Hidden Skill: Shield Attack

[Raven]

Well I'm playing TP again (along with a bunch of other zelda's) and this time I'm really taking into account the minor details of the game play simply because each time i replay a zelda i have to beat it better or differently.

anyway each time around i like to watch the Heroes Shade and gather new insight about him, this is difficult because all we have to go on is his text and actions. also the cloudy hyrule he brings you to could be a clue.

But this really struck me as odd, the shield attack is used for a few things like deflecting projectiles (though i never do that much) and bumping a tough enemy's guard down. it is the second hidden skill and later sets up the helm splitter attack but i think it was underused for the beginning of the game i mean it helps with the gorons i guess. you can slash them or shield attack them before the goron mines. i

my point is yea it deflects arrows (sorta) but in the second hidden skill training the Heroes Shade uses fireballs or an orange energy which he throws off his sword at link. This is very epic in my opinion.

but what does that mean about the Heroes Shade? where did he learn an attack like that?
why doesn't he teach you the fireball move? that would be cool. i thought he was supposed to teach you ALL the moves of a true hero if he can do it why not link? sort of ranting but you guys get the point.

lastly the fireball deflection was fun, they could have implemented it much more in the game. For say mini bosses ex. phantom ganon or wizerobe, not that we want to see wizrobe again hahah.

what do you guys think? should they have made more use of the deflection system? think about it. combining a shield attack that deflects something that would either damage or stun your opponent combine with one of the other awesome attacks you learn would look sweet.

haha hope you guys can understand my zeldaness. thx. :triforce:

 

[Mases]

I do agree that the shield attack was way underutilized. I actually thought it was awkward a bit to use... with the wii mote. Found myself doing a spin attack sometimes when I was just trying to do the shield attack. I'm not sure how it was on the gamecube, but I'm certain it was easier to perform the shield attack with the controller than with the wiimote/nunchuck.

The fireball idea is something that looked good. In general you rarely ever had to deflect attacks. I think that would have been cool. It would have also been cool to be able to learn such an attack. The whole lack of magic is something that bothered me in TP... but that's a topic of its own.

It seemed that once you learned the helm splitter... the only purpose of the shield attack was... to setup for the helm splitter. Two hidden skills that really just acted as one.

Another opportunity that could have been done a bit better.

 

[Raven]

gamecube version is L to hold your shield then R to shield attack.

 

[Master Kokiri 9]

Yeah they should've utilized the shield attack by itself more. And it definatly would be cool to use the fireball move the hero's shade used.

 

[Raven]

The Heroes Shade could have taught you the shield attack along with the helmsplitter for a single hidden skill, it wouldn't have bothered me to have learned both button combos in one training session. Plus this would have left one more hidden skill to learn.

The training for the shield attack is fun but once you get back to hyrule and start bumping your shield around to see what it looks like... well lets just say that link is a little upset.

 

[Nepolink]

I do agree that the shield attack was way underutilized. I actually thought it was awkward a bit to use... with the wii mote. Found myself doing a spin attack sometimes when I was just trying to do the shield attack. I'm not sure how it was on the gamecube, but I'm certain it was easier to perform the shield attack with the controller than with the wiimote/nunchuck.

I know the feeling, i totally agree with that. I used to play the Twilight Princess on the Wii too, and i got many troubles using the nunchuck to reflect te fireball. I was always using the Spin Attack and it was really annoying, so sneaky i didn't hope that reflecting things would return in the rest of the game. But it was just not needed to learn this skill, like Raven said, it was handy for the Gorons on the Death Mountain, we only missed the whole ''reflecting'' part with the Shield Attacks. Twilight Princess is more like a unfinished game in some ways, looking back on the 3 unique items.

I totally agree with you too Raven, We learned all the hidden skills from the ''true'' hero but they were just hardly used in the game, a real disappointment for Twilight Princess again. I would like to see some reflection challenges return like (Phantom)Ganon from OoT or WW. If the Shield Attack was a easier to use on the Wii it would be pretty awesome, the spin attack is really annoying when you want to use this skill.
Same for the other hidden skills, they were just hardly used, alright some skills are handy for the Dark Nuts, or how they'r called in Twilight Princess. But they are not neccesery for a normal enemy or even a mini-boss or boss.

The Fire Ball skill would be pretty cool to. Something like Fierce Deity Link does from majora's Mask. it would be a really original idea if this skill was used for Link, magic was just hardly to find in TP too. It was only not needed in Twilight Princess. Remember if you have something,you have to use it just once or one place, for items and also for the hidden skills now we'r talking about it. I have to say i used the ''Ending Blow'' the most of time, but this was one of the handy hidden skills, nice to stab your enemy while it's laying on the ground, also the most epic attack.

The game just needed ways more thing, more things with a specific move or items.

 

[basement24]

I found that I used it a fair bit, so I wasn't disappointed by it. I would just throw it into a series of attacks to stun enemies for fun. I think it was mainly because I enjoyed making the motion with the nunchuck I suppose.

In the Zelda battle at the end, was it possible to use the shield attack to reflect the energy back at her? Did anyone even try it? I actually forgot that we were taught to use the shield attack to deal with this kind of attack from an enemy, and used the sword to reflect them back as it was in previous games.

As for the Hero's fireball attack, it was very similar to Zelda's attack at the end. Seems somewhat odd. At the time he did it thoug, I was reminded of the fire spell in AoL. Although if it was really the OoT Link, and since the attack's similar to that of Ganondorf's magic, then maybe he picked up the technique somewhere after OoT in seeing Ganondorf perform it? I suppose that's a thought for another thread though...

 

[Dungeon killer]

I love using the hidden skills on Tp, espacially the mortal draw, whenever a bublin runs over to me I just draw and instant death! Man I love that move I hope they have hidden skills in the new zelda wii. They made Tp a cool expierence to me!o.o:nerd:

 

[Raven]

ok so i just beat the game again... yeah it was classic, but when i got to the fight with Zelda this time i made a point to shield attack that ball!!! the result was disappointing to say the least. While the shield does reflect the ball of energy Zelda throws at you it flies back but with no accuracy at all.. the only way to hit the ball back is with your sword as Midna mentions near the start of the fight. this suggestion by Midna probably leads most players to never try the shield attack but i think that the game would have been even greater if the only way you could deflect her power was off the hylian shields shield attack.

this time playing i really concentrated on the overall game play, and have come to the conclusion that TP could have been better but not that much better. there isen't to much i would change but i would change those things in the blink of an eye having just beat the game again and one of those things is the shield attack. it wasn't fully utilized as a legit attack/hidden skill. i mean anyone can throw their shield forward and at least give us something we can use the attack against BESIDES setting up for the helm splitter. I rest my case.

 

[Onilink89]

For deflecting projectiles, it wasn 't really neccecary to use, but still its cool that they put it in the game anyway. But then again there was no mirror shield in the game.

I see the shield attack as only for stunning enemies as the main purpose.
In fact its quite usefull. Its true that you must do a shield attack to do a helmsplitter, but there is another sword skill that come in handy. The mortal draw... Z target and stun it with a shield attack, release z target and then mortal draw. Its a pretty usefull and powerfull combination, and i used it alot.

 

[DeletedUser9]

I think the Hero's Shade using the magic bolt was really just an excuse to have you train reflecting projectiles with your Shield Attack. I wouldn't consider it very significant... although it's possible that he only gained that ability as a ghost, or it could even be nothing but an illusion, and he only has that trait in order to train you, or it could come from an item he possesses (Master Sword?); he might not be able to teach it to you.

Anyway, yeah, I agree with you. It was a nice feature of the skill, and they should have done more with it.

There were a lot of aspects of Twilight Princess (and Wind Waker too, actually) that were introduced early but hardly ever used in the game. I didn't like this very much and I'd like them to continue to use aspects of the gameplay throughout the game, instead of just in one brief part.