Tonight's "beat" was Skyward Sword, finally, concluding a journey that began before last Christmas.
I have a whole lot to say about this game. More than I can think of at the moment so here are the things that stick out, narrowed primarily to tonight's experience:
What surprises me most about the ending, and for that matter the story about the entire game, was how
Entire story of Skyward Sword SPOILER: Show
it "explained" absolutely nothing -- the entire story was the narrative equivalent of "God(s) did it".
This was supposed to be the start of it all -- the beginning of the legend, telling the tale of how the Master Sword was formed, where the reincarnating pattern of Link and Zelda and Ganondorf came from, and all that good stuff, but it all instead fell back onto something akin to an infinite regression turtles-all-the-way-down theorem.
So Zelda is the reincarnation of the goddess Hylia. And? This basic story had already been told to us by previous games -- that Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf all continuously reincarnate (except sometimes for Ganondorf, who has appeared multiple times in the same incarnation to different Links and Zeldas) to fulfill their roles in a recurring play set forth long ago by the gods. What this game failed to provide was a compelling and interesting reason or story behind why it was set in motion (or even how, really). Instead all it did was say "it was set in motion here". It was not so much a behind-the-scenes of how the eternal play came to be as it was simply its first performance. The only further information it really provided was that Zelda is the reincarnation of Hylia while Ganondorf is the reincarnation of Demise while Link is ... an arbitrarily chosen human just as he seems to be in every game that takes place after this one. There's still no compelling reason as to what set Demise and Hylia against each other, not that there needs to be, but when you're billed as an explanation you can't fall back on "it's just so".
I think the best example illustrating my point is the "story" of how the Master Sword came to be, which was what I went into Skyward Sword believing it to be primarily about. There's no story there at all other than "Sword that Link found in the shrine + 3 sacred flames = poof! Master Sword". Okay, so now where did the Skyward Sword come from? Yeah yeah yeah it's a sword created by the goddess to blah blah blah, that's exactly what every game before said about the Master Sword. All it did was set it back one further step. Now just repeat the same for Zelda and Ganondorf.
To be clear, it's perfectly fine for all this to be the case... but when it's what the game's story is supposed to be about, it's a cheap cop-out not to have "the reason behind" be a more compelling and complex tale.
To give you a perfect example of how it could have been done, look at Castlevania: Lament of Innocence. Yeah yeah, 3D Castlevania and all that, but it tells an actual story which both stands apart from and yet also explains the origin of the feud between the Belmonts and Dracula, and it does so in a surprising way with genuinely interesting twists and what I felt was some (not much, but some) compelling drama. It did not simply treat its subject matter as being just as elemental as every game taking place thereafter did. That is how you do a long-awaited origin story right. ...At least on paper.
The positive:
SPOILER: Show
That said, the very best of the story is in what it does that stands alone from its context within the barely-existing greater Zelda narrative.
* Groose's development was surprising and genuinely charming.
* I liked that "grannie" turned out to be Impa; even though I saw it coming a mile away, I still felt that it was a good twist. Not every twist has to be unpredictable to be good. (In fact, right after I figured it out, which was right after Zelda consigned herself to crystal slumber, I wrote a short lemon to myself about it, where after that scene, Link gets "comforted" by Impa just outside Zelda's room of repose then returns to his own time, notices "grannie" chuckling to herself, then figures out that he just fucked the younger version of her and feels kinda weird.)
* The way The Imprisoned was built up was tremendously awesome. He started out as a kind of malignant elemental force who seemed at once ancillary to the story yet also pregnant with great, ominous meaning. For him to turn out to be the very purpose of the seeming main bad guy Ghirahim's existence and therefore actually the whole point of the whole damn story came as a genuine and interesting shock. Also, the frequency with which you had to keep beating him back down only served to make him feel like more of a genuine threat rather than a chore. He evoked an excellent sense of dread, like some sort of sleeping cthonic horror you never want to see fully awakened.
* Demise had one wicked cool design, and his clear resemblance to Ganondorf only made it cooler. Kind of a pity how simple his boss fight was. Difficult, but simple, a mere two stages long. His turning out to be the proto-Ganondorf also gave him a sense of history that prevented a "so wait why do I care that he's the final boss?" situation.
* Skyloft is by far the most personable town in Zelda history. What the game lacks in quantity is made up for in quality as far as on-the-side character interactions go. You start to feel like you really know these people, or at least as much as you can in a game that's not really about its characters.
* Lastly, the downer that I was expecting to come in the ending did not occur, and in fact the exact opposite may have happened. Some site or review I read made it seem like the ending would be a disappointment because of how it doesn't lead up to what the beginning gets you to expect regarding Link and Zelda's relationship. However, it's still entirely possible that they did in fact wind up together. The future is an open book for the two of them after that; I suppose the reviewer simply wanted a firm answer as to whether or not they do become an item. Maybe I'm happy with how it turned out simply because I had been misled to expect a complete downer.
, but they also have deep valleys, such as the Kid and nightmares. I also feel like the side missions, even the N7 missions, were just, in general, much worse than ME2. Which is sad, because I felt that was one of the few things ME2 did good. Bioware just...they can't make an all around great game lately. I don't know why, but it seems like they're last few games have really good strengths, but the weaknesses are just as weak.
