Six-Heart Start/Battle Difficulty: My Personal Opinion

[Heros Temporis]

So, as a person who values tradition, I have to admit that I was ever so slightly irked by Nintendo's decision to give Skyward Sword a six-heart start instead of the traditional three, but after beating the game and thinking about it, I absolutely agree with it. I thought it was simply an effort to continue the unfortunate trend of making games easier and easier throughout the years. One may not realize while playing, but that six-heart start actually serves a purpose: To, in the end, make the game harder. And, for Zelda, an increase of difficulty is something I absolutely approve of.

One of the interesting things about Skyward Sword is that even the smallest, most basic enemies, such as Keese and Deku Babas, do a single heart of damage. The half and quarter heart damage counts are nearly nonexistent, with only the smallest enemies doing half, and only environmental damage (in example, water lillies) doing a quarter heart. There is a reason for this, but I'll get to that in a minute.

At the start of the game, having even the most basic enemies doing a heart of damage while only having three hearts; well, it could be rough. Three mistakes, and you're dead. This, combined with only one's starting gear, could potentially make the game a bit frustrating. Therefore, Nintendo gave you six hearts at the beginning to deal with. Now, fast forward the game. You have the True Master Sword, 15+ hearts, and all that great stuff. Yet even the most basic enemies still do a heart of damage to you, with more significant enemies doing two hearts of damage. Now, how I play Zelda, I love getting hearts. I get as many hearts as I can on all runs of the game. For me, this is great.

The end result is to make the game more difficult in the long run, while still making it manageable in the beginning. This is a good thing. In previous Zelda games, you could have 15+ hearts and make tons of mistakes with life to spare. Not so in Skyward Sword. However, I think that Nintendo should expand upon this a little bit in future games. It seems to me that too many of the "significant" enemies still do a heart of damage like most enemies. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe most bosses and minibosses still did only one heart of damage. I think most of the bosses should have done 2-3 hearts of damage, with the minibosses (depending on how far into the game the player is) should have done 1-2 hearts of damage. It's not until the final boss do we have a boss who does two hearts of damage. If they were to bring back three or four heart damage bosses, I'd be ecstatic. Remember Volvagia in Ocarina of Time? That's possibly my favorite regular boss in the game, and it's amazing because of the great contrast between regular enemies and this boss, who does four hearts of damage. It makes the boss feel more like a boss, and gives you, the player, the feeling of dealing with something big. You don't need to emphasize with Link, because the feeling happens to you.

This doesn't match up with the fact that Octoroks do a full heart if you mess up with your shield. With the bosses doing the same amount of damage as regular enemies, it makes them, as bosses, feel less intimidating and boss-like. This, combined with the fact that all weapon-wielding, Link-sized (or close to it) enemies (which make up a fair portion of the game's minibosses, and some of the bosses) can be shield bashed, well... it makes the minibosses and bosses, like I've already said, less intimidating.

Ultimately, I think Nintendo should have stepped up the bosses as well if they're going to step up the regular enemies.
Thoughts?

 

[Batman]

I completely agree with you.

 

[A Link In Time]

While reading this thread, I found myself nodding in agreement. Skyward Sword was in my opinion, the hardest Zelda game in terms of pure combat. Never before, had such full exertion of the mind and body been required to achieve the end of defeating an enemy. During the start of my initial playthrough of the game, I found myself struggling near the beginning. Compounded with the new precise motion controls aided by the Motion Plus attachment and the increased damage incurred by enemies, I found myself on the brink of death many times which was highly unusual for a seasoned franchise veteran such as myself.

For all the positives, however, there was also a small pitfall in Skyward Sword's difficulty. The difficulty slope of the game rose too quickly where by the second half, few new "significant" enemies were being introduced. Don't get me wrong, my heart skipped a beat to see a Stalfos appear as the miniboss in the first, I repeat the first, dungeon of the Zelda game, however, not much additional challenge was added following the confrontation with the Stalfos Warrior in the Ancient Cistern save a few examples such as Scervo and the Bokoblin Horde. As for the bosses, I think Nintendo wisely chose to reduce their scale and focus on increasing their difficulty. While I do agree that a higher damage ratio would have been appreciated, the fact that most of these colossal behemoths did not fall victim to the traditional hack and slash-stun pattern was a huge step forward for the franchise.

 

[MW7]

The only qualm I had with the six-heart start is that it effectively reduced the potential amount of heart pieces. The game designers put truckloads of collectibles in the game, but I prefer heart pieces which are useful as opposed to the treasures found in Skyward Sword. Maybe it's just me but heart pieces could actually be justification for real challenges in the game. The treasures were just kind of randomly placed in slightly out of the way areas (which is often true for heart pieces as well I admit). I want lots of heart pieces because they are worth the trouble of going significant extra distance like the block puzzle cave or lantern caverns of Twilight Princess. This is one thing I highly preferred about Twilight Princess over Skyward Sword. Twilight Princess had 45 heart pieces and several required some serious work to get. Skyward Sword really minimized heart piece collection and it's always one of my favorite components of Zelda games.

I do highly agree about how great it was that Skyward Sword increased the damage of basic enemies as opposed to other Zelda games. I don't actually know whether or not minibosses or bosses did more damage or the same but I think what you say makes sense. Even though the bosses may have not done quite as much damage as you have liked, I still feel like they were slightly more challenging than in most Zelda games because they weren't absurdly predictable like in past Zelda games. Mostly I'm talking about bosses like Ghirahim and Moldarach and several of the minibosses. Boss quality felt like the best it has ever been for the 3d games other than Majora's Mask IMO.

Skyward Sword was in my opinion, the hardest Zelda game in terms of pure combat.

If you throw out Adventure of Link, then I agree with you. Adventure of Link is still an 11 on a 10 point scale even in comparison to Skyward Sword IMO. Adventure of Link has stumped many gamers mainly due to the difficulty of its combat, and I've yet to come across anyone unable to finish Skyward Sword.

 

[Ventus]

The six hearts vs three hearts thing, I think three hearts wins. It isn't increasing the difficulty, it's actually making it static if not making it easier.

How? Taking one heart of damage out of six hearts is 1/6. Taking half a heart out of there hearts is 1/6. 1/6 = 1/6, therefore it's equivalent. Having six hearts at the start though is a terrible design choice. As MW7 pointed out, six hearts decreased the potential for heart pieces, which in turn decreases the amount of overall exploration one would have to do which in turn makes the game easier.

I disagree with having six hearts, it in general is terrible choice. Makes things seem far too easier, even if the reality is that the difficulty is static.

 

[Heros Temporis]

The six hearts vs three hearts thing, I think three hearts wins. It isn't increasing the difficulty, it's actually making it static if not making it easier.

How? Taking one heart of damage out of six hearts is 1/6. Taking half a heart out of there hearts is 1/6. 1/6 = 1/6, therefore it's equivalent. Having six hearts at the start though is a terrible design choice. As MW7 pointed out, six hearts decreased the potential for heart pieces, which in turn decreases the amount of overall exploration one would have to do which in turn makes the game easier.

I disagree with having six hearts, it in general is terrible choice. Makes things seem far too easier, even if the reality is that the difficulty is static.

Yes, it's true that the damage is static at the beginning, but the increased damage of enemies means that when you have much more than just six hearts, basic enemies are still more damaging. Taking one heart of damage out of ten hearts 1/10. Taking half a heart of damage out of ten hearts is 1/20. For an even better example, one heart out of 19 hearts is 1/19. Taking half a heart of damage out of 19 is 1/38. Taking one quarter of a heart at 19 hearts is 1/76. Yet the one is still 1/19.
Finally, for an example befitting how I play Zelda (that is, getting all the hearts) one heart out of 20 is 1/20. Half a heart out of 20 of them is 1/40.


Basically, what I'm getting at here is that even though the amount of hearts you have increase, enemies are still do significant damage. The reason you have six hearts at the beginning is to make the game manageable with the enemies doing a heart of damage. If they did the traditional three heart start, then three hits would end your game. Even in the original Zelda, most enemies did half a heart, which meant that six hits ended your game. Most Zelda games, including Skyward Sword, have a maximum of 20 hearts. However, in past titles, hits would do only half a heart with only the most threatening enemies doing a full heart. However, in SS, almost all enemies do a full heart, which means that enemies do more damage but the amount of health you have stays the same.

The end result is that the game is ultimately more difficult than most other Zelda games at that point, while still making it manageable in the beginning.

 

[Butterfly4Life]

When you guys play hero mode you'll become thankful for those extra hearts because there are not heart to be found any where unless you get a heart metal. For example the first time you fight Ghirahim he does 2 hearts worth of damage. At least in master quest of OoT you can still find hearts.

 

[Zelda_Ali_Baba]

Lol if you want extra damage to be done then you will definitely be ecstatic when playing Hero Mode! Almost every enemy deals 2 damage, some more based on their attack (for example: Ghirahim the second time, when he was two swords.....he swings them both at the same time and if you get hit WAMMO 4 hearts down.)

And the enemies are harder to kill...like instead of two hits to kill a bokoblin it takes four. (Errrm this may or may not be correct, it seemed like this was how it went to me BUT I could be wrong. Sorry if I am incorrect )

And as Butterfly4Life said, you can't find any heart flowers or have any hearts appear after cutting grass unless you have a heart metal. Other then that, you rely on Heart Potions and once in awhile, Goddess Walls.

This does had a new level of difficulty to the game and it makes it all the more exciting to see how far you can make it

I think Nintendo did a great job and I think it was like a compromise having Hero Mode be this way and regular mode be pretty simple. Everybody kinda gets what they want =D

 

[Dio]

Regular enemies should have been more aggressive and done half the damage they did, they should have attacked faster and it would be more likely you actually get hit a few times unless you dodge or shield. It was so easy to avoid getting hurt in SS that the one heart damage enemies were no more threatening than TP's ridiculously low damaging enemies. Earlier bosses were a bit easy, but Tentalus and Demise were hard If they were more damaging it would not be so fun.