Nintendo Power has released their new issue in which they cover Zelda Skyward Sword and have also released a lot of new details in regards of the game. We have the scans available here along with a summary of what exactly was revealed. Be warned as there is a lot of spoilers.

Update: Thanks to ZD, we have the entire article copied, so if you would like to read everything since some of the scans are bad quality then you can do so below the thumbnails of the scans.

• The Skyward Sword has an official name, the Goddess Sword.
• Fi is the correct spelling of the Master Sword’s spirit.
• The myserious woman shown in the recent trailer is indeed a Sheikah.
• Fi was created by the Goddess to guide Link.
• Zelda’s father is named Gaepora and is similar to the name Kaepora Gaebora, it is hinted that they are related.
• The second dungeon of the game is the Earth Temple.
• The Eldin Province returns from Twilight Princess, but is a much more dangerous area.
• The sword beam has a new name, the Skyward Strike.
• The Sheikah Stones make a return to give Link clues during his quest.
• There is a day/night system in the game.
• There will be several new races in the game.
• Ghirahim is out to resurrect his master which is hinted to be behemoth, the giant black monster that Link has visions of in the game.

Ever since Nintendo unveiled The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, we’ve known it would be something special. How could it not be? After all, it’s the latest game in the renowned Legend of Zelda franchise, enhanced with Wii MotionPlus controls (including one-to-one sword combat), a unique and vibrant art style, and news twists to the series conventions. Link, for example, is a knight in training, and Zelda isn’t even a princess! Over the past several months, we’ve had the chance to soar through the sky atop giant birds called Loftwings, explore a mysterious forest, navigate a portion of a treacherous dungeon, and even battle Ghirahim, the game’s new villain. More recently, we got to experience the first several hours of gameplay, and we’ve walked away convinced that Skyward Sword will be another incredible can’t-miss adventure. Here are 19 of the reasons why.

1. SKYLOFT IS HUGE!
We’ve known for a long time that one of the primary locations in the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword would be Skyloft — a world floating amongst the clouds — but we didn’t realize how big it was going to be. Not only does the airborne island contain a Knight Academy, where Link is enrolled, but it also contains a giant goddess statue, a large residential quarters, a plaza, and a cave near a majestic waterfall. There are lots if locations to explore off the beaten path, and there are even additional floating islands, separate from the main island. And get this: unlike locales in most video games, Skyoft has a bathhouse and a toilet! Finally, Link can get some relief.

2. NEW FACES
Several new characters reside on Skyloft, most notably Link’s instructors and classmates at the Knight Academy. The headmaster, Gaepora, is Zelda’s father. He’s a large man with an imposing presence, and he sports a stylin’ unibrow. Longtime Zelda fans might note that his names is similar to that of Kaepora Gaebora, the owl from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and oddly enough, Gaepora tends to laugh with an owl-like “hoo, hoo, hoo.” Another important character is Groose, who’s sort of the Biff Tannen of Skyloft. Always accompanied by his lackeys Cawlin and Stritch, Grosse is quick to bully people to get his way; he’s also got a major crush on Zelda. Other significant characters include Pipit (a senior student and academy’s resident bird expert) and Fledge (who’s a nice guy, but kind of a wimp).

3. MAKING A MESS
In previous Zelda games, household objects were frequently nailed down and weren’t interactive. In Skyward Sword, that’s not the case. As you wander through the Knight Academy, and other places in Skyloft, you’ll discover lots of stuff that can be knocked over, including glasses, plates, vases, and flowerpots. If you perform a roll (triggered by shaking the Nunchuck while you’re dashing) into a piece of furniture, any object on top of it will likely fall over and shatter. It’s not a very nice thing to do, but it’s one example of how Skyward Sword creates one of the most convincing worlds in the Zelda Series.

4. A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP
we’ve been aware for a while that the Skyward Sword iterations of Link and Zelda have known each other since childhood, but it’s one thing to be aware of it, and other to see how it plays out. The two are clearly very close — Zelda wakes Link up early in the morning just so he can be the first person to see her in the goddess attire that she’s wearing to perform at a ceremony later in the day. However, she then says that Link is lazy and hasn’t been practicing for the flight-competition portion of the ceremony, so she shoves him straight off the edge of Skyloft! (Don’t worry; Link’s OK.) Later in the day — after Link’s won the competition and he and Zelda have performed the ceremony together — the two of them embark on an evening flight. However, just when Zelda says there’s something she’s been meaning to tell Link for a while, an unearthly black tornado appears, and Zelda is pulled to the mysterious world beneath the clouds.

5. WHO IS FI?
After being separated from Zelda, Link wakes up in bed, thankfully rescued by his Loftwing. However, Link hears some commotion in the hall outside, and when he leaves his room, he sees the mysterious floating figure of a woman. When Link pursues her, she leads him on a chase all over Skyloft that ends at the goddess statue. There we find out Fi is a spirit that resides in a mystical blade called the Goddess Sword, and that she considers Link her new master. Created by the goddess herself, Fi is full of knowledge that will help Link fulfill his destiny.

6. DEMONIC KITTY ATTACK!
Like the worlds of many Zelda games, that of Skyward Sword is active during both day and night. However, the day/night change doesn’t occur in real time; you must go to sleep to make time pass. (You can choose to sleep until night or morning.) At night, Skyloft becomes a dangerous place. You’ll have to fight off bats and slimes, and even the kitty-cats become aggressive. The demonic kitties are easily some of the freakiest things we’ve ever seen in a Zelda game.

7. INTERFACE OPTIONS
Some of the early screens shown for Skyward Sword featured a pretty beefy user interface, complete with an image of the controller superimposed over part of the display. But you’ll see no such thing on the screenshots in this feature. But turns out the interface is adjustable. The Standard interface includes the controller overlay and button functions; the Light interface shows only a few button designations; and the Pro interface is almost totally clean.

8. HOW BAZAAR!
One of the most important buildings in Skyloft is the bazaar. If you need it, the bazaar has probably got it. Not only does the bazaar contain an item shop (where you can buy shields, bombs, arrows, and the like) and a potion shop (which offers several types of potions, including Heart Potions to restore your health and Guardian Potions to reduce the damage you receive), but it also has a fortune teller, a storage facility (to store items that won’t fit in your nventory), and the Scrap Shop, which is sort of like a blacksmith’s.

9. THE BIG, BLACK MONSTER
Through the early goings of Skyward Sword, Link repeatedly has dreams of an enormous worm-like monster with giant pointed teeth. At one point early in the game Ghirahim makes mentions of resurrecting his master — it couldn’t be this behemoth, could it?

10. ITEM ENHANCEMENT
The Scrap Shop offers a service that enables you to power up your items and equipment. To do so, though, you’ll need to acquire rare ingredients — such as hornet larvae, ornamental skulls, and lizard tails — during your travels. Some are obtained by defeating enemies, others are found while exploring, but all of them can prove useful. For example, if you use two amber relics, one monster claw, and one jelly blob to enhance your wooden shield, it’ll upgrade to a much more durable Banded Shield.

11. GIFTS FROM BELOW
As you explore Skyloft, you’ll occasionally come across big silver treasure chests that can’t be opened. What’s the secret? When you reach the surface world, you’ll encounter strange blocks known as Goddess Cubes. If you blast a Goddess Cube with a Skyward Strike from your sword, you’ll make the block launch into the sky, unlocking one of the silver chests. When you return to Skyloft, you’ll want to be sure to track down the treasure.

12. RETURN OF THE SHEIKAH STONES
If you’ve played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, then you already know about the Sheikah Stones — helpful monuments that provide video hints about what to do next if you get stuck. Well, they’re back in Skyward Sword. In fact, a Sheikah Stone appears in the courtyard outside the Knight Academy shortly after the adventure begins.

13. GREAT SAVINGS
In most Zelda games you can save anywhere you want. Not so in Skyward Sword — you can save only at designated points by interacting with special statues. The downside, of course, is that you can’t save on a whim. The upside though, is that it allows you to save your exact location; you aren’t sent back to Link’s room or the beginning of a dungeon just because you needed to turn off your game. In fact, there are frequently save points in mod-dungeon and just before boss battles. Equally useful is the fact that when you travel from Skyloft to the surface world, you can travel directly to any save point you’ve activated (except the ones in dungeons).

14. THE NEW ELDIN PROVINCE
In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Eldin Province was a rugged, dry land that offered plenty of challenge. In Skyward Sword, it’s more than rugged and dry — it’s hazardous and hot. This iteration of Eldin Province is full of lethal lava streams and rocky terrain, and any plant life that manages to exist is withered and brown. You’ll encounter enemies called Pyrups in Eldin; these foes like to hide in small caves or within the skeletal remains of other beasts, then breathe fire at anybody that comes by. However, you’ll be able to make short work of them by cleverly tossing or rolling Bomb Flowers to penetrate their enemies.

15. MEET THE MOGMA
You’ll encounter several new races of creatures in Skyward Sword, including the mole-like Mogma. We had previously seen these guys briefly during a nonplayable demo, but now that we’ve met them ourselves we’re kind of shocked at how cowardly they are. Apparently they’re great at digging and treasure-hunting, but they’re likely to run from their own shadows. Nonetheless, they’re nice chaps, and they reward Link for his help by giving him Gidding Mitts and a Bomb Bag.

16. BOKOBLIN EVICTION SERVICE
Bokoblins — nasty red-skinned enemies that you can see in some of the screenshots on this page — are trying to make over Eldin Province, and it’s up to Link to stop them. They’ve even set up a makeshift village (mainly consisting of lumber and tattered cloth) halfway up a volcano. Luckily, Link has the skills to single-handedly raid the village, defeat all the bad guys, and blow their watchtowers to the ground.

17. WOMAN IN BLACK
As Link explores the surface world in an attempt to find Zelda, he crosses paths with an enigmatic, ninja-like woman in black. Who is she? What is she doing? All we know for sure is that she wears a mark of the Sheikah on her clothes and her forehead. Hopefully she’s friendly.

18. THE EARTH TEMPLE
The second dungeon in the game is the Earth Temple, located within a volcano in Eldin Province. The temple has a Chinese dragon theme, and, as you’d expect, the place is full of lava.It’s also got a number of dangerous Lizalfos to deal with, as well as fire-spitting foes. You’ll spend a great deal of time in this dungeon atop a stone sphere (which was originally the eyeball of a massive statue) to navigate the treacherous lava floes. You’ll frequently have to use bombs to create new paths as you guide the sphere to it’s destination. Toward the end of the dungeon, Link as an Indiana Jones moment — after he grabs an item from a treasure chest, he finds himself running from a giant boulder!

19. FEARSOME FIEND
We saw the Earth Temple’s boss — the Pyroclastic Fiend Spaldera — in screenshots at this year’s E3. Now we’ve had a chance to fight it — and it’s quite a battle. Though it bears some resemblance to a humongous insect, it’s more like a blob with six legs, encased in a stone shell. That can burst into flames whenever it wants. As it charges at you, you’ll have to knock it back with bombs; it retaliates by shooting large bursts of fire. We don’t want to spoil the fight entirely, but we will say that Spaldera does have some Dodongo-like tendencies. This beast is just one of the reasons why we’re so excited about The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword; players are bound to encounter hundreds (if not thousands) of reasons more when the final game is releases in November.

This article was posted on Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 at 3:02 pm and is filed under Skyward Sword and was written by Crono.