Jump to content

Search the Community

Showing results for tags 'left'.

The search index is currently processing. Current results may not be complete.
  • Search By Tags

    Type tags separated by commas.
  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • Important Links
    • Serenes Forest Code of Conduct
    • Mistakes or Errors on the Site
  • Important Forums
    • Announcements
    • Member Feedback
    • Site Content
  • General Forums
    • Introductions
    • General
    • Far from the Forest...
    • Creative
    • Fan Projects
    • General Gaming
  • Fire Emblem Forums
    • General Fire Emblem
    • NES and SNES Era
    • GameBoy Advance Era
    • GameCube and Wii Era
    • Nintendo DS Era
    • Nintendo 3DS Era
    • Fire Emblem: Three Houses
    • Fire Emblem: Engage
    • Fire Emblem Heroes
    • Related Games
  • Miscellaneous
    • Forum Graveyard

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start

    End


Last Updated

  • Start

    End


Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End


Group


Member Title


Jabber


Skype


Yahoo


ICQ


Website URL


MSN


AIM


Interests


Location

Found 1 result

  1. So, an HD re-release of Skyward Sword got announced for the Switch at the most recent direct, and they announced that the game would include optional button/stick controls to use in place of the motion controls. That's certainly a good addition, and there's been plenty of discussion about it. However, neither it nor anything else in the announcement addressed what, for me at least, was the biggest issue with the motion controls in Skyward Sword; the issue that kept me from playing Skyward Sword the first time around and raises a larger issue about gaming: (From the announcement): "The joy-con controller in your right hand is the sword", "The joy-con controller in your left hand is your shield" So... what if you're left-handed? For context: as a left-handed person in a world where 90% of the population is right-handed, I have had to grow used to using right-handed objects in everyday life: for just one example, I found a way to use right-handed scissors (or as a right-handed person would call them, scissors) with my left hand without it being awkward just so I wouldn't have to pay absurd amounts for "scissors designed for both hands" that look no different from normal scissors. However, when it comes to playing video games on consoles, handedness is usually not an issue: the main effect of handedness is on things involving precise motion and hand-eye coordination: writing, sports, using a pair of scissors, etc., and a standard controller has none of that: it's pressing buttons and tilting a control stick while relying more on the physical feedback of the buttons and the stick than on the visual feedback of the game, so me being left-handed has virtually no effect when playing most consoles. Console gaming was generally the one area where my handedness didn't matter at all. With the Wii and the DS, however, it was a different story. The DS Zelda games: Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, accommodated being left-handed: the game right away asked if you were left-handed or right-handed, and it adjusted the UI on the touch screen accordingly. More than that, almost every aspect of the gameplay utilized the DS pen, so there was never a situation involving having to use the control stick and the DS pen at the same time; something I heard was a major issue with Kid Icarus: Uprising to the point where Nintendo released a right control stick attachment (and of course, that attachment costed money rather than coming with the game, so there was a whiff of that "double-priced scissors that both hands can supposedly use equally"). Nintendo remembered to be inclusive towards the left-handed. Plenty of Wii games, such as Wii Sports, also took left-handed players into consideration. The design of the Wii remote also took it into account: the Wii remote and nunchuck were symmetrical and could be held easily in either hand. And yet, for Skyward Sword, left-handed players got nothing. The game was designed around motion controls that favored being right-handed, and there were no options to alter the controls. Every time I went to the store and came across Skyward Sword on the Wii, this is the thing that ultimately kept me from purchasing it. Now, with this HD re-release, I was really hoping that would finally be addressed, but, while it's certainly possible that the game may have a "left-handed mode" that simply wasn't announced, the trailer could not have leaned more towards being right-handed if it tried: not only those descriptions of the combat above, but also the special themed joy-cons they announced with the right joy-con being the sword and the left joy-con being the shield. The worst part is that the Switch re-release could actually end up being less inclusive than the Wii version if this is ignored: I know of a number of left-handed players who simply played Skyward Sword with the Wii remote in their left hand and the nunchuck in their right; it was awkward for them because motion controls rely entirely on visual feedback and Link's using the sword and shield in the opposite hands, but it was something. The equivalent for the Switch version would be swapping the very asymmetrical joy-cons and awkwardly holding them in the opposite hands. This is a problem that even occurred with Super Mario 3D All-Stars: in the Wii version of Mario Galaxy, handedness didn't matter one bit. However, for the 3D All-Stars version, all the motion controls were mapped to the right joy-con. A Wii game where handedness didn't matter became a game that disadvantaged the left-handed when ported to the Switch, and unlike the problem with the camera controls in the 3D All-Stars version of Mario Sunshine, Nintendo has yet to fix this. You would think that Nintendo would want to be as inclusive as possible for its audience even from a simple business standpoint; that was certainly the reasoning behind all the handholding in late Wii-era games such as this one. Adding to this, when it comes to Skyward Sword and handedness, it isn't just the controls that bother me: the left-handed like myself have hardly any representation in gaming. For the longest time, Link was the only left-handed hero of any noteworthiness, and he had been left-handed since the very first Zelda game (though for that game you'd have to look at the artwork to confirm it due to sprite-mirroring in 8-bit games). Then Skyward Sword changed that; he was made right-handed to mirror the motion-controls and cater to a right-handed audience, and though the 2D Zelda games that have come after have kept Link as left-handed, Breath of the Wild: a game with zero motion controls and with no animations or programming ported over from Skyward Sword, had a right-handed Link. At E3 2016, in response to questions about this, Eiji Aonuma had this response: "In terms of right-handedness of things, when we think about which hand Link is going to use, we think about the control scheme. With the gamepad, the buttons you'll be using to swing the sword are on the right side, and thus he's right-handed." There's no way to describe this statement except as complete bogus; the attack button's been on the right side of the controller since the NES, yet Link has always been left-handed. Adding to this, in another interview in 2017, Eiji said this: "It is a matter of chance that Link is left-handed in the first episodes, for a reason that we could not really explain today" It was most certainly not chance; the reason is that the series creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, favours his left hand and enjoys adding left-handed characters in games. He made Bowser Jr. left-handed, he made Rosalina left-handed, etc. So, one thing we aren't getting from Nintendo about the reason for why is the truth, and I think the reason for that is simply that there was no reason they made Link right-handed in Breath of the Wild, and now after being asked, they're just trying to make it sound like there was a good reason. They've even gone so far as to say that Link is "ambidextrous" and I honestly think they don't realize what they're doing: they're reducing the number of noteworthy left-handed heroes, not just in gaming but in pretty much all of fiction, from one to zero, and that's a real shame. Anyway, these are my thoughts. Sorry this is a bit long, but I wanted to mention everything I could about this and cover all my thoughts on this. What are your thoughts on this?
×
×
  • Create New...