Discussion YMMV / TheLegendofZeldaSkywardSword

I should mention prior to Breath of the Wild, every Zelda game since Ocarina of Time fell victim to the Zelda Cycle where the latest Zelda would be hated by the Zelda fanbase while the previous Zelda gets love after initially being hated when it was the new Zelda.

There was a thread on Ask the Tropers that had somebody mention the games from Majora's Mask onto Skyward Sword had so many polarizing opinions that the games could flip from being loved to hated to everything inbetween. But as to Skyward Sword itself, I've been seeing positive reception about the HD version compared to the Wii original.

I'd say most Zeldas from Majora's Mask to Skyward Sword all meet the Popularity Polynomial definition (media alternates between not popular to popular).

Apologies, I didn't realize discussion was happening here as well. I brought the matter up in the Examples thread three separate times. The first time, there was a moderate consensus that it is not an example, but as I knew the example had been deleted before, I specifically made sure to bring it up again to give folks more chances to weigh in before deleting it.

Regardless, I still believe that it is NOT an example. It has not gone back and forth between "popular" and "unpopular." It received a one-time reappraisal, NOT to the original version, but to a remake. That's not "back and forth," it's just "forth."

Edit: Going to copy-paste my post on the ITAE thread:

The spirit of the trope is "people loved it, then they hated it, then they loved it again." (Or the inverse, and adjust for how many times it's gone back and forth between positive and negative.)

It would be a heck of a stretch to say that Skyward Sword was ever "beloved." Certainly there was pre-release hype for it, but should that really count? Virtually as soon as people got their hands on it, the general consensus was that it was one of the weaker games in the series. And while it did go through a certain amount of reappraisal with the remaster, as far as I can tell it never rose to the level of "underappreciated masterpiece" or anything; the general consensus is that the Qo L improvements make it better than it was, but still overall pretty weak.

I don't think a one-time upgrade from "hate it, it's the worst" -> "meh, not totally godawful" quite fits the spirit of the trope.

I'll copy what I posted on the forum thread:

I think you are forgetting it's YMMV, and the game counts. When it first came out, it had critical and audience acclaim, and then the fanbase turned on it. I remember a mod on a Zelda Wiki removing everything on the game's page so it only said "THIS GAME SUCKS". And it stayed unedited for ages. Today, fans of the game can talk about liking it without getting jumped on by a Hatedom, and the traditional controls of the Switch port warmed Zelda fans to the game. If Skyward Sword doesn't count, none of the Zelda games do.

And the consensus on the Switch port was that it's better than the original. The critic scores of the remake are as favourable as the original, taking into account their tendency to knock off points for HD ports.

I do not remember ANY critical or audience acclaim when the game first came out. Can you give me any support for that statement?

Review aggregate websites rate it quite favourably. A cursory google of the game would show it had very good reviews on release.

Eh, critical responses are always pretty divorced from fan responses, and critics don't typically get together and write new reviews after a year or two such that we could measure the way critical opinion changed between the original release and the re-release.

I still think it's pretty iffy.

You can think whatever you like, it's YMMV for a reason. Plus, you did ask for evidence of critical acclaim and metacritic allows user reviews.

YMMV doesn't mean "anyone can list anything and no one can ever delete it." It still has to fit the definition, and this just plain doesn't. A one-time bump does not equate to a repeated pattern of "love it" -> "hate it" and back again. That's not an opinion, it's literally the definition of the trope. You're shoehorning.

The laconic is "Something once considered a fad is now popular once more." The page itself says nothing about requiring a work to have more than one reputational cycle, so this "one time bump" counts.

I've provided proof that the game was acclaimed critically and by the fanbase on release, was maligned some time after, and then seen as good again with the release of the HD port. You've provided nothing except a misinterpretation of Popularity Polynomial and your own subjective opinions.

Laconics are just a (hopefully) useful shorthand, not the definition. The definition is:

"This is when something which portrays itself as "cutting edge" becomes mainstream, but soon becomes overexposed, behind the times, old hat, or just plain uncool. However, given enough time, it suddenly begins to make a comeback, usually accompanied by words like "vintage," "nostalgic," and "classic." It's gone through the ups and downs of the popularity polynomial."

Ups, plural. Downs, plural. None of the above applies to Skyward Sword. I submit that it is you who are misinterpreting the trope.

When it says "ups and downs", it's talking generally, not that each happening more than once is a requirement. A lot of the examples on the trope page go through the "cool, uncool, cool again" cycle once.

"It's gone through the up and down of the popularity polynomial" doesn't flow as good as "It's gone through the ups and downs of the popularity polynomial" does.

Is English your first language? I'm not saying it to be mean, just that it would explain the misunderstanding.

English is in fact my first language, and I know it well enough to know that the proper phrasing is "flows as well," not "flows as good." (:

The phrase "ups and downs" refers to a sustained, repeated pattern. A one-time positive reappraisal is not "ups and downs," it's just an up. There's no down.

I think we're going to need a third party for this.

I agree, we're talking in circles. The "Is This An Example" thread doesn't seem to get any responses. Maybe an ATT post?

Edit: Looks like you already came to the same conclusion, will check out the responses over there.

... Thank you for informing us on this?

Yes, please let's not use discussion pages to complain about fans or fandoms.

This is YMMV, of course there will be fan reactions and opinions you don't agree with (and SS is far from the first game to suffer this, just ask TP).

Didn't want to come across as natter on the page sorry.

I tend to agree with the idea Hylia manipulated events, and that her manipulations could run even deeper then suggested, answering a great many questions - with a lot of fridge horror. We have to accept that Zelda merged with the goddess on their word, but what if that was not the case? What if she took over her body? Impa was exceptionally cold to Link at the start, what if she had that same ruthlessness to Zelda too? Impa serves the goddess, -not- zelda... so I think Impa would also deserve a re-interpretation as an agent of Hylia, and Zelda's safety was only to ensure the re-birth of Hylia. That smile when Link came in the end could simply be her thinking, events have fallen exactly into place. It would also mean... Zelda was never saved. She's the puppet of the goddess now. I was actively trying to find evidence to the contrary in playing the game but found none... Anyone have any thoughts to this?

My thoughts is this is all way contrary to the message and tone of the game, and smacks of Poison Oak Epileptic Trees.

It's a nice WMG, but absence of evidence against is not, in and of itself, evidence for any fanon theory. Under the same logic, I could present that the goddess Hylia is actually Raiden from Mortal Kombat. The game contains no evidence that contradicts this, but that doesn't mean it's true. In the end, millions of fan-theories can be devised to explain any number of things, but if your theory contradicts what we've been told onscreen, absence of evidence isn't enough. If you can't find evidence within the work to support your explanation of the events in question, it just doesn't hold water.

The Burden of Proof will always lay with the dissenting opinion, not the accepted explanation.

Well, the evidence that Hylia is not Raiden: Raiden doesn't exist in the Zelda series.

Other bits of evidence... Impa serves the goddess... if Zelda was not compliant, what would have happened? Why was it necessary, to be so cruel to link, who was risking his life to chase after them? The 'reason you suck' speech she gives, makes no sense.

Anyway I suspect what I think is just due to some bad translations, and undeveloped characters. If Zelda was a little more developed, one could see the change before she gained the goddess's memories. I will provide one evidence to the contrary though, that happens right at the end... Zelda expresses a wish to explore, and I'm sure she had that same wish at the start. It is actually the only thing I found that made me feel a little better.

I fail to see how anything you've said is "evidence" of anything you're saying.

Maybe it's not "bad translations and undeveloped characters" so much as you fabricating something that simply isn't there in the first place.

"Impa serves the goddess... if Zelda was not compliant, what would have happened?"

A hypothetical scenario that is completely irrelevant to your proposal that the goddess Hylia overwrote Zelda entirely would have happened.

"Why was it necessary, to be so cruel to link, who was risking his life to chase after them? The 'reason you suck' speech she gives, makes no sense."

Short answer: because Link sucked. Impa's still pretty young. Link didn't live up to her expectations, and she told him that outright because she's young and tactless. And this is also irrelevant to the topic of "Hylia overwrote Zelda".

All either of these two datapoints prove is that Impa is kind of a bitch. Furthermore, the point of the "Hylia overwrote Zelda" theory is moot to begin with, because Zelda is Hylia from the start. We are explicitly told this, and at no point is it contradicted. Zelda is Hylia reincarnated in mortal form. Suggesting a malicious body takeover is like suggesting that Ganondorf has been being possessed and controlled by Ganon throughout the entire series; it's the same damn character.

Well, difficulty is subjective and not all aspects are as easy or hard as each other. I wouldn't say Windwaker was the easiest before SS came out either. This one room in particular had you defeat an entire mob of different enemies, close range and long range. some of the wizzrobes would summon more monsters if you failed to defeat them as well. Seriously, some people will never quit with their inflammatory remarks. They say it's kiddy, even though it has a darker storyline than TP which they call an adult Zelda game, they say it is too easy even though it is at least harder in one aspect than a lot of the other Zelda's namely combat. To me, the easiest would be SS for it's dungeons and puzzles, and Ocarina and TP tied for combat. And Fi is insulting to me. When Fi comes out immediately after somebody says something and repeats it word for word I feel like they expected me to either not be paying attention or to be so stupid I needed it repeated. People say Fi doesn't have a personality. I say, she is arrogant and thinks we are all idiots. That's why she feels the need to tell us that we are almost dead.You could be missing a limb and bleeding to death and she will say "there is a 99 percent probability that you will kick the bucket if you don't stop bleeding to death." NAW, I never thought of that, I thought that was the way to live. I guess I should sew up this wound then. Thanks Fi, you saved my life!