The Only Game I Have Bought on "Pre-Order"

I just wanted the goodies that came with the game!

Back in 2010, a new Zelda game, Skyward Sword, was coming out for the Wii and I was pretty excited because it was going to have some new features implemented by the Wii Motion Plus add-on for the Wii Remote. In theory, you would be able to control Link's sword swings to you heart's content and even use the shield to parry (similar to a technique you use in Twilight Princess). It all sounded like a great fun time... until that presentation.

During the E3 2010, Shigeru Miyamoto presented a new demo for the game, where he wanted to show off the awesome motion controls in action. But this presentation has gone into infamy due to all the "techincal" issues the Wii Motion Plus had.

Miyamoto swung from left to right while pointing the Wii Remote below his waist; Link swung his sword from top right to left. Miyamoto pointed to his right, Link followed. Miyamoto moved the remote slowly to his left, Link followed. Miyamoto did a vertical slice in one quick move, Link swung his sword from bottom right to top left. Miyamoto put the remote almost to his back, like preparing another vertical slice... Link did a spin attack.

You get the idea.

It's not uncommon to watch some Nintendo latest technology fail misserably in some way or another. Nonetheless, I was excited to get a new Zelda for the Wii, but I also felt bumped because I didn't have the Wii Motion Plus add-on, which was required to play the game, and I didn't have the money to buy one. I thought I would have to wait until it, somehow, get cheaper. But then, Nintento announced the release date: November 2011.

The Mistake

I was excited that a brand new Zelda game was coming out on November, the same month as my birthday. I had the perfect excuse to make my parents buy it for me, but there still was a problem: I didn't have a Wii Motion Plus.

The early reviews and articles that I read online said that the game is unplayable without this add-on, and I couldn't ask for more than the game. I've always felt bad for asking for things I want for my birthday... I don't know why. Anyway, I kept "thinking" on how to tell my parents what I wanted, and suddenly Game Planet had the answer.

I remember that I went with my at-the-time girlfriend to the mall we usually went to. We always went just window shopping because we were broke students, but we really enjoyed hanging out and looking at things we couldn't afford. That's when I saw a poster with a great promo for the new Zelda game.

Due to the game requiring the Wii Motion Plus, there was a special edition that included the game, a CD with the music played by an Orchesta, a poster and a Golden Wii Remote which had the Wii Motion Plus already integrated in it! The problem was that this edition was only available for preo-order, meaning "pay today, get it in about a year".

For me was very difficult to wrap my head around pre-orders. Some of them had very interesting collectibles and pretty stuff that would make you feel better about yourself for buying it before everyone else. But I've never understood the appeal of waiting so long to get a game that you can get later, adn even at a cheaper price.

Nevertheless, I really wanted that special edition of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. I could have everything I needed to play the game, plus I've always loved the Zelda music and having an official CD with the songs interpreted by an Orchesta would have made me the happiest I've ever been about a Zelda game!

Somehow, I managed to convince my parents that this special edition was actually cheaper than just buying the game that I wanted for my birthday, so they proceed to buy the pre order and the wait began. It was rather easy because my mom also loves all the music from Zelda and she asked me to share the CD with her.

I was so thrilled about making my very first pre order of a videogame... then I learned why it's a bad idea to pre order a game.

Damn Controls!

I always thought the motion controls were great and fun when they are well implemented. For starters, I was very excited when the Wii got announced. The "Wii would like to play" commercial got me very excited to play tennis, bowling, baseball and a lot more... even fucking golf! 

Those first games worked great with the motion controls. They were intuitive and fairly responsive. It felt awesome to just shake the Wii Remote a little bit and watch Twilight Princess' Link do a devastating slash. And, of course, it was amazing to point to the TV while playing Resident Evil 4 to shoot all the Ganandos in the face. The Wii was the bomb!

But Nintendo leaned way to much into their motion controls gimmick. They wanted to make you feel like you were holding the Master Sword and the Hylian Shield, even though we can feel that by just playing the game... at least I can!

Some say that Skyward Sword was created just to have an excuse to sell the Wii Motion Plus, and it actually makes sense once you play it.

The day I finally got my game, I put it on my Wii and started my adventure through the most annoying Zelda I've ever played. As usual, the first couple of hours are just the tutorial, full of tedious minor tasks that introduces the player to the world, the story, the characters and, especially, to the controls.

Back when Twilight Princess came out, Nintendo apparently was very worried that people would struggle through the "complex" controls, so they made a very loooong tutorial, which I actually thought it was fine and not that long. But when I started Skyward Sword, I got bored in less than an hour...

There are a lot of mechanics in this game that requires a lot of movement and precision, two things that don't work well on the Wii. There are a lot of items in this game that need to be used with motion, not with buttons, but shaking the control in different ways and pointing towards the screen and such. 

I gotta be honest, I didn't play a lot of the game after I started it. I remember Skyloft, the forest and a volcano... but that's it. That's all I really played. I spent a lot of time trying to catch butteflies with the horrible bug net. I wasted waaay too much time fighting deku babas, trying to slice them the correct way, but the horrible controls were not on my side. I almost had a brain aneurysm just by trying to fly the beetle!

That pretty much sums up my experience with this game.

Why would you make me hate Zelda!?

I believe this is the way Nintendo wants their gamers to move instead of having them sitting on their asses moving nothing but their fingers. And let me tell you, it's not a god strategy. A good game is meant to be fun, to help you relax and spend good time with great characters, stories and fantastic worlds. But this... was not fun.

I love The Legend of Zelda. It's easily my top one videogame franchise of all time. I grew up playing 3D Zeldas and I love the exploration, the stories hidden in its world, the action and the puzzles. I really have a great time playing any Zelda... but Skyward Sword destroyed my soul and my arms. I got tired of trying to make the controls make sense and got tired of forcing myself to enjoy it.

You have to swing the control to catch bugs, to attack, to defend, to aim a weapon/item, to jump, to swing, to fly, to fall... to do everything! That's not fun for me. At least is not fun when you want to enjoy a game after a hard day of school/work. When I play videogames, I just want to sit and play, not to do a full workout routine just to get past one temple.

Besides, a few weeks after I gave up on the game, I read some articles about how there was a softlock in the game where you need to play a song for a dragon, or something like that, but when you play the song, the Dragon would tell you that is not the song, making it impossible to progress in the game. About a month after the glitch was discovered, Nintendo released a patch that fixed it. I never downloaded the patch, so my apparently my game is impossible to beat now.

Never pre order a videogame

As I mentioned before, this was the first and only game I've ever pre ordered because I let my emotions and hype get the best of me. It was an awesome birthday gift, but in the end, it didn't make me happy, but frustrated.

As time goes by, a lot of new games are made within a very tight window between development and launch, causing them to lack the quality we expect in an entertainment product like this. Bugs, glitches, microtransactions, incomplete stories and many more problems arise from this poor practice of doing something for money and not for fun. That's what really kills a game.

For me, Skyward Sword is the reason I never buy a game at a pre order nor before I've watched a video from someone playing it, but that someone was not paid for playing it. In order to make my point clearer, I'll just mention one example of why you should NEVER pre order a videogame: Cyberpunk 2077.

There's a chance

Last year, Nintendo released the HD port of Skyward Sword to the Switch. Due to the existence of the Switch Lite, they decided to add normal controls as an alternative for the motion controls. They are similar to Metal Gear Rising's controls, which actually makes the game look like fun again. But I don't feel like playing it anymore.

I've watched speedruns, normal walkthroughts, analysis and even the full story of the game now and I actually feel attracted to this game again. Yet I still feel burned-out because of the motion controls. Maybe one day I'll buy the game on the Switch and finally complete a game that I quitted a long time ago.

Only time will tell.