarina of Time, or A Link to the Past.
And while I'm complaining again, I haven't even mentioned the sparse, barely there excuse for a connecting overworld. Anytime Link wants to head to another region, he has to take to the skies on his loftwing bird, fly over a whole in the clouds (one for each of the three regions), and sky dive down. The skies themselves feature a few small islands to explore, but for the most part, seem incredibly empty. The learning curve on flying the loftwing is high, as well, and even when you feel like you are pointing your controller in the right direction, you can suddenly veer in the opposite.
So with all that said (and in my generally long-winded manner, more said than needed...sorry Ernest), what do we make of this game? Certainly it is the black sheep of 3D home console Zelda games, especially as gamers seem to be adding a little more rose to the tint of the glasses with which they view The Wind Waker, with every passing year. Should Zelda fans who haven't yet give Skyward Sword a chance? Should anyone play it at all?!
YES!
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is a great game! That 30 hours or so stretch between the first ten and last five hours is unbelievably good. Unfortunately for Skyward Sword. most Zelda games are near perfect in their entirety, and any criticisms leveled against them are generally nitpicks. Skyward Sword, while a great game, has some major flaws that are certainly not nitpicks.
I've already mentioned how long it takes to really get the game going, and also the annoying back-tracking it employs near the end. I've also hinted at the problem with the controls. When they work, they really work: the only thing more life-like would be giving the player a Wii Motion Plus controller shaped like a real sword. Unfortunately, when the controls don't work, they are maddeningly frustrating, and as the game developers went all-in with the motion controls for every aspect of the game, there are plenty of opportunities for frustration. For instance, the entrance to every dungeon's final boss can only be unlocked with a special, 3-dimensional key. You don't just need to find the key, though. You have to use motion controls to shift it around and around until it fits right. There are also times when you need to draw on walls with your sword that make you feel like a toddler attempting calligraphy. And finally, any time you need to steer something for an extended period of time, the controls will inevitably and unexplainably switch axis. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, another Nintendo franchise member that deeply explored motion controls, did so far more intuitively, and never seemed to use them just for the sake of using them. I wish the developers of Skyward Sword had taken notes from that game. Especially when it seems like every boss near the end is following the same "slash sideways at me to hit me...okay, now slash vertically," pattern.



There's also the matter of the game's dash meter. It was intended to give the player the opportunity to run fast for short periods of time with no item required...but, unfortunately, the developers applied the meter to moments Link has to climb, as well. I don't know how many times I reached two adjacent ledges, and attempted to make the "jump to the next ledge" motion with the Wii Remote, only for the controls to fail, and my dash meter to run out--sending me plummeting to my death. Previous games allowed Link to hang from ledges as long as need be, without worry.
Also, the passing of the day, a staple in Zelda games for more than a decade, is left out of Skyward Sword. The sun doesn't move. Link can take a nap to change the time of day in Skyloft, but he can't leave for the larger world until he sets it back to daytime.
Lest this just be one huge bitchfest about a game I actually like, I would be remiss to go back and pick on these flaws without going back to praise some elements I haven't yet mentioned.
Link's home town and island of Skyloft is very well-designed, and feels more lived in and homey then any previous Zelda location. Its citizens' daily routines are interesting, and they are fun to interact with. The town bazaar adds much depth to the game (in addition to buying stuff, you can collect materials to upgrade what you already have), and is fun to frequently visit. The plentiful sub-quests (not required to complete game), many taking place in Skyloft itself, are very engaging. Link's item list is quite exiting. The option to collect bugs is a fun diversion, and adds color. Also, for the first time ever, someone not named Link or Zelda receives a deep character arc. I am typing of Groose, whose development throughout Skyward Sword is surprisingly rich, full, and satisfying. A twist with another character at the end of the game caught me off-guard, but was well earned. The music really does improve as the game goes on--it's the first Zelda game to use a full orchestra throughout, and the soundtrack as a whole almost sounds like that of a Miyzaki film...actually, there's a Miyazaki influence running throughout all of Skyward Sword, from the music, to some of the boss, character, and terrain design, just as Twilight Princess seemed influenced by Peter Jackson's then-recent Lord of the Rings films. With all that said, and going back to music in a final fanboy rant...what does it take for Koji Kondo to compose a Zelda game again? Does he just feel like he is too old for the work? Is Nintendo holding him back? Is his supervisory job more satisfying? These games have been well-scored in his absence, but they're also like a John Williams-less Star Wars. Come back, Kondo! Also, I never want Link to talk in a game, but voice-acting for everyone else would have made the overall story more immersive. Also, make Link left-handed again!!!
Despite debuting to great accolades, critical opinion on Skyward Sword seems to have trended downward only months after it was released. I know I seem to be coming down on the game harshly, but I really am fond of it, despite its numerous flaws. With Breath of the Wild now hitting stores, and the Wii U passing into the night with a Skyward Sword HD update conspicuously lacking, I hope Skyward Sword isn't completely forgotten. The motion controls, while somewhat flawed in practice, are a great idea, and incredible when they work. The dream-like, storybook middle 30 hours deserve to thrive in Zelda legend. Hopefully, at some point, the best qualities of Skyward Sword will find their place in history.*^(3)



*1 I get that, as the Twilight Princess portions of Faron Woods take place far in the Zelda future, it makes sense that their music is darker and more mysterious, while Skyward Sword's less ancient Faron Woods' music should be more playful and fun...It doesn't mean I have to like it, though!
*2 By non-Alanis Morissette irony, I mean that I used the word "irony" correctly.
*3 This really brings things full circle for me. While there are still plenty of Wii, and while we're at it, PS3 games I'd like to play through, I'll consider those more like retro reviews and put them on my "Classic Video Game Reviews" website--I've now played all the games I purposely missed in that generation due to my stupid, self-imposed gaming ban. Glad, with this reveiw now complete, to not have to mention that again.

8.5

Graphics

Blurry art style takes a while to get used to, and is sometimes strangely utilized, but overall, a good looking game for Wii, particularly in its latter portions.

8.8

Music and Sound

Soundtrack is a little uneven by Zelda standards, meaning the majority is awesome, but there are weak tracks--mostly in the beginning. Sounds are great and immersive, but it's time for some voice-acting!

8.8

Gameplay

The majority of the game is classic Zelda, re-contextualized with sometimes brilliant motion controls, tainted by a grindingly slow start, backtrack heavy ending, problems with said motion controls, and some odd gameplay quirks.

9.0

Lasting Value

About a 50-hour adventure, with multiple side-quests to stretch out that number even more...(just push past the beginning!)

8.8FINAL SCORE

Metroid: Other M (Review)

Metroid: Other M 
Released on the Wii, August 31, 2010, by Nintendo, Team Ninja, and D-Rockets 
Retail: $19.99
Wii U Game Reviews Score: 8.0/10



Last month's Metroid Prime 3:Corruption review detailed my MIA Wii status. I missed out on the Wii's entire lifespan. However, I did spend those lost seven years as an interested bystander. I kept tabs on many of the new games that were released. Nothing piqued my interest more than 2010's Metroid: Other M. It looked so cool. A third-person 3-D Metroid? I had already missed the concluding chapter of Metroid Prime. Now I was gonna miss this?!
Life's not fair!
That's the best thing about it, though.
It's not very fair that a guy working two jobs, with a wife and kid and 600 hobbies still somehow finds time to not only play video games, but review them. That's the most satisfying part of this whole thing. I never thought I'd get the chance to play these games, but here I am, in my 30's, having the time of my life. On this great, unexpected second life of video-game playing, my most recent conquest was the previously mentioned Metroid Prime 3, the concluding chapter of the nearly perfect Metroid Prime series. Feeling that the least fair way to review Metroid: Other M, one of the most controversial games in the Metroid series, would be to play it immediately after tackling one of the series' most heralded entries, I immediately began playing Metroid: Other M in preparation for this review.

Why Was It So Controversial, You Long-Winded Gasbag?
Metroid games generally have one thing in common: bounty hunter, Samus Aran, wandering solo through a foreboding alien landscape, fighting alien monsters, powering up her metallic, weaponized suit. In Other M, Aran joins up with a Galactic Federation assault team, tasked with investigating a distress call from a huge, seemingly abandoned spacecraft, known as the Bottle Ship. The assault team just happens to be headed by Samus' old superior, Adam Malkovich. Samus was once a soldier for the Federation, but left because she was just too awesome to deal with their crap...until now. Upon sight of her old supervisor, the once badass loner Samus now becomes a subservient lapdog. That's pretty much the reason Other M has an awful reputation. 
But...
But What?
If you think about it, Samus takes orders from a Federation commander in Metroid Prime 3, as well, and late in that game, she assists a Federation assault team. No one complains about that. 
That's Because People Are Lame.
While I don't completely disagree with you, people were not being lame in this case. These two games contain a key difference in their portrayal of Samus Aran. In Prime 3, and in just about every Metroid game, Samus is generally called on by the Federation because she is the only person awesome enough to take care of their problems. The cool general from Metroid Prime 3 might bark like Winston Churchill (and I love me some Winston Churchill), but when it comes to Samus, he knows his forces would be flailing around like worms after a heavy rain if not for her assistance. Also, Samus, like Link, the hero of the Zelda games, does not talk...in any game... before...ever. In that fashion, Samus' and Link's thoughts are simply your thoughts. In action, they are a cipher for you, while still maintaining awesome characterization in their movement and stoic silence. The Samus of Other M, in cutscenes, is not stoic. Even without Samus' costly, PTSD-induced inaction at vital moments of Other M, and her ridiculous and poorly explained adoration for Adam, Samus would be bearable if she would just shut the hell up.
So That's It! You're a Sexist Pig!
Maybe so, but that has nothing to do with my complaint here. In fact, when I heard people whining about Other M five years ago, I just figured they were angry because Samus was actually being portrayed as a woman. After all, she is...a woman. That's not it, though. It's that she over-narrates everything. A character might say, "This place is deserted," which Samus' internal monlogue will immediately follow with "he exclaimed, as he squinted his eyes." First off, I know he exclaimed it because I heard him say it. Second off, I know he squinted his eyes because the game showed the dude squinting his eyes. The narration is an insult to the player's intelligence. At this point in artistic history, "Show, don't tell" should go without saying, but the Samus of Other M tells everything.

There's Samus doing some Adam-pleading near the end of the game. In their first Other M encounter, Adam says something rather gruff to Samus, and the game then perfectly exemplifies what I'm complaining about here. "His words pierced my heart," Samus says. Not only is this sentence an abomination because it is being said by a character who is generally piercing monsters exoskeleton's with missile blasts--not having her feelings hurt--but also because a simple cutscene cut to a slightly pained expression on Samus' face after Adam makes the "heart-piercing" comment would have sufficed. It doesn't help that the narration is often woodenly read.
So what I'm saying here is that the actual problem with Other M is how the story is being told, not the story itself.
And actually, I feel like I've just gotten most of Other M's negatives out of the way. Let's get to the rest of the game.
Cool...So What's a Bottle Ship?
Glad you asked, because setting is actually one of Metroid: Other M's strongest assets. This is "the" Bottle Ship.
Turns out the Bottle Ship is a place where the Federation secretly attempted to transform a multitude of the galaxy's indigenous creatures into weapons of war. 
Because these various creatures hail from various environments, the Bottle Ship is divided into several different climate zones. This satisfies an old childhood fetish of mine: the Bottle Ship is a Biodome!
Fire?
Check.
Ice?

Check.
There's also a jungle area, as well as a mechanized, laboratory area.
While all of these environments are now standard fare for a Metroid game, the very fact that this is, indeed, a biodome ship, makes the settings cooler. One particularly awesome touch is that certain computer-generated touches in several particularly massive rooms can be turned off or on.
For instance, one stunning outdoor environment

can be revealed to be nothing more than this

Thankfully, you can always hit the switch and turn the metal walls into a beautiful blue skyline whenever you wish.
As you can see, these areas graphically push the Wii pretty hard, and while they don't quite match Metroid Prime 3's level of excellence, they're still top notch. The abundance of color is especially appreciated.
The beasts that populate the ship are, for the most part, equally stunning. I say most part because there are one or two goofy looking critters roaming around, but for the most part, Other M features a wonderfully grotesque rogues gallery.

This hideous thing above looked even uglier when it was still alive (SPOILER: IT'S NOT REALLY DEAD). 
Speaking of enemies, AI is really excellent. Combat in Other M can get pretty brutal: I haven't trashed talked computer-controlled creatures this much in quite a long time. 
In third-person action, the player simply points Samus in the direction they want to shoot, and presses the "1" button on the Wii remote to fire away. "2" is for jump, and that sums up the basics. Run, jump, and shoot. The game also tosses a few "melee" moves into the mix. Time a jump onto an enemy's back and fire a devastating blast into their body from close range. Knock an enemy to the ground and time a dash forward perfectly to shove your cannon right down their throat for a kill-shot. Get too close to one another and grapple for a body-slam. It's all very satisfying, and just typing this is raising my bloodlust, and reminding me of the harsh epithets I reserved for my mightiest foes, as I scattered their ashes among the eternally wafting dusts of the galaxy.

Hey buddy, what are you looking at over there?

Just wait til I hit the ground...
That Was the Best Trash Talking You Did?
Leave me alone! Who even let you in here, asking all these questions?!
Anyway, combat is a pleasure and
Wait, a Few Minutes Ago, the Picture You Posted of that Ugly Monster Was Totally Not From the Third-Person. Just What Are You Trying to Pull Here?
Well, that's the thing. To keep things interesting, the player can point the Wii Remote at the screen to enter a First-Person Perspective. From this view, the player can fire missiles (or Samus' normal cannon shots), or investigate the environment more closely. Some enemies, particularly bosses, require the player to enter the first-person mode. While the player can aim freely, they cannot move geographically in this mode (unless they are swinging on a grapple or riding a mine cart or something). Thankfully, the transitional moments between first and third person are generally very smooth. I never died because I felt the controls were cheating me. I died because I needed to get better at Metroid: Other M. 
However, Other M's first-person mode does harbor a major flaw. The view is also used in several non-combat situations. At certain points, the camera automatically goes into first-person, signifying that Samus must investigate a certain object to advance. Unfortunately, this portion of the game is a major drag. Often, the object in question is tiny. Imagine trying to find a cockroach in the picture below. That about sums it up. 

Not to be outdone, third-person mode contains a similarly frustrating feature, where the camera suddenly parks behind Samus, and Samus can suddenly only walk very slowly...presumably to build suspense (this usually occurs before major storyline moments).

Let's get back to the good stuff, though, by exploring another of Other M's strongest aspects: sound. The game features a mostly ambient soundtrack (composed by Kuniaki Haishima), with rousing orchestral fanfare during boss fights and action-oriented cutscenes. The ambient portions are quite atmospheric and effective, while the orchestral pieces, the first orchestra-scored moments in a Metroid game, get the blood pumping. My favorite musical moment comes early in the game, after an adrenaline-pumping boss fight, the soundtrack becoming a quiet yet determined electronic amalgamation of Ghost In the Shell-type contemplation, martial drums, subtle strings, and whale sounds, as Samus dives into a newly opened aquatic area. Also, the five-note "Samus Enters" theme, played when Samus emerges from a save point, is as rousing as ever in its new symphonic form (though I must admit, I am quite partial to the synthesized version from the "Prime" series).
Sound effects are excellent, with ambient sounds really thickening the atmosphere. Enemy grunts, weapons' blasts are all as boomingly explosive as they should be. The only real detriment to the sound department is the game's voice-work. Line-reading is hit or miss, with Jessica Martin sometimes flawlessly convincing as Samus, and sometimes sounding like she is disinterestedly reading the elements off the periodic chart. Of course, with the some of the awful dialogue Martin had to bring to life, no wonder she sounds a bit robotic and detached at times.
You Mentioned Save Points Just A Moment Ago. How Do Those Work?
It's funny you brought that up because here comes one right now.
Wow. Good timing. 
That's what I said every time I came across one in this game. They are the only way to re-fill your health-meter, outside of the ability to "concentrate" a little extra energy when you are near death (getting hit while "concentrating" cancels the process). Defeated enemies do not leave behind energy pickups. 
Do You Also Come Across Suit Upgrades, Like In Other Metroid Games?
Yes. Missile Capacity Expansions (you can only carry ten at the start) are ingeniously hidden throughout the ship, as well as expansions that increase the amount to which your health meter can fill (the usual Metroid "energy tanks"). As usual, Samus can roll up into her "morph ball" to get to hard to reach areas, at times to progress through the game, at other times just to look for natural Samus enhancements.

Alright, Cool. Well, I'm Kind of Getting Tired of Reading Your Dribble. You Want to Wrap This Up?
Sure, and I'll do so with a quick pros and cons comparison.
People slag this game for its cutscenes and story, and rightfully so. While the cutscenes actually look aesthetically incredible, they do indeed suck in their storytelling capabilities, mainly due to a lousy script and lousy line-readings. However, the cutscenes aren't the whole game. They're not even a quarter of it. They're maybe a tenth at most. But they are, indeed, terrible. The gameplay is actually old-school fun, though, with a simple control scheme (you only use the Wii Remote, and mostly only two buttons of it, at that), frenetic combat, and some sweet boss-fights (against often massive, visually impressive foes). The game's switch between first and third-person view is fairly innovative, and almost always seamless. 
People slag the fact that Samus is limited in which abilities she can use due to arbitrary commands by her superior, Adam. Every Metroid game features an arbitrary reason for Samus starting off weaker and gaining abilities as she progresses through her adventure. Sure, there are times where Adam waits a little longer than he should to say, authorize Samus' heat-resistant suit (I'd been catching fire for at least ten minutes), but from a storyline perspective, it does make sense that Samus wouldn't just unleash the fearsome destructive power of her power bombs and super missiles on an unfamiliar ship, until it has been deemed safe that she do so.
So flawed, yes. But also fun. Most of the time a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the time just isn't quite long enough. I beat Other M in about 12 hours, including its prologue, and even though I had only found 43% of Samus' total suit expansions, I felt little urge to get the other 57%. I had already proven my worth by besting all of Samus' foes. A couple additional hours backtracking for items I didn't really need did not sound appealing. I died approximately 25 times during that 12 hours, but never felt like it was because I wasn't powered up enough...it was generally because I just needed to play better. Players can also unlock bonus artwork with a higher completion rate, but I was happy enough with what I had unlocked with my 43%.
That said, I bought Other M from a clearance rack at Best But for $13.99. The game was certainly worth that. Ignoring the cutscenes, I feel like Metroid: Other M is 12 hours and $13.99 well spent.  At 4+ years since Other M's release, with no sign of a new Metroid game on the horizon, maybe it's time you picked it up and gave it a shot.
In your face.

9.1

Graphics

Large environments, full of color and weather effects, featuring huge, grotesquely-detailed bosses, and frenetic action against multitudes of foes with no slowdown.

9.0

Music and Sound

Atmospheric, enveloping ambient soundtrack, with huge symphonic cues, booming sound effects, and one of the crappiest voice-overs of the modern gaming age.

8.2

Gameplay

Make it past the awful cutscenes, and you'll experience a very fun third-person shooter, exploring a vast, supremely cool environment.

5.5

Lasting Value

Single-player mode ends after barely 12-hours, with no multi-player, and little incentive to return.

8.0  FINAL SCORE