Gaming How to make Motion Controls Work in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

SG854

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The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword get alot of criticism for its motion controls not working as people would want. But I find this criticism unwarranted and from my own experience I found that the controls are very responsive and is down to user error.


I made this thread to help give advice to people to get motion controls working for them. The game is alot of fun with motion controls.


You need to Practice, Practice, Practice. You need to do a little bit of practice to build hand and arm coordination to move in a straight line.



The best place to practice is in the Skyloft's Knights Acedemy cutting down the logs.



I found a more fuller arm movement works best and to follow through with your swings. You may get away with smaller movements as long as you move your arm straight, no scoops, no werid curves, straight line.

The best starting position for your swings is in the direct opposite position of where you want to end up. So if you want to swing diagonally up to the right, then start your swing by moving your arm in the down diagonal left position. If you want to slice vertically up. Start in a bottom position. And do the same for the other different directional swings, always start opposite of where you want to swing to give your self maximum room for arm movement. With jabs start with the controller close to your chest so you can have more arm extension with your forward jabs. It's all about giving yourself room for extension.



Standing positioning matters, you need to be directly in front of the log for your angles to cut properly. You may notice this on the log you need to cut vertically. If you look at its side there is no groove to cut and if you try to cut its side with the correct horizontal slice movement, the log won't cut. So you need to be directly in front of it where the groove is.

When you approach a log and Z-target it, if you wait a bit before slicing you may notice the log slightly rotates. This is to accommodate the fact that you might not be standing directly in front of it. It rotates so that the groove is directly in line with your sword. If you start your swing too soon right after you approach it without waiting, the groove of the log won't have time to be in line of site and you won't be able to cut it.


So the best method for high success rate is to approach a log in the front of it, hold the z-target, then while holding the z-target wait a bit for the log to rotate in line of site, then slice in the correct direction. Rinse and repeat this method for every log. Front of log wait slice, next log wait slice, next log again wait then slice.


Practice as many times as you want moving your arm in a straight line the best you can and build coordination. This is a game not meant to be rapidly flailing your controller randomly. It won't respond well that way. It's about taking your time for the opportune moment then slice.


The controls work well for me with very high success rate, and can for you too if you properly build the coordination for it and practice.
 
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jimbo13

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I swear, people who have issues with the motion controls makes me think I am the only one who played it originally as intended and liked it. Worked fine for me.

They weren't that bad people, I think some of this was people trying to do the motion laying around drooling in a dorito coma.
 
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SG854

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I beat the game on Hero mode on Wii which would be near to impossible if the controls didn't work properly.

On Switch they work very well also.


It just needs practice. Motion controls isn't a very common playstyle so many people do not have the experience or coordination for them.

It's like a console gamer for the first time playing with a mouse and keyboard on pc. It is a very steep learning curve, especially if you don't have finger coordination to properly aim for the keys. The struggle you have on PC aiming for the keys is due to user and not the game itself. It may require a bit more thinking and effort to play the game.

But eventually with more practice it will become second nature. The same applies to motion controls for this game. It just needs time for coordination to build to this new not so common playstyle.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Some people just don't want to have to waggle their arm around like an idiot
This is not a thread for people that don't want to use motion controls. This is for people who couldn't get motion controls to work and criticize the game for bad motion controls.

I myself can confirm it's the user not the game. I cut all the logs about 20 times without a single hiccup. The game detected my motion movements properly. And I manage to beat boss rush mode without hardly getting hit.


And I don't know why swinging your arm always has the word idiot attached to it for this game. Flailing randomly maybe. But not deliberate planned slices. It's really fun and gets people to want to try whenever I play.
 
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M7L7NK7

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It's not attached for this game, it's for all games.. motion is a gimmick and anyone who enjoys swinging their arm around for 12 hours over using a controller is lying
 

SG854

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It's not attached for this game, it's for all games.. motion is a gimmick and anyone who enjoys swinging their arm around for 12 hours over using a controller is lying
I played this game for hours on end on the recent HD collection just fine enjoying it and I'm not lying.

I did take breaks here and there but I do that for every game I play. I can't sit down for 12 hours, it's not enjoyable and I need to get up to move around. I did the same for my recent playthrough of Rachet and Clank on PS5, I only played for 2 hrs at a time, then stopped to take a break from the game.


But again this thread is about advice on motion controls. It's not about people not wanting to use it. If you don't want to swing your arm then don't turn on motion controls simple as that, problem solved.

I started this thread with an opening that the criticism people give this game are that motion controls don't work properly. I then came in from my experience saying they do with advice to help them. The response to this is not I don't like swinging my arm I don't want to use motion controls. You not wanting to use motion controls is irrelevant to this thread.
 
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