Ten reasons why Skyward Sword is better than Ocarina of Time

Stephanie Carmichael: I'm in a unique position. I've never played Ocarina of Time until now. You might say that disqualifies me from passing judgment on whether it or Skyward Sword is the better 3D Zelda game, but I disagree. Since nostalgia isn't a factor, I can compare the games without any previous bias. Plus, I can assess the situation a little more clearly, so it's without reservation that I say Skyward Sword surpasses Ocarina of Time in almost every way.

[blaaah]

Don't know about that.. but its certainly up their with OoT

[crxss]

SS is better. this coming from a guy who owns 5 copies of OoT on 3 platforms.

[linkzelda23]

Part 1
I posted this on Reddit, and I've been posting it in every place I give my opinion of the game.

I will try to make this as brief as possible, though I will try to vent everything in my mind about the game. I've played the game twice and have a lot to say about it. First of all, I would like to say a big NO to the anyone saying this is the best Zelda game ever made. In fact, this game is quite far from it. Here's why:
POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD!
Fi I know Navi is considered very annoying, but this character has taken the cake. The aid character is present among some Zelda games. Navi in Oot, Tatl in Majora's Mask, Midna in TP and so on. This characters help Link through the game guiding him through his quests. The thing is, there is a thing called balance. Fi is over you every single moment stating things that are quite obvious to you. Like for example, you pick up the boss key (puzzle piece) and you're in the 2nd temple so you know what the piece is for, but suddenly Fi obnoxiously tells you something like: "Master, there is a 95% chance that the piece you found in the chest will open the big door blah, blah..." This and other very often remarks make her at some point replaying the game, (replaying because maybe at first it's not so annoying because you are experimenting it for the first time) truly insufferable. If you ask which is my favorite aid in the whole series, it would be Midna. Midna is perfect, because she is not perfect. Midna's personality and help through TP makes you have some sort of emotional attachment to her. The same with the famously annoying Navi, which I also love. This two didn't make the game so obvious when solving puzzles or other stuff. There is a difference between: "Hey listen! Watch out for the monsters hanging from the ceiling!" to "There is a 95% chance I am the spirit living within the master sword." Ok, maybe is not so extreme but come on!
9 way combat system:
The one thing SS received much praised for was it's combat system. Ok, so it tries (and I use that word carefully) to be innovative and it tries to be 1 on 1 with wii motion plus, the thing is that it's really at a very deep level not designed to work very free. The enemies are designed to match the movements,(which are slightly precise and slightly 1 on 1) which are: up and down slashes, left and right slashes, stabs, and finally diagonal slashes. sort of like a *. It's not engaging when it is obvious where to attack an enemy. It's not engaging when you design the game so structured to begin with. It doesn't allow you to attack, and it doesn't allow you to study the enemies really well, because hey, they can't make the game too hard because it's for everyone. I call bullshit on this and here's why: Oot, Majora's Mask, Windwaker, A Link to The Past, and other past Zelda games are way harder than this game. The aids, which I discussed in the first point, didn't help too much or you didn't even had one. The combat was free, but it was made to be intense, not give you like 5 seconds to see which way to slash your sword. You can say: "They were harder because we were little." This is not true at all, because I've seen people Who've never played before and they can say this too. What is wrong with making the game more challenging? Donkey Kong Country Returns was very challenging as a platformer and as game in general, and nobody complained about it being too hard. People need to realize that this is the point of Zelda games, those challening puzzles and enemies that crack you head open and force you to think.

[linkzelda23]

Part Part 2
Forced Motion Plus:
The Wii as a console started dying a while ago. Nintendo tried reliving it with motion plus, but it wasn't working. To justify its use in SS, they really tried putting it in everything they could find. flying and fighting is fairly nice, but swimming, balancing and other stuff is really not. Swimming specially doesn't provide you enough control precision to have a good time, and this is not part of the challenge of the game, it's simply annoying.
Too much empty space:
The Windwaker had a vast world to explore, and in almost every corner of the map you could find something to discover. The same with a Link to The Past. TP and SS suffer the same fate. The worlds in both games offer a lot of free space, with nothing to do. Let's get going shall we, I'm getting a little tired of writing this and I'm college.
Hype:
One thing Nintendo fans boast is that they are not CoD Brostastic Edition fans. They boast about their company and their fans not being douche bags and are proud of this. The thing is, you can find douchey people anywhere. Douchey people that pride themselves on not being douchey, and being douchey is not just about Ed Hardy shirts. Ok, I went a little off topic here but back on track again, Nintendo overhyped this game way too much. Even more than Bethesda with Skyrim, Modern Warfare 3 even too. Nintend promised 70 - 100 hours of gameplay, I ended the game in 40 something, which is slightly longer than TP. Nintendo said the game would be even better than Ocarina, which is recognized by a LOT of people as arguably the best video game in history. This is where the douchey attitude thing comes in. If Nintendo launches shit, people buy it, because it's Nintendo's shit and no one complains. A really good example of this would be, The 3D remake of Ocarina of Time.I'm not saying the game is shit,in fact, this is my favorite Zelda game, but the release was shit. The game costs $40. okay... The game only adds three "new" things: 1. New graphics which in my opinion are pretty nice actually, but not enough to make it worth it. 2. Boss mode, which is still not enough to make the price rise so much. 3. 3D effect which is still not enough.
Another thing to add, is adult Link's running. It's really weird looking. The game features the original game and Master Quest, but it's still not enough. This games were released as a free gift for preorders of The WindWaker! Now compare this release against Halo: CE anniversary's release. Same price and offers much more:
1.New Maps. 2. New engine switchable to compare graphics 3. Terminals which give a grasp about upcoming Halo games. 4. Kinect implementation (although some people don't like it, it still counts as a feature.)
Now compare reviews for both, and compare the reception of both. Oot 3D recieved 9.5 from IGN and other reviewers, while Halo received 8.5 in IGN and other similar scores with other websites. The reception was very positive towards Oot while Halo's was not so much. People have even complained that Halo CEA is expensive and should even be a download title in XBL and cost at most $20. No one says that about Ocarina though. Nintendo releases shit and people buy it.

[linkzelda23]

Part 3
Annoying Quests:
This will be fast. To anyone who has played the game, Faron Woods flood quest, that is all.
Ending:
I remember when I first played the windwaker. I remember the art style, which some of my friends even said was childish. I remember it's ending. EPIC. adult like EPIC. the game's ending is one of my favorite video game endings of all time. Compare that to the SS ending. bland and weak. When you defeat Demise, it ends and it's like, ok, you win, bye, but remember, I'll be back in Ganondorf. There's no final battle after a final battle, or an epic cutscene perhaps. Just a stab in the floor.
Often Recalibration
I think this one is pretty self-explained.
Temples
I will say this with a very careful tone. The temples were cool, but with the exception of the last one, which was pretty awesome actually, the others were more of the same, and yes, even the pirate ship.
The Songs
The soundtrack is awesome, but the songs learned in the harp, and the way you play the harp is weird and not engaging. Also, the songs learned for the harp, you cannot even play them, you just play randomly, and these songs are not so catchy like the ones in other Zelda games like the windwaker of Oot. It's like the just threw random notes and decided on putting them on the game.
Illusion of decision
In games like Mass Effect, your decisions literally change, maybe not the whole course of the game, or even the main course for that matter, but they affect your relations with people. In SS sometimes you have "decisions" to make about what to say, but it really doesn't change much at all and it's quite useless in my opinion.
No other gameplay options:
Briefly I will say, not every Zelda fan wants to waggle around, and that is bad.
Hero Mode
You have to erase you file to start it! What the hell Nintendo?! I explored and collected everything in the game and now you expect me to erase my file in order to start another "harder" game, which only adds that you take double damage?
THE END
I really give this game a 8.5 - 9 and battle my heart and mind through to decide on which score to give. If you enjoy it, no problem with that. I enjoyed actually, just because it's just pretty epic in my opinion, but it's not the best zelda ever and it does not deserve a game of the year in my opinion. Portal 2, Minecraft, Skyrim or underrated games like Deus EX HR deserve this spot more.
If you ask, my favorite Zeldas of all time are in order:
Ocarina of Time
A Link to The Past
The Wind Waker
Link's Awakening
Majora's Mask
EDIT: I don't know why the numbers all seem to be 1 on each point. sorry for that.

[blaaah]

tl;dr

[TheSanchezDavid]

I still have to play through the rest of the game to make my final decision. So far, though, it is absolutely amazing.

[Titanz]

No doubt about it.

[Lord_Sloth]

Still don't have Wii Motion + so I can't comment.

I will say that Majora's Mask improved upon what OoT gave us.

[limewax]

Either way it is always opinion. I preferred MM over OoT. But if I had to pick a favourite it will always be wind waker. The most important factor to me is that none have ever really been a let down, even when it was one of my less favoured entries in the series

[Trenta27]

Is it just me or are the "Top ten reasons" articles getting really old?

[wita]

They are. But numbers prove that people still love reading them.

[clrlite]

oot is breathtaking, but isn't even the best game on N64 in my opinion, or my favorite zelda. I played oot after FF7, which made the story, characters, longevity, etc. feel a bit lacking.
I can't wait to play this new Zelda though and see what all the fuss is about.
...and having said that, I can't wait to replay OOT on the 3DS, especially since I heard it has the more difficult master quest to play through.

Edit:
(as far as n64 games go) Mario 64 blew my mind more than OOT and I think "a link to the past" might be my favorite Zelda, although we are talking about 3D zeldas. I haven't played Wind Waker yet so I'm psyched to get to play through it for the first time.

[bozebo]

I played MM before OOT and thought MM was better for ages, then I eventually came around to decide OOT is the best. I did the same thing with ff8 and ff7.

I've yet to play Skyward Sword, looking forward to it. But I'd rather use a pad because it isn't really about the combat for me I just want to take in the narrative/puzzles/environment etc.

[Megaman_nerd]

Every game after Ocarina of Time has been better but none of them have been able to do what it did in its time. Period.

The same is happening with the Uncharted and COD:MW franchises. Uncharted 2 and MW for its time did stuff that it's gonna be hard to top with slightly improved sequels and Zelda SS is on the same boat. Even if Nintendo fanboys want to accept it or not the fact is that Zelda SS was built on the same old formula that was made for Zelda Oot.

[dragon_rocks]

I don't even have to get to OoT which is far superior so I will just give reasons why TP itself is better than SS:

1. TP has better dungeons. Both in numbers and variety. Each dungeon has a different theme to it and not like SS where you pretty much revisit the same area with expanded region.

2. TP's items though not as much used outside dungeon are better than SS items in functionality and usefulness in battle. Boomerang, Clawshots, Ball and Chain all these could be used in battle if player liked and actually did damage to enemies. Both Boomerang and Clawshot could fetch things. Clawshots was much more functional like ability to extend when hanging etc. The Bow was much better in TP as it could be combined with bombs, equipped with sniper view etc. Remaining less used items like Spinner, Dominion Rod were used to reach unreachable places to fetch heart pieces or Ghosts. In SS only Beetle is the one item which stands out but rest are just there but nothing special about them.

3. Epona had actual purpose in story events including the final boss fight whereas Loftwing was just transportation medium with one forced boss fight just to be counted as a boss fight on flight.

4. Midna is by far the best forced companion in any Zelda game with key involvement in the plot and whom you could get attached to by the end of the game unlike Fi who gets more and more irritating as game progresses.

5. TP does not force filler stuff on you like SS does. You never had to revisit same dungeon to fetch water, collect tadtones, escort robot, stealth mode to collect back items, fly all the way across the sky to a temple which has nothing but just to learn few songs every now and then etc. TP's twilight realm had a key connection to the plot and story whereas SS spirit realm seemed like was just put in to extend length of the game by making the players run through already visited/completed areas in a speedrun of find and collect gameplay with no combat involved to award Link with key items which could have been done in a better way by adding more areas/dungeons etc.

[dragon_rocks]

6. Enemy variety is much better in TP.

7. Even though SS has a better combat engine utilizing Motion+ in the best way, TP's combat moves are much cooler as Link learns new moves from the Ancient Hero and must use them against advanced enemies later on. In SS you never feel that Link is improving as he has the same move set from start to end with just his sword getting upgraded.

8. TP's world is much bigger and has small small thing to do in between. The open land may seem like an empty space but has hidden mini/micro dungeons, areas reachable with specific items which may contain heart pieces or ghosts, underground dig up areas for the wolf, small puzzle sections etc. In SS the sky is just empty with small floating lands which have nothing to do except collect Goddess cube chests.

9. Travel in TP was much better. It gave you a choice of how you wanted to travel cross region. You could go on foot beating everything in between, take Epona and whack enemies as you go, just breeze through on Epona without fighting and later on just warp to places. In SS for every travel between regions you have to find a statue, fly up, fly to the target region's location and then drop down.

10. TP's Semi final and final boss fight were both much better made involving key items and elements from the game. For Zant player had to use pretty much all items found in dungeons and for final boss players had to use the Wolf form, Epona combat and finally one on one sword fight. But in SS all you needed was your sword and it was straight forward. The final boss fight was so poorly designed that people can beat it in 28 seconds:

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

The shield parry pretty much decimates everything in the game.