For my birthday Katie bought me 3D Dot Game Heroes, which is such a delightful rip off of A Link to the Past you can’t help but enjoy it anyway. I’m also playing Skyrim, because DRAGONS also DUNGEONS (wait a minute…). However, I am not playing Skyward Sword.

The excuse ‘it gets better later’ is stupid. Who has time to play boring shit for hours just for a ‘promise’ it gets better later. (Looking at you FF13). Twilight Princess though is the poster child for ‘it gets better later’ with some brillant crafted dungeons hidden away in the last third of the game while the start of the game is an exercise in tedium and frustration. Skyward Sword seems to have taken this to an extreme, not only is the bit on the starting island way too long, having to dick around looking for random things just so the guy who invented the dowsing tool can feel better is just irritating. It takes much too long to get into the first dungeon.

People often complain that all Zelda fans really want is a new “Ocarina” every generation. I don’t think this is true, I think a lot of Zelda fans would really like to get back to the future Link to the Past. In my opinion no other Zelda game has matched the overworld, story, design and opening sequence of LttP but then my top 3 Zeldas are Majora’s Mask, LttP and Minish Cap so take it how you will. Majora’s Mask in fairness was a Zelda title full of faffing about but it was easy to forgive because it was a shift in gameplay no Zelda before or since has taken. We will keep playing Skyward Sword because it’d be a shame to miss out on a Arbiters Grounds or Temple of Time quality dungeon but neither of us feels any great need to get there.