Kotaku and Giant Bomb: Hands on with Skyward Sword

Nintendo held a press event earlier this week and invited many of the big names in the media to attend. We reported on all of IGN’s impressions earlier this morning, but other large websites such as Giant Bomb and Kotaku got their hands on with Skyward Sword earlier this week as well. All of these websites got to play the first few hours of the game and there is quite a lot of overlap in the coverage. However, it’s nice to see unique perspectives on the same material. Over at Kotaku, here is one of the statements that stood out to me concerning the graphics.

Heading out into the town in control of Link, I found myself awash in gorgeous visuals. The Wii takes so much flack for its graphical prowess (or lack thereof), but the art direction of Skyward Sword is impressionistic and vibrant, like a Monet painting come to life, or perhaps something from Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli. Pressing the C button switches the view to first-person; it’s possible to walk around in first-person mode, taking in the richly drawn detail of Skyloft. As far as I know, that’s a first for a Zelda game, and it’s quite neat.

It’s nice to see such praise of the visuals from a huge website like Kotaku. What’s great about the graphical style is that it sort of doesn’t even matter that it’s not in HD. The water-colored visuals would probably look better in HD, but they are still so unique that there isn’t much to directly compare it to. Thus, for a water-colored graphical style, it’s certainly one of the best out there, if not thee best, even though its a Nintendo Wii title.

Over at Giant Bomb they had this to say concerning the length of the introductory area.

Two hours was not enough to make many determinations about Skyward Sword, as I put down the Wii remote outside the first dungeon.

Two hours to get to the first dungeon is very close to where Twilight Princess stood. However, from what various media outlets have said, the beginning sequence of Skyward Sword seems to be jammed with all sorts of story and tutorial goodies. Unlike previous Zelda titles, these tutorials seem to have more of a meaning as it helps familiarize the gamer with the Wii Motion Plus controls.

Be sure to head on over to Giant Bomb and Kotaku to read their full impressions.

Related: Skyward Sword Walkthrough

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