I just played The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, the 2011 Wii MotionPlus game for 10 minutes, until the E3 demo here in Los Angeles timed out on me. Just when I was slicing up a giant scorpion boss! But...

Then I shot a two-minute video to show you the game in action. Good stuff. Sword controls were superb, and closer to 1:1 than I expected (note the little leans of the sword when I tilt my hand). Bowling bombs feels right.


I'm a little worried that I had no camera control and I didn't like having the map option made inaccessible whenever I had an item in hand.

Otherwise, pretty good. The whip is fun to use and overall you are using the angles of your gestures to fight more effectively. That requires a little more dexterity than I'm used to in a Zelda game, but not in an annoyingly complex way. I felt capable and powerful as Link, not confused.


As you can see the graphics are okay, but not overwhelmingly impressive. This style of quasi-realism does not look great on the aging Wii hardware.

So no complaints on controls, an almost-perfect button layout and a "decent" for graphics. I enjoyed romping through the game's demo and had the most fun at a boss. This game's probably going to be good. No surprise, it's a Zelda.

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(Oh, let me tell you about that Scorpion boss: It had two big claws that had, at the inside of their claw joints, weak points. The claws would slowly open. I would lock on with a press of the Nunchuk's Z button. And then I would swing the sword at the angle that would swing my sword through the opened claw. Sometimes that meant I needed to do a horizontal strike, other times a diagonal or vertical. That's the kind of light-strategy/dexterity needed for combat in this new Zelda. It's just enough to make it feel more physically interesting than a standard Zelda. I approve.)

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