Nintendo’s latest well-designed, poorly implemented

Video gamers have been frustrated with Nintendo for several years now, mainly because of the company's recent focus on marketing to casual gamers instead of its long-time, more experienced fans.

And what exactly are casual gamers? They play games on Facebook and their smartphones. They play Wii Sports sometimes at parties. They've probably played Halo once or twice, and they don't understand why there's more than one Final Fantasy. They're what self-identifying gamers call everyone else.

Nintendo's focus on casual gamers has been quite lucrative, but in the process, some argue, the company has left their more creative, innovative games by the wayside. I mean, very few Zelda fans thought Twilight Princess (2006) was any good, and did anyone in their right mind at all play Metroid: Other M (2010)?

With Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2011), Nintendo hoped to change this perception, to win back old fans on the year of the franchise's 25th anniversary with a Zelda game for Zelda fans. And, in some sense, at least, they succeeded. But that doesn't mean Skyward Sword is a good game.

Let me explain. From the start I was impressed with the game's aesthetic attention to detail. The etchings and engravings on the temples and castles, for example, easily parsed by players familiar with Zelda lore, have no bearing on the gameplay itself, and yet these are the details that make a virtual world feel vibrant and alive.

The game begins with Link born and raised in Skyloft. Link begins to have odd dreams of a strange figure. Things happen, Link's life is thrown off track and Link has to stop an evil entity from destroying love, happiness and good in general. Link is his usual mute self and the fate of the world is in his hands.

Zelda fans: Ever wonder about the meaning of the red bird on Link's shield, right below the Triforce? Our only clue was the mysterious owl in Ocarina of Time, whom a Sheikah Stone told us was once an ancient sage. The significance of bird imagery was repeated in Twilight Princess, with the City in the Sky, but in Skyward Sword we find its origin and significance. Wondering about the origins of the Master Sword, or Ganon? The game will elaborate further for you long-timers.

Herein lies the game's irony: Although chronologically this installment in the Zelda series comes before the others (like a sort of uber-prequel), it plays out like a sequel. Not only are the aesthetics built on those of past games, but very little of the core mechanics have changed since Ocarina of Time (1998), or even as far back as A Link to the Past (1992). You could even argue that they haven't changed since the very first Legend of Zelda in 1987, if it wasn't for Zelda II in 1988, the black sheep of the franchise that no one likes to talk about.

That said, the one truly new thing about Skyward Sword is its motion controls. For nearly everyone who played, they seemed to make or break the game. Some were frustrated by the delay, lack of precision and constant need to recalibrate. Others loved swinging the Wiimote around and watching Link desperately reproduce their frantic motions.

But frantic motions will only get you so far. Some parts of the game, particularly the battles, were genuinely hard because players had to carefully time and angle their blows and swings to avoid opponents' parries and blocks. The only more realistic virtual swordfighting I've seen is in Infinity Blade, an RPG sword-fighting game for the iPhone, iPad and iTouch created by Epic Games.

Opposed to the challenging gameplay, however, is the game's unwillingness to trust you with it. Every time a new enemy appears, your helper, a spirit named Fi, pops up to inform you that the growling, threatening creature in front of you is probably going to try to kill you, and that you should use your sword to defeat it.

Every time you find a new puzzle, Fi gives you an overly generous hint about how to solve it, and once you succeed she infallibly informs you that you have indeed solved the puzzle. Every time you reach a new area, the game stops so Fi can recommend that you explore it.

I see this duality of loving aesthetic attention and infuriating bureaucratic interface as indicative of Nintendo as a company. On one hand is Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of The Legend of Zelda and other beloved video games.

On the other: his publisher, Nintendo, who seems determined to integrate the SparkNotes with the novel. Miyamoto still has a gift for the subtle beauty of the righteous quest, even if Nintendo itself seems determined to bury his vision in a tangle of allegedly user-friendly guidelines and gewgaws.

The casual gamers I spoke to said they enjoyed Skyward Sword. The gamers I spoke to said they were disappointed. I have to say I'm somewhere in between. Though still disappointed and frustrated with what could easily have been a far better game than it was, I enjoyed and respected Skyward Sword. But I couldn't help feeling like I was playing a "Simple Wikipedia" version of what could have been a far more complex and engrossing media experience.