What went wrong with Skyward Swords controls?

NOTE: This is not the full review of Skyward Sword, just the controls.

Despite the E3 demo gaffe during its 2010 E3 Demo by the legendary Miyamoto, many looked forward to the promise of an immersive control scheme.   However, a quick look over the internet, it is easy to find out that the controls is one of the most divisive issues amongst fans and critics alike. 

Shane Satterfield from GameTrailers spared no expense at bashing the game's controls.  In fact, he guaranteed that you would at least have one moment in the game where you want to throw your controller at the TV in frustration.  I respect the man and his views, but at times can’t help but sometimes disagree with his obvious bias (especially when it comes to certain franchises).   Even so, I cannot help but admit that I had on a few occasions, experienced what he said.   I was held back only by the fact that my Wiimote was the brand new gold 25^th Anniversary edition, and that I didn't want to destroy a brand new piece of hardware. 

Now let me try to break down this whole control saga and make some sense of it.  Skyward Sword continues Nintendo's foray into motion controls, this time making use of Wii Motion Plus.  These controls are used a few areas, namely: Swordplay (including Shield), Travel, and other miscellaneous gameplay.  Let me first talk about these points in order, talk about non-motion control issues, and finally sum up with my thoughts on motion controls, and its use in this game.

Swordplay

Nintendo has been promoting Skyward Sword for its "1-to-1" control.  It's supposed to make every fight exciting and immersive.  Swordplay is integral from start to the end.  Swordplay is perhaps the most maligned aspect of Skyward Sword.  It has been accused of being unresponsive, inaccurate and all in all frustrating.

After my first playthrough, I was extremely disappointed with the controls.  "This can't be right! How could Nintendo screw up that badly? Am I doing this wrong?" were amongst the thoughts that ran in my mind.  I took a break and looked up what everyone else in the world thought about the swordplay.  Amongst the banter of cynics ("Skyward Swords controls absolutely sucks! Not responsive at all! I'm an expert gamer!!!!") and fanboys ("The controls are perfect, you only find it bad cos you suck! It works for me, so you must be doing it wrong or your remote is faulty. No more waggling! Immersive gameplay FTW!"), it was hard to get a good gauge of what exactly was wrong.  Furthermore, level-headed reviews on controls mostly showed basic areas thus had the controls work perfectly for them, providing no clue on what I was doing wrong. However, I chanced upon a forum thread in gamespot that explained how the controls should be working.  Upon finding out the "right" way to do it, the game became much more fun.

One of the first complaints that surface is the accuracy, or the inaccuracy of the sword strikes.  This occurs as early as the first monster you encounter - Deku Babas, These plantoids only open the mouth either horizontally or vertically, and they can only be killed if you strike them in that corresponding direction.  The problem that arises is that it seems to lack accuracy.  In the previous Zelda game, you could slouch on the couch and flick my wrists.  Almost immediately you find out that this cant be done here.  Wrists movements alone may not always accurately be reflected.  However, more exaggerated movements from elbows down would more likely be captured by the controller.  So, you'll need to sit up to play Skyward Sword.

I personally found that if you're sitting upright, and using deliberate swings, you'll probably get it right 80-90% of the time.  The remaining failures occur when your strike is at the borderline case.  I think that this has always been the limitation of motion controls, and Nintendo has already done its best in this regards.  Inaccurate strikes become a big issue when you fight against bosses that penalize you when you strike wrongly.  Later enemies/mini bosses/bosses counter inaccurate strikes, and deal damage to you.  This will undoubtedly cause frustration.  When this causes death, it’s easy to see how gamers will blame the game's control instead of their own lack of skill. 

The second, and perhaps biggest complaints is misinterpretation of Wiimote adjustment as a sword strike.  If an enemy is blocking right, and you were originally holding your remote on the right, you would move your remove from right to left, then strike rightwards.  Unfortunately, the adjustment process is misinterpreted as a sword strike, and you end up with an unnecessary strike.  In most times, this is ok, but like inaccurate strikes, this becomes an issue when enemies punish you.  This becomes even more unfair, since an unintended input was picked up.

This problem is exacerbated by one of the early monsters you meet - the Bokoblin.  The Bokoblin holds up his sword to block one side, leaving the other invulnerable.  The catch is, the Bokoblin's AI has periods where it almost instantly picks up where your Wiimote is being held, and blocks that same direction.  This easily gives the wrong perception that you need to adjust your sword quickly, to try to be faster than the monster.  I can see how for many gamers this might form the wrong impression, because in a large part of the game, you actually have more time to think and deliberate your strikes.  Gamers are essentially left in a lose-lose situation here.  If you try to out-pace the monster, you take unnecessary counter damage due to misinterpreted adjustment strikes.  If you take your time, you are not given an opening since the monster will almost always block where you're holding your sword, and eventually they will attack you.

With the later monsters being able to block more directions and counter mistakes, it is not hard to see why so many gamers are bemoaning the poor controls.  In truth, the game has misinformed you.  This has not been helped by the game's promotional material such as videos, articles, and its famed "one-to-one controls" tag - which promotes you to use deliberate strikes.  Sword position and strike angle is in fact independent of each other.  This means that you can hold my sword right, causing the enemy AI to block right, yet twitch the remote left to right to still strike from the left.  Once you figure this out, the game becomes much more enjoyable as it adds a different dimension of allowing you to "feint" the enemy.   Unfortunately, the game never corrects this misconception (at least, I was never able to find a clear in-game instruction that did so), so unless you already figured it out yourself, you're going to be facing a hard time in your last few boss fights.

There is then another big debate over whether this is "realistic" or not.  Personally, that does not bother me.  I think once you figure this out, the games controls are pretty much fixed.  It may not be realistic, but it works as a control scheme.  Instead, for the duration of the whole first play through, I defeated this annoyed monsters by "exploits", such as sneaking up on enemies, shield bashing and waggling after getting the lucky first strike.  Fortunately, later bosses and enemies required usage of your new items, which was a welcome break for me.  Had I not bothered to find out the "right way", I don't think I would have enjoyed the second playthrough as much.  The game should have made use of its long and large amounts of tutorials to teach us how to use this mechanic.

(Of course, on the off chance that Nintendo had completely not realized this, then they really need to wake up their idea.)

Lastly, one of the more important moves - the fatal blow, which involves shaking both your remotes downwards, is often not picked up, or misintepreted as a shield bash/sword slash.

Motion Controls - Shield

A second, less widely covered, aspect of swordplay is the shield.  Zelda introduced the world to Z-targeting with lock on when it switched to 3-D.  Previously, you could use the "Z" to target a monster, and your shield would be held up.  You have always had the option of setting "Z"-target to be locked on, so that you don't have to hold to that button.  In Skyward Sword, the lock-on and auto shield up aspect is removed.  This means that to stay locked on to a target, you must hold on to the "Z" button.  There is some degree of auto-targeting when you don't use "Z" though. 

Shield is now no longer held up automatically.  Instead, the game now has three modes - neutral, attack and defence.  Neutral mode is the default mode you are in, with both your sword and shield kept away.  If you try to dash, you will automatically enter this mode.  Defence mode, activated by a shake of the nunchuk, takes out your shield.  Your shield has durability, which falls with each strike.  If you time your shield well, you can block and stun an enemy, and not lose any durability.  This is an important skill as its one of the only ways you can create openings for yourself in some monsters.  Attack mode, activated by the shake of the remote, takes out your sword.  Your shield is held down, and you will take damage. 

Personally, I love this new mechanic design.  Z-targeting with auto-Shield made previous games too easy at times.  With 3 different modes, you are given different levels of risk and reward.  Keep your shield up at wimp, and risk losing your shield eventually.  Run away, and open yourself to attacks and delaying your counter attack time.

Unfortunately, the nunchuk shake is easily triggered, often misintepreted.  This becomes an annoyance when you are trying to through a bomb, or perform another task, which gets interrupted due to your inability to hold your shield hand still.  The left and right buttons on the main remote were not used.  I think that dowsing (which used "C" on the nunchuk) could have been shifted there (since it involved the sword anyway), and the "C" button could be used for the Shield instead.

Motion Controls - Travel

Flying, skydiving, swimming and piloting your beetle all make use of motion controls, by making the controller simulate you, your bird or your beetle. 

Flying is your main mode of transport between the various game areas.  Skydiving is also used whenever you jump off your bird or edges, and at various points in the game.  Despite being a very cool concept, I found flying very tiring and eventually got sick of it.  In the past, travelling had always been the time where you can sit back, relax and take in the sights.  In Skyward Sword, you have to point at the direction you want the bird to fly.   In addition, you are required to shake the Wiimote to flap the bird’s wings.   Firstly, this is tiring for long distance flights.   Secondly, since your flight direction tied to the Wiimote, flapping causes the direction you point the Wiimote at to chance, leading your flight to go haywire at times.   I think flapping is unnecessary for flying, which would make flying pleasant and less tiring.

Swimming and piloting your beetle are similar to flying.   The beetle is an item that can be used for reconnaissance, attack, and fetching/dropping items.   It’s a cool new addition to the game.  The beetle’s turbo uses A, while swimming’s turbo involves shaking the nunchuk.  I think these two mechanics are well handled.  In fact, I would argue that swimming with the Wiimote is slightly better than classic controls, but that is personal preference.

Skydiving is similar to Wii Sports Resort.  Personally, I did not enjoy any of it.  The minigame involving diving was up there with one of the most annoying moments in the game.   There are areas in the game which require to use skydiving to get to areas in the   

Motion Controls - Others

Motion controls are also used in various different areas.  The Boss Key, previously used to open the final boss area of each dungeon, is now a rotating puzzle.  Insignia drawing, pulling and putting a sword into the ground, jumping while climbing, are amongst other ways motion controls are used.  Mostly, these are interesting diversions with no real difficulty.  At times, the tooltips provided are misleading.  The worst example of this is tightrope walking.  You have to hold the remote upright instead of sideways (natural way of holding during most gameplay).  Opting the latter would lead you to scratch your head in confusion, wondering what went wrong.  Some of the motion controls, such as the drawing of the bow or slingshot is made optional.

It is a little annoying that you have to "reset" the controls now and then.  But what's cool about it is that you can end up pointing away from the TV and still aiming at the TV.  Ironically, this facilitates slouching on the couch better.  Also of annoyance is how when controls go out of sync during flying, swimming you have to open up the menu.

Non Motion Controls
Some other little controls issues bug me, but some were pleasant surprises.  After the whole deluge of negativity, lets stray into some positivity.

I like how items are now split up into two menus.  It makes it cleaner.  I also like how there is only one item slot, and how holding it is for selection.  On one hand less buttons are used, on the other, single slot adds more strategy.  I suspect the bomb beetle was one of the things they wanted to prevent.

Putting aside the whole motion control, Skyward Sword's control scheme has two more areas I take issue with.  First of all, it is the inconsistency with Twilight Princess.  Secondly, it is the stacking of multiple overlapping commands.  One gripe I had with Twilight Princess

Controls Conclusion

Overall, I think Nintendo disappointed in this outing of Zelda with regards to controls.  Yea sure, fanboys can come and claim that it works for them, or that it’s the fault of players for not being able to figure it out.  I mean, I'm probably an above average gamer.  If I went through one full playthrough without being able to figure out how to easily dispatch the games' 2nd basic monster type without using shield bash, something is wrong.

From a game designer’s point of view, to have a huge loophole in such a fundamental part of the controls is completely unacceptable.  Skyward Sword's controls may be the best that motion gaming has to offer, but its nowhere near perfect.  There are issues.  So just because you personally like the controls, doesn't mean everyone else who hates it are the ones with the problem.

The most common defense out there now could be represented by the following post: “In short the game needs not cater to your ego or twitch skills....unless your on the Olympic team for fencing and are running shieldless, what you see is what you get. Not because it's unexpected...but rather because it was meant to be that way...”

On the contrary, my dear unknown internet friend.  As a designer, should you or can you expect your gamers to dig deeper for fundamental things like controls? I would say no.  You cannot expect gamers to figure out that sword slash direction and sword position are independent when the arguably more natural instinct is that both is related.  Furthermore, none of your promotional material and in game tutorials seem give evidence that say otherwise.  The other worst case scenario is that Nintendo might think everything is fine.  Either way, it is unbelievable and disappointing that such issues were not picked up by the designers during development or testing.  It is one thing to have a certain amount of pride and stubbornness with regards to the way you develop games, it is another to disregard users.  (As a side-note, I think Japanese Developers are most guilty of doing this, but thats another can of worms for another day.)

So what is my final thoughts on Skyward Sword's motion control?  Lets start with the more frivolous aspects of the motion controls.  Honestly, I think the game would not have been any different with or without them.  Travelling using motion controls was all in all better, except for the need of flapping my wings.  As for swordplay, I'm just as divided on the issue.  Swordplay affects you most at the start when you are not equipped with the tools of the trade yet, after which you can just use your other weapons.

In terms of boss fights, I feel that only one or two Boss fight was memorably shaped by motion controls.  As for the other epic boss fights, I don't think the lack of motion controls would have reduced its epicness or my enjoyment.  I think without motion controls, the game's bosses could have increased difficulty, and development time would arguably have been reduced, allowing less dust to settle on my Wii.

Had it been an option, I think the game would have been just as, if not more enjoyable. Yet, doing so might seriously be a waste of development resources.  Ultimately, even though its arguably the best hardcore motion control game out there, I feel that Nintendo has simply painted a target on Zelda and motion gaming's head.  Given the choice, I would not have wanted Skyward Sword fitted with these motion controls.  It seemed that Mr Eiji Aonuma thought so too.

That took much longer than I expected.   Now if you're reading till this point, it may seem that I'm just simply raging/hating/trolling on the game.  Clearly, I'm not just one of those waggling haters. Furthermore, I hope my detailed analysis has led you to read with an open mind.  Do check out the actual review as well.