Just when everyone gets ready to dismiss Wii for its recent lack of high quality games, Nintendo goes and releases a high quality game. Go figure. Wii has been lacking in "must have" titles for a while now, with shoddy, 3rd-party games about Barbie on horseback or 101-ways-to-waggle-your-Wii-mote dominating its new release list for months - nay, years. True to form, Nintendo puts out its own Wii games at a measured pace; titles invariably anticipated like solid gold bricks in a coal mine and delivering on that golden purity when released.

Such is the case with Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - which happens to come in a gold box and everything, just to drive the point home.

A time-honored franchise, this latest in a 2.5 decade-long string of ground-breaking Zelda games brings a new and refreshing adventure game filled with creative creatures, memorable bosses and a surprisingly emotional storyline - along with a patently cheesy set of characters.

While Nintendo has fiddled with some elements of the franchise in the name of newcomer "accessibility" and refined Wii MotionPlus controls, Skyward Sword maintains the core experience players of previous Zelda titles have come to expect.

As the (same old) story goes, bird-riding boy (that's you as Link) saves Princess (Zelda be her name) from the clutches of evil, defined as a malevolent "presence" that everyone in the (cloud-floating) land of Skyloft thought was a (ground-below) fairy tale but turns out to be real, like the Higgs Bozone (look it up). Along the long and winding way, you solve puzzles both clever and contrite, unlock doors and collect weapons upgrades that might see your sword cutting through burly enemies like butter or channeling its inner English Pointer. "Take that, you freakishly flamboyant six-arm scimitar-wielding robot." Move along, that-a-way. Nice.

While Skyward Sword's premise of getting from A to B by way of path X through locked door Y and the occasional, strategically ornery battle with monster Z could be considered a repetitive affair, the sheer volume of X, Y, and Z along with the vast a varied expanse between A and B makes each completed challenge feel like an accomplishment. The sum of it all, meanwhile, feels genuinely epic. Solid gold, you might say.