Running around the Knight Academy gives the player a chance to familiarize themself with the basic control scheme. The basic movement controls are the same as ever, although the lack of an analog stick on the Wiimote means the camera’s back to how it was in the N64 days. (Also, the Switch option for target locking is gone, sadly.) Link can run now by holding the A button; rolling is the one intrusion of motion controls in basic movement, requiring shaking the Nunchuk while running. While doing something strenuous, like running or climbing or carrying something heavy or spin attacking, Link loses wedges of his Stamina Lime, and if he runs out, he has to stop to catch his breath. There are Stamina Fruit plants growing around the world and grabbing one restores the Stamina Lime to full.
Before leaving the Academy, Link meets Fledge, who’s carrying big barrels to the kitchen. Link gets to help out, with Fledge explaining how to toss things, although the woman in the kitchen’s bound to get upset if anything breaks. After Link successfully delivers a barrel, it’s all too tempting to run around smashing everything else. The woman gets angry at him for doing it, ultimately threatening to talk to the headmaster and have Link expelled. Fledge seems oblivious to Link’s destructive streak and gives him half his pay for the job.
As Link leaves, an instructor calls to him from above, ready to offer tutorials on target locking, dashing up walls, jumping, dangling and crawling on ledges, climbing, and pushing boxes. There are two objectives to this tutorial: first, getting up to where the instructor is, then rescuing Headmaster Gaepora’s pet, a catlike Remlit named Mia. The instructor directs Link to Gaepora, who’s up by Skyloft’s Goddess Statue along with Zelda. Along the way, Link runs across a man fixing a gate who points out the bird statues around Skyloft where Link can offer prayers to the goddess (i.e., save the game). The whole scene is awkwardly written, including the phrase “As you know…” when the man talks about how the statues are all over the place.
At the base of the Goddess Statue, Zelda’s still playing the harp and singing. She stops when she senses Link behind her and turns around to greet him, showing off the harp and the clothes she’s wearing, part of her role as the goddess in the forthcoming ceremony. After a bit, Gaepora – Zelda’s father – comes up to the two of them. (Gaepora resembles Ocarina of Time’s Rauru, and in a nod to Rauru’s owl form/Gaepora’s namesake Kaepora Gaebora, he has giant eyebrows which, along with his moustache, goatee, and sideburns, give him a distinctly owllike appearance. And he even punctuates a sentence with a “hoo hoo” laugh.) He talks some more about the ceremony: there’s a Loftwing race, and the winner gets to participate in the ceremony along with Zelda.
At the mention of the race, Zelda goes off, saying that Link has been neglecting his practice and not terribly into it when he’s been practicing. Gaepora tries to reassure her and explains to Zelda all about the Loftwings. The birds are a gift from the goddess, and they form symbiotic bonds with Skyloftians. Meeting their paired Loftwing is a big deal for young Skyloftians, and Link’s was special. His Loftwing is a rare crimson breed that was believed extinct before Link’s showed up. Link took to flying without a need for instruction, and Zelda was jealous of Link’s bond with his bird. This cutscene is the gate repairman’s speech about bird statues times a hundred; there seriously had to be a better way to get this information to the player than this.
Zelda’s not placated, though, as she’s worried that if Link doesn’t do well enough in the race, he won’t be able to become a knight. Gaepora keeps trying to reassure her, so she turns on Link, telling him to get some extra practice before the race. She drags him over to a dock where he can jump off onto his Loftwing. Link’s hesitant because he can’t sense the Loftwing, which Zelda just takes as Link not wanting to practice, so she pushes him off the dock. Link’s calls to the Loftwing go unanswered, and Zelda eventually realizes something’s wrong, jumps off and calls her Loftwing and saves him before he falls through the clouds.
Gaepora wonders where Link’s Loftwing could be, and Zelda apologizes for not believing him about not sensing it out there. Bells start ringing, and Gaepora notes it’s getting late, sending Link to find to Instructor Horwell and have him come talk to him about delaying the ceremony while Link finds what’s happened to his Loftwing. There seems to be a lot of favoritism here because Link and Zelda are close friends, and I kinda wonder if the others in the race would get similar treatment and feel bad for them if not.
Next: That sympathy doesn’t last long.
