What was Skyward Sword's metacritic score?
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"Skyward Sword" received acclaim from multiple journalistic magazines and websites upon release; it received a score of 93/100 on aggregate site Metacritic based on 81 reviews. It was the site's 10th highest scoring game of 2011, and also ranked as the 6th best-reviewed Wii game of all time. It received perfect scores from multiple publications: these included "Famitsu", IGN, Eurogamer, "Game Informer", "Edge Magazine" and "VideoGamer.com". In the case of "Famitsu", "Skyward Sword" was the third "Zelda" game and sixteenth video game in the magazine's history to be given a perfect score at that time.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
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GameSpot's Tom McShea was notably less positive than other critics, praising the storyline, dungeons, enemies and visuals while faulting the controls for being unreliable and feeling that most of the experience felt both unnecessary and overly familiar. Destructoid's Jonathan Holmes called "Skyward Sword" his new favorite 3D game from the series, but noted that its exclusive use of motion controls would put off potential players. Oli Welsh of Eurogamer was highly positive, praising the controls, gameplay experience and additional elements such as upgrades: he gave particular praise to the game's visuals, which were impressive despite hardware limitations. "Game Informer"s Phil Kollar echoed both general praise of the gameplay and presentation, and minor issues experienced with the motion controls: he concluded by saying that Nintendo had fulfilled its initial promises for the Wii with "Skyward Sword". GamesRadar's Carolyn Gudmundson called it "perfectly balanced mix of innovation and classic Zelda gameplay" despite minor control issues.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
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Using the orchestra enabled a greater expression of emotion, which meant that they used it when creating scores for environments, cinematic scenes, and emotional moments within the story. Conversely, the team were given less freedom to adjust tracks as they had been able to with synthesized tracks. Something new they did for "Skyward Sword" was producing unique themes for specific characters such as Link and Zelda. They also added people singing songs, another element new to the series. One notable element was the game's main theme "Ballad of the Goddess", which was actually a reversed version of the recurring tune "Zelda's Lullaby". Due to the use of an orchestra and the sheer amount of extra work going into the sound design, the music team doubled in size from the standard five-person group, and became the largest sound team at the time to have worked on a Nintendo game. The positive reception of the orchestral score within the company led to the creation of " The Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary Symphony Concert", a celebratory concert featuring orchestrated versions of classic "Zelda" themes. Music was also woven into the story and gameplay through the use of the harp Link receives, using a recurring theme within the series of music being a central part of the experience. In contrast to previous games, the instrument could be played at any time rather than at specific times and places.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
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Following its release, "Skyward Sword" won numerous awards. At IGN's "Best of 2011" awards, it was awarded "Best Game", "Best Graphics", "Best Sound" and "Best Story" in the Wii category. It was also given the "Reader's Choice" award in the "Best Overall Game" category: it was also among those nominated as the site's "Game of the Year". In Digital Trends' similar awards, it was named as "Best Action-Adventure" and "Best Wii Exclusive", and was nominated for the site's "Game of the Year" award. RPGamer's own "Best of 2011" awards named "Skyward Sword" "Best Console and PC Game" and awarded it for "Best Music". It also received "Game of the Year" awards from "Electronic Gaming Monthly", GameSpot, "Edge" and "Nintendo Power". It received "Excellence" and "Most Valuable Character" awards from "Famitsu", the latter being awarded for the protagonist Link. It received multiple nominations in 2012 at the D.I.C.E. Awards, Game Developers Choice Awards and the BAFTA Games Awards. At Spike, the game won awards for "Best Wii Game" and "Best Motion Game". "Skyward Sword" has since been ranked among the best games developed for the Wii.
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GameTrailers noted that, despite its many strengths such as a believable relationship between Link and Zelda, "Skyward Sword" represented the series' "first gray hairs" due to some of its mechanics feeling dated in the modern gaming landscape. IGN's Richard George felt that the game returned "The Legend of Zelda" to being a revolutionary series in the gaming industry, praising almost every aspect of the game with the exception of the soundtrack, which he felt did not live up to series standards despite its quality. Joystiq writer Griffin McElroy noted that a lot of the game's content seemed unnecessary and extravagant, but said that beneath this surface lay "the best "Zelda" game of all time". Steve Hogarty of "Official Nintendo Magazine" shared many points of praise with other positive journalist reviews, calling it the greatest game in the series to date. "VideoGamer.com" Chris Schilling called it one of the best "Zelda" games, praising its motion controls, narrative and treatment of series tradition.
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At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 82, indicating universal acclaim, based on 14 reviews. Pitchfork stated that "One of the best things about "Glass Swords" is that, for all of its pop-goes-clubbing bluster, it's also as psychedelic, where the devil's in the zillion little details zigzagging across the tracks" and that "there's not a lot here that will redefine your ideas of what dubstep or electronic music in general can do. For all of Rustie's skill as a sculptor of very 21st-century beats, Glass Swords can feel just as much like a "greatest bits" collage." "Fact" gave the album a five out of five rating, stating that "you get the impression that it's the point Rustie has been building up to for the last five years; an album made in relative isolation, with zero self-consciousness, shame or thought for trend behind it." Drowned in Sound gave the album an eight out of ten rating, finding that the album is "equally impressive is the fact that this formula (or lack thereof) never grows tired. Thirteen tracks of excess could easily have been a recipe for sighs, but instead it is consistently addictive and grin-inducing."
Glass Swords
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First revealed in 2009, it was initially planned for release in 2010 before being delayed to 2011 to further refine and expand it. The game was a critical and commercial success, receiving perfect scores from multiple journalistic sites, winning and receiving nominations for numerous industry and journalist awards, and selling over three million copies worldwide. Despite the accolades it received, points of widespread criticism directed toward certain aspects of the game's design proved to be a key influence in the development of the next entry for home consoles, "".
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
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The script for cinematic scenes was written by Naoki Mori, who joined the project for one and a quarter years in his role: the cinematic director was Shigeki Yoshida, who was brought on at the same time as and worked on the storyboards with Mori. The initial script was proposed by Fujibayashi based on his perception of the game's structure. As the game's theme was the use of the sword, and the sword most associated with the series was the Master Sword, the team decided to make it an origin story for the weapon. An early element was whether to incorporate the creation of Hyrule, while also needing to explain the creation of Skyloft: this initial stage of story development ended up being difficult as their initial story plans were full of contradictions to established series lore due to them wanting to create an origin story for the entire series. These issues were further complicated by the third year of development with the necessity of finalizing the gameplay and environments. Feigning illness, Fujibayashi shut himself away in a hotel room and wrote the synopsis in a single day. Mori wrote the dialogue based on Fujibayashi's synopsis, who needed to work out the fine details with Fujibayashi. A scene Fujibayashi was intent on including was where Zelda jumped from the edge of Skyloft and Link caught her: this was fitted in for the two characters after the end of Link's exam. The early part of the story was quite different from earlier "Zelda" games, playing out in a similar way to a school drama. Once the script was finished, it was handed to Yoshida so his team could create the cinematics. The total number of cinematics was estimated as 79, coming to over 120 minutes.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
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"The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword" is an action-adventure video game in which players take on the role of series protagonist Link through a series of monster-populated overworlds and navigating dungeons featuring puzzles and bosses. Link is controlled using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, and the Wii MotionPlus expansion device is required to play. The greater majority of gameplay mechanics revolve around use of motion controls: these include camera control with the Nunchuk and general hotkey actions and movement linked to the Wii Remote. Jumping across gaps and scaling ledges happen automatically within context. The Nunchuk is also used to make Link perform a forward roll. Link can sprint for short distances, but sprinting and other actions such as climbing and carrying heavy objects is limited by a stamina meter, which recharges after a few seconds when not performing actions that drain it. When depleted entirely, Link's movement speed is reduced and he is left vulnerable until the meter refills. Standard navigation takes place from a third-person perspective, while the Dowsing search function switches to a first-person view: Dowsing scans an area for a selected object, with new Dowsing objectives appearing depending on game context.
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Multiple promotional elements were created: a five-part online comic was written and illustrated by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik under their "Penny Arcade Presents" series, and television commercials featuring actor and comedian Robin Williams and his daughter Zelda were made, playing on the actor's stated love for the series. "Skyward Sword" released in all regions in November 2011: it released in Europe on November 18, North America on November 20, Japan on November 23, and Australia on November 24. The game was released as both a standard edition and a limited deluxe edition that included a gold Wii Remote Plus. An anniversary CD was included with both editions containing orchestrated versions of various iconic musical pieces from the series. Following its release, a glitch was discovered that corrupted save files if three late-game events were taken in a certain order. Once revealed, Nintendo issued instructions on avoiding it and set up a special channel on their Wii site in Japan to gain feedback, along with offering to manually repair corrupted save files.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword