Today, I want to talk about something that may not get enough attention but something I think is worth talking about. Specifically The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Many people have talked about this game to death but one common argument people have in defense of this game is "It could only have been a Wii game because it needed motion controls."
However, the more I think about this, the more I think that this is simply not the case. To demonstrate, I will take every single mechanic that Skyward Sword has with its motion controls and translate that onto a regular controller.
Now, many of you by now know I'm going to be using a Dual Shock Controller as my base for how it could be done but, since this is a Nintendo game, obviously the buttons are going to be on one of their controllers. What I say here will simply have to be transferred to the corresponding button.
I'm also hoping to improve the game in some way by incorporating mechanics that the game doesn't already have.
So the first thing I want to tackle is the sword combat because this is simultaneously the most defended aspect of this argument as well as one of the easiest to disprove. If we use Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance as a base, all we have to do is attach the sword combat to the second analog stick. Point the stick in one of the eight directions you want to slash, and release it to slash. Click the analog stick, or hit R3 in this case, to perform the stab. It's really that easy.
Of course, we do want to implement camera control and we can't do that if the analog stick is used for slashing so we want to make these two mechanics contextual. There are two ways to do it depending on who you ask. If you ask someone like me, the slashing should only be available while you're locked-on to something, holding the lock-on button with no enemies will set the camera behind your back.
If you ask someone like my brother, however, you make the analog stick depend on whether the sword is drawn or sheathed. Both these control schemes have benefits and downsides.
On the one hand, depending on a lock-on makes it impossible for the analog stick to change targets but can maintain running while cutting grass if you finagle it. On the other hand, making it depend on whether the sword's drawn removes camera control completely while the sword is out and you'll have to sheath the sword if you want to adjust the camera.
Personally, I think lock-on dependence is better so we can just readjust our target by removing and activating the lock-on when we need it.
Hit square to draw and sheathe the sword and this leaves Triangle for Fi's advice, Circle for extra items such as the bow or the grappling hook, and X as the interact button and dodge roll.
L1 would be the lock-on, pretty straight forward, if we want, we can hit R1 to go into first person for dowsing (if you want to keep that) or at least aiming with the bow. This leaves L2 and R2 to do things that may not always be active. For instance, if you want to perform a Skyward Strike, your hit square to draw the sword, hold forward on the right analog stick to hold the sword up, hold L2 while you're doing it to charge, then use the right stick to fire the attack.
Flying is also relatively easy so we'll go over that. First off, use the left stick to move, that's obvious, and have the right stick aim the bird so it can change directions without trouble. Think Drakengard and you get the idea. Hit X to speed up and charge forward and that's that.
Using the digging mitts is a bit trickier but I suppose it could just be an interaction with the X button over diggables.
Swimming would work largely the same as it does in the game with the control scheme from Majora's Mask. Pretty easy to imagine.
Although there are a number of mechanics I have yet to tackle and probably won't, this outline will give you an idea of how Skyward Sword's mechanics can be transplanted onto a controller without much trouble.
Next time, I'll talk about how The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild may have influenced the way the Switch turned out as a console. Have a wonderful day.
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