Skyward Sword vs. BOTW: for those who have played a substantial amount of both, which do you prefer?

Breath of the Wild is among my favorite games of the decade.

I actively disliked Skyward Sword once the novelty of the swordplay wore off.

Easy-peasy poll.

rodrigorn_ said:

Where is the 'I haven't played none of both' option?

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Try Ctrl+W.

SS is a great game in a lot of ways but has a ton of major issues that just cannot be ignored. Wii-mote gameplay is very spotty, at times it's fantastic and makes for some truly memorable moments, but overall the tech is just not reliable enough which leads to small, but repeated issues throughout the experience that become very annoying. The other issue is the narrative. The game is way too story heavy for its own good and due to a lack of VO this verbosity of the script and length of cutscenes becomes tiring and takes the wind out its sales due to the delivery of the text being so slow and cumbersome. The plot all too often gets in the way of gameplay which should not happen in a Zelda game.

Some other issues with just the format and structure of the game, revisiting areas and general layout of the world can be annoying. Skyloft is a fantastic town and one of the best, but the sky in general is a big letdown despite how fun flying is. It's still a great game in the end with a ton of charm and a lot to enjoy, but as a Zelda title it's easily the weakest console entry in the series.

BotW is just a joy to play in just about every way. My complaints and issues with that game really stem from my desire to just have more of the game rather than those issues detracting from the experience and harming it overall like in SS. The lack of more story content, reliance on flash backs for what content there was and complete lack of proper dungeons are really the only things I can say are truly issues in the game. The combat, exploration and genuine feeling of freedom are just too great in the game. It's a really awe inspiring title.

Look, BOTW is great and imo it's the clear choice of the two. But SS has better story, music and dungeons.

SS was the culmination of everything I had been dreading about the direction where the series had been going for over a decade. All fears being realized and making me have the lowest amount of excitement for the franchise's future.

BotW was the realization of almost everything I dreamed a Zelda game could be for over a decade, and has made me more excited than I had ever been for the franchise's future.

The fact that these two games are consecutive among the 3D games is quite fascinating, and it's so impressive how fast they were able to right the ship.

I guess I could say that I'm glad SS exists if it took a game like that for Nintendo to finally make a game like BotW.

Easily BotW. Skyward Sword was a massive, massive disappointment. It has really good dungeons, and... otherwise, it's an insanely annoying game to play.

Breath of the Wild is still the only open world game I've played that I actually liked exploring in.

I love both games but Breath of the Wild is probably the better game. My heart wants it to be Skyward Sword though because I love the dungeons and I honestly like the story better but the motion controls hold it back. If Breath of the Wild had better dungeons it would be hands down the best Zelda ever made.

Skyward sword was a bad zelda game. I watched a speedrun recently and it is full of padded cutscenes.

JimJamJones said:

Skyward Sword's story is better than BotW.

That's about it.

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Better dungeons too.

Skyward Sword has really well designed dungeons - And I also did like some of the motion control stuff. Other than that, BotW was better in every regard. Skyward Sword was an awful, linear grind with a shit ton of padding and some of the worst Zelda tropes (Fi was terrible) amped to 11. But the dungeon design... was awesome.

Skyward Sword is a brilliant game. Story, main town, combat and dungeons are top notch.

Breath of the Wild though is an absolute milestone in the history of gaming and, while we can discuss hours about the marvellous systems and the wonderful open world, it is simply the most fun Zelda game ever produced imo. It's crazy how many adventures the player goes into just by going from point A to B. As a source of pure fun I think that only A Link Between Worlds comes close, even if there are games in the series that do some things better.

JimJamJones said:

Skyward Sword's story is better than BotW.

That's about it.

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And music
And bosses
And combat
And dungeon

Skyward Sword was when the Zelda formula really... REALLY got old.

This is why I don't hate it because BoTW happened because of Skyward Sword

BoTW <3

I prefer BOTW.
That doesn't mean I think SS is bad, or that BOTW is the best though.

Both fine games but it's really no question that Breath of the Wild will age better in the controls department than Skyward Sword is. It's easily the most replayable Zelda game, and Skyward Sword the least.

Skyward Sword does have wonderful setpieces and events but to get to them, over time, has become kind of a slog.

I really like Skyward Sword. It's not the direction I wanted to see the series go in (although I did enjoy the motion controls), but I still appreciate a lot about the game.

That being said, Breath of the Wild is the best Zelda game in at least 20 years, if not the best entry in the entire series.

Finished both games. I like BotW slightly more but only because it gives me more freedom to be stupid. Both of them are near the bottom of the lower half of my favorite Zelda games list.

Unpopular opinion (in that I've literally never seen anyone else hold this opinion other than me):

The motion controls in Skyward Sword were excellent and really fun; it was the rest of the game that sucked.

Played both extensively and beat both. I love Zelda to death and like all the games. I don't think that Skyward Sword sucks or is mediocre like some folks. I think it's really good and one of the best games on the Wii, even a must-have for the system. Shit, I even like Fi.

But this isn't even a contest for me...Skyward Sword is on a "If you have a Wii/Wii U, definitely track down a copy and add it to your collection" level, and BOTW is GOTG tier, probably in the top 5 GOAT, period. Skyward Sword is the Aerosmith to BOTW's Led Zeppelin.

JimJamJones said:

Skyward Sword's story is better than BotW.

That's about it.

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And thats why its better :)

BotW by a country mile.

Skyward Sword just felt like a damn chore. I dropped it when I saw what the last dungeon was.

Vinc said:

Gotta be honest, I love both to death. But BOTW has my preference. I do wish we could still get BOTH styles of 3D zelda games though.

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My theory is that we won't, but 2d Zelda's will remain traditional.

They are very different games with almost opposite flaws and successes but I think prefer BOTW slightly. Played BOTW for 150 hours and Skyward Sword for over 50.

"Master, a report. You just got a bow. With a bow you can shoot distant targets. bla bla bla"

- I think this answers the question

I am one of the few that really liked Skyward Sword even with its flaws. BOTW though the open world concept was a nice change for the series it felt short in a number of areas in particular with the story.

Breath of the Wild is the future of Zelda while Skyward Sword was a confused, linear puzzle game depending on motion controls

I finished both and consider SS to be vastly superior.

Breath of the Wild by far, but Skyward Sword was an overall enjoyable experience for me too.

It's funny how both highlight each other's flaws.

I really, really like Skyward Sword. I like the compact levels that feel like playgrounds for you to slowly open up and the dungeons that feature some very clever uses of the environment and the various tools the game gives you. The concept as a whole, having a city in the skies and dropping down to Hyrule to explore a forgotten world while chasing after Zelda, is extremely appealing to me but I simply think the game never does good on those aspects. Skyloft and the surrounding sky feel extremely empty and lifeless, Hyrule is (by design) disjointed and the relationship to Zelda is extremely shallow. It doesn't help that the game is extremely handholdy and restrictive.

Breath of the Wild, by contrast, doesn't have the well-designed dungeons and the same-looking shrines lack the visual identity and progress of a good Zelda-style dungeon. However, everything else in the game absolutely hits its mark. Traversing the world in BotW is an adventure. Looking at something, walking up to it and interacting with it an absolute joy. The story itself might lack the (surface) dramatic heft of the scenes in Skyward Sword but having Link slowly piece together his memories was more interesting to me and a good solution to accommodate the open nature of the game. It does some things worse than other Zeldas. I think it use better dungeons like Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. Majora's Mask does characters and sidequests better. But on a whole, it's the best realization of a Zelda game.

I'd love to see a Skyward Sword remake that fixes some of its more glaring issues.

I played both. Skyward Sword is my least favorite console Zelda since Adventure of Link. It joins Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks as one of the only Zelda games I have never replayed.

BOTW is really good. I think its vices start overwhelming its virtues as the game goes on. But I had an awful lot of fun up to that point.

I played both for around 100 hours each, and I vastly prefer Skyward Sword. It wasn't perfect, but it focused on the things I like (puzzles, dungeons, unique items, memorable music, cheesy yet lovable story, etc.) and more importantly, I actually had fun playing it. BotW started out promising, but devolved into my most disliked game of the series for adding a bunch of elements I hated and stripping everything away I liked about the series prior.

I'll always happily go to bat for Skyward Sword, despite its flaws...but this isn't even close. BOTW is just amazing.

Skyward Sword has really great elements, but it was the furthest I was willing to go with Zelda in that direction before becoming uninterested, and being that it's my favourite series, that's saying a lot. The story was alright (the whole "making of the master sword" was overpromising bullshit), some of the bosses and dungeons were great, but everything about the game itself was just pretty bad.

The only things I'd change about Breath of the Wild are putting some of those good things back into it that they removed. Bigger dungeons, and more story - that's it. I have nothing bad to say about it as a game. It's very near perfect.

When you aren't in a dungeon, Skyward Sword is a bad game. Its one of the worst traditional style Zeldas and highlights the biggest issues with Wii era Nintendo. BotW is easily the better game.

Skyward Sword is ass

BotW all the way

Disclaimer: I played through both games twice

I like the story and character work in Skyward, and it has better bosses and dungeons than BotW just sort of by default, but BotW is so much better at everything else it's not really a competition.

Zelda is probably my favourite (or at least in my top 3) series, and I love every single game. I thought Skyward Sword was a fantastic game and that the amount it experimented with the "Zelda formula" was and is underrated by most people. It told a really compelling story, looked amazing for a Wii game, and was as inventive as any game in the series. It has some large structural problems in the second half of the game, and there isn't really a way around the fact that the motion controls had problems when it was released, and that those problems have only been exacerbated as time has gone on (I've revisited the game a couple times since and found them to be much more annoying).

Now that I've had a year and a half to think about it, Breath of the Wild is probably my favourite game of all time (or at least one of them). I loved the world, I loved the systems, and I even thought that the the story and the way in which they told it was moving and ingenious. I thought the Divine Beasts were a great substitute for the dungeons of the previous games, as were the ways in which the runes interacted with the overworld and the shrines. I understand why people are critical of those elements, but I have to admit being a bit confused by the people who fully subscribed to some of the knottier elements of the game (manually identifying landmarks, breakable weapons, many other things) but don't see the Divine Beasts and the memories as being of a piece with the rest of it. Oh well! It exists in my mind as a singular media/art object like the great books I've read, plays I've seen or movies I've watched.

Both are 7/10 games but I feel BOTWs chemistry system and early hours top most of SS

SS had great story, characters, dungeons, one amazing boss, and the AMAZING time crystal

Skyward Sword is a better Zelda game in almost every metric that measures the series .

It has two of the best moments for me in the entire franchise.





I had about 80 hours of Skyward Sword

Breath of the Wild is an ok Zelda game at best. It lacks in dungeons, story, music and boss fight are too few however, it is far and away a better game and possibly the greatest game ever made. It gifts you gameplay as if the player was the bride of a sultan. It feels more natural to play the any game in the series and the way it crafts the world in to a story all it's own is...amazing. Sometimes I wish it was a different franchise so they could have completely removed the shackles of expectation and it would no doubt be considered as close to perfection as can be.

I have 310 hours on Breath of the Wild.

Skyward Sword always has it's linearity held against it, but when I think back on Breath of the Wild, all of my favorite bits were the most linear in the game: the Great Plateau, that island where you lose your gear, Hyrule Castle, Kokiri Forest, the Zora's Domain (where the rain means you have to follow a linear path instead of climbing everything), the Yiga Clan hideout.

Skyward.
It had an actual story that drove me and bosses and dungeons i remember

I love both games and I enjoyed the motion control combat of Skyward sword and the puzzles and art style were great for me. I'll even edge out Skyward Sword's art style. But at the end of the day BotW is just on a different level when it comes to it's gameplay sandbox. It mashed so many conventions together and practically reinvented what I expect in open world games going forward. For that alone BotW is my preferred game.

Skyward Sword, imo, had better story, combat, characters, music, dungeons, puzzles, world, etc. Honestly, I prefer a more structured, defined take on Zelda rather than a free, loose one.

I preferred the comparative story focus of Skyward sword, I wasn't bothered by the motion controls, and I liked the dungeons and the overworld areas that felt like dungeons in their design, as dungeons are Zelda games for me.

BotW didn't hook me enough to play it for 20 hours. I like puzzles, I like multi-room puzzles with several parts, I don't like weapon durability, I don't like wandering around in an open world, and I don't like that they removed "dungeon items".

Skyward Sword is my favorite Zelda game. BotW, while I can see why others like it, feels like too radical a departure from the formula and has too many things in it that are not what I want in a game, and definitely not what I want in a Zelda game.

Edit: Post below mine is spot-on with what I'm trying to convey.

Finished both games.

Skyward Sword is so much superior it's crazy. BOTW is one of my most disliked Zelda games ever.

Zelda is all about dungeon design, item progression, fun stories and boss fights to me. Skyward Sword is excellent in all these aspects -- the Ancient Cistern is a masterpiece in design and ambience. The catharsis of going through the dungeon and fighting Koloktos at the end is still one of the best moments ever in gaming, it's simply extremely memorable and fantastic.

BOTW didn't give me a single memorable experience and felt like a checklist of what open world games do. I know it's what a lot of people want from games these days, but it just feel like an Ubisoft title with some actual good art direction.

Skyward Sword is in my personal top 3 games of all time, BOTW is in my Zelda bottom 4.

BOTW by a country mile

That said, SS has some dope dungeons, clever puzzles, and a great score

Having extensively played both, I will say that SS's highs (the dungeons) were waaaay more fun to play than BotW. The music, the narrative and the characters were also way stronger and I had a way better time on my first playthrough that I did with BotW, which has a lot of strengths but doesn't appeal to me in the same way. SS also has a very interesting combat system (I LOVE the Motion Controls, and I say that as a left-handed person : they're no waggle and add a lot of depth) and also a lot more enemy variety.

However, going back to it I definitely am more annoyed by , unnecessary cutscenes/Fi intervention/bloating especially during the last third, and all the QoL life stuff that BotW added. I also find myself going back to BotW from times to times, to find a new shrine, try this and that.

All in all SS, I think, edges Botw a little bit because dungeons are what I look for in a Zelda game : SS's are the best in the series and BotW's are the worst. But I truly think combining the 2 games' strengths would make for what could be the best videogame of all time.

BOTW is clearly the better game to me but I also liked Skyward Sword a lot more than a lot of people seemed to

Skyward Sword no question. Breath of the Wild was an unforgettable experience in the exploration of its world that first time through. Its sense of wonder is unmatched in my eyes.

But I play Zelda games mainly for the dungeons and a story that motivates me. Really love the standard pacing of them, and despite the criticisms SS draws in this regard, its pacing works quite well for me up until the Song quest near the end.

I've 100%'d SS 4 times now whereas I'm not sure I'll go back to BotW at all in the next 5 or 10 years. Doesn't help that BotW Link is pretty much the least expressive plank of wood out of all the 3D entries.