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I really want to finish it first, so think I'll treat myself to Zelda for Christmas.

Enjoying it so far? User feedback seems pretty positive to date...?

Bump this thread a few days after Christmas.

It smells nice too

Much better character development than usual, feels very cinematic and the music is beautiful. I like the art style although for some reason the game looks awful on my tv compared to most wii games (mario galaxy etc looks stunning on it). Am finding using the sword quite difficult, every time I move to swing from the direction that's not being blocked the bad guy always manages to block in time. Have just reached the first temple so hopefully I'll get better soon!

as my gaming time's down to about an hour a week these days. Looking forward to getting stuck into Skyward Sword once I do.

Just entered the desert region. Loving the art style, the nods to previous games and the motionplus controls. That beetle item is pretty damn indispensable for collecting the hearts which seem to be much rarer this time around. Also I've died lots of times, so the difficulty has definitely risen greatly.

Plus, Nintendo games never get cheaper do they?

Still trying to find DKC for under £35 after a year...

Pretty slow start, I wanted action but think I'm through that now as that glowing blue fuck is beckoning me on.

Controls feel great but as said above, the general picture quality is really ropey,

I get intermittently stuck on certain puzzles or problems for up to around an hour at a time.

I'm at the bit where you have to remember the symbol in faron woods.

It's grown on me though. I've got used to the controls finally and have started to think on Zelda terms.

And the theme tune's been stuck in my head for a couple of days. Some woman caught me humming it to myself...bit awkward...

the first two and half hours felt like a quasi-interactive movie, and a pretty boring one at that. After another couple of hours, I'm getting more into it. Even so, there's a lot of interruptions from the fairy substitute.

Feels like it's gonna be a long game. I've been playing for more than four hours and haven't entered a proper temple yet, and really only just got my first proper (non-sword) weapon. Going by past Zeldas that means I can look forward to at least another 30 hours just to do the main adventure.

Bit annoyed by the item menu system, though. I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to equip my sword and eventually had to resort to google. You think it'd be covered in the game manual, given that it's not exactly what you'd call intuitive.

After stupidly asking for it for christmas instead of just, ya know, buying it when it came out ages ago.

4 hours in, about to start the Forest Temple. Probably could have gotten further in the time but I tend to be quite inquisitive when I start a zelda so that I don't miss anything.

Overall, I like it. there's certainly more to do in the run up to the temple that you'd normally expect.Also, Faron woods feels more like a real area, rather than just a bit of land with bits dropped in it. It's more 3d in design.

The new motion controls work well generally. The swordplay seems pretty accurate. I can see it being good fun for more difficult enemies. Still getting use to button layout at the moment, it's not second nature, yet.

Annoyingly though my Wii seems to have developed a fault. Little graphical glitches everywhere that seems to be down to a buggered GPU apparently, which will mean me sending off my Wii for a few weeks. I might wait until I finish the game, it's not that bad, but it's definitely annoying.

Sadly Xenoblade is STILL keeping me busy. I'm tempted to stop playing it and tackle Zelda, but I'm 65 hours in now and just know I'd never come back to it.

Must. Soldier. On...

Never seen a Nintendo game divide people as much as SS is though. Forums are full of utter adoration and evil hatred of the story, controls, length etc. I didn't love or hate TPrincess, so I suspect I'll just find it perfectly fine.

It's improved immensely after a slow start. The controls have really clicked as well now and it'd be hard to return to an old Zelda game without a sprint mode, more nuanced combat or Beetle to operate.

Just got up to the 3 trials and found the Mine temple to be brilliantly stumping at times. Even died a fair few times, but that was more out of stupidity or a refusal to return to Skyloft out of laziness.

The characters are starting to come into their own a bit and some of Link's portrayal has been great. Whilst the world does seem a bit spare at times, I'm enjoying how the environments have areas that I can further explore each time I get a new toy. And some of the toys are really refreshing. The music when you play the harp is properly beautiful too.

Still a few gripes mind, but they're more with Zelda titles in general. What you have to do next is WAY too signposted. The camera sucks at times and should be movable by the player. You FUCKING STILL have to exit a Temple to return to base. The story is still very much 'rescue girl from a baddie'.

Not really a Zelda pro (only played / completed TOoTime and TPrincess before) but so far... yeah, pretty good.

The artwork in this game is lovely and seeing it rendered using that Dolphin Emulator has made me wonder:

1) Wouldn't it be good if Nintendo incorporated this upscaling feature in the Wii U (they won't).

2) Wouldn't it be great if they rereleased this title as a launch HD game for the Wii U (they won't, until it's been out for 5 years).

I was thoroughly enjoying it (though not so keen on the bug collecting), but — not really SPOILER, but maybe if you absolutely don't want to know anything then stop reading now — the final boss looks to be all sword play. This means standing around and fucking swishing your arms and generally doing a lot of exercise, WHICH IS NOT WHAT I WANT TO BE DOING WHEN I'M PLAYING VIDEO GAMES! Plus the motion detection is either under-sensitive or over-sensitive, meaning that plenty of your sword strokes don't come out as intended.

I keep meaning to finally finish it off now that I'm entering cooler weather and playing it won't leave me sweating like a motherfucker (hopefully).

I'm in the final silent realm, volcano zone. I've had one crack at it and it seemed depressingly difficult. Please reassure me that it isn't.

I think the 1up review of 'B' was the best write up I read. Feel a fee reviews like Eurogamer and Edge were too generous but that deep down it's a really interesting game.

Some things will forever improve 3D Zelda games (sword play, first person view, sprinting, decent story) but there were still so many things wrong with it that a game in 2012 should address, like repetitious inventory pop ups when you collect things after a save game, having to do everything thrice (The Imprisoned. Three times. REALLY?!?), the Silent Realms and stealth sections being a bit crap, having to exit dungeons to return to base etc.

A few genius puzzles though, some inventive gadgets, occasionally great art direction, lovely music and a genuinely lovely end sequence which in gaming is fucking rare.

I like returning to the lands and seeing them in a new way each time. Equally I missed some of that feeling TPrincess had of a huge world just ripe for exploring. A combo of the two wouldd be great.

I died a lot too, mainly as I rarely carried potions about, but there was some tricky bosses and enemies ion the game. Only realised on the last boss those big red dudes with spears and swords can be killed by running up the spear when embedded in the ground. Like the multiple ways of tackling them (also bombed them to death, ran around the back and killed them with arrows when miles away).

All in all it was good to see the formula move on. I think it's a thankless task really. Some people live for the repetition in the titles and want the same thing everytime. Some get frustrated by the series inability to truly change the formula too much.

Overall I'd say it was a very good game. A great one? Not so sure. The side quests all basically being dull fetch quests with no opening of new areas or secrets really seemed to harm the game for me. Thankfully a great main story carried it. Think some of what it put in place though bodes well for the series going forward.

http://www.1up.com/features/five-ways-skyward-sword-went-wrong

Tend to agree with much of that, though the central characters were good I felt, just a bit let down by the supporting ones.