Firstly, I’d like to provide an update on my website. I usually post weekly, however, I have had a difficult few weeks in my personal life and thus decided to take some time away from writing, I hope all readers understand. Weekly posts are expected to resume as normal from here on out! Nonetheless, let us get into the main topic of this article.
Few games I have given my firm ‘no, I’m not buying that’ stance to as much as I did to Skyward Sword HD. This was largely due to the insane prices that Nintendo charges for these ports. It is also due to my bitterness that my beloved WindWaker HD port was ignored in favour of this game. However, leading up to the release, I kept seeing advertisements and I was led into what was truly my first Zelda experience that left me completely infatuated. Anyways, here is what I thought of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD.
Story –
I am going to be honest, I’ve never fully beaten a Zelda game outside of Breath of the Wild. This isn’t for lack of wanting to, it is just that when I was growing up I was always more of an Xbox and Playstation kinda guy. This meant I never really got to experience any Zelda games growing up. It also meant that Breath of the Wild was my first Zelda experience.
However, despite the fact I have nothing to compare and contrast it against, I can say that Skyward Sword’s Story really is fantastic. I’d say my favourite genre of games are cinematic, linear, story-driven adventures. This game quite literally ticks all those boxes, which was a surprise that I was not expecting whatsoever.
Obviously Skyward Sword keeps in line of the simple and over-done ‘go save the princess’ tagline that Nintendo loves. However, in this game, it feels like it has a lot more depth to it. With Zelda playing active roles in the story, fleshed out areas, and characters that combine to create a sense of true adventure and meaning behind what you are trying to accomplish.
A ‘save the princess’ story can never be the most amazing thing to hit the market. That being said, I’d say Skyward Sword HD, as of now, is the best iteration I have seen that has managed to make it with more depth and meaning.
Characters –
Truly, Zelda has always had great character portrayal from what I’ve experienced. That being said, once again, all I’ve really experienced is a bit of Link’s Awakening and Breath of the Wild. However, it has seemed that from the outside looking in anyways, character portrayal has always been handles well. This is the exact situation with Skyward Sword HD.
Personally, from the few Zelda games I have played, Skyward Sword’s characters and designs are the best for me. I can say characters like Zelda herself are really well fleshed out. Others such as Groose offer a lot of character and personality to the game also, with there being a few funny moments sprinkled about too. This is all combined with him especially having a redeeming side-story.
However, there is also the side-characters who do not really play much of a role in the game’s story. Characters such as Beetle and Rupin are brilliantly designed and are just bursting with really unique personality traits in how their characters interact with Link. Rupin specifically shows the passion that went into making this game truly feel like a living world filled with unique people.
That being said, one of the main complaints against characters in this game comes against Fi. She is Link’s servant, attached to his sword in his quest to stop Demise. I would have to say I agree with every complaint made against Fi. I understand she is supposed to be an emotionless spirit/robot, but that being said, it just feels awkward and annoying to listen to her repeat the same phrases over and over completely void of any personality. I can only imagine how annoying she must have been in the original version of this game where her dialogue wasn’t optional.
The World –
Obviously a big aspect of Skyward Sword is the world in which it takes place. That being Skyloft or The Surface. These two areas act in-tandem from one and other despite being completely separate in terms of what they offer to the game-play.
Skyloft acts as one of the most iconic ‘hub-worlds’ I have ever witnessed. Everything from the design, to the people, to the general atmosphere just creates a constant feeling of returning home every single time you harken back to their from your adventures elsewhere. Admittedly, there isn’t really much to do in Skyloft itself, other than the odd side-quest. However, ignoring that, it acts as a fantastic and memorable hub-world to reach the rest of the map from. That being said, it can become quite tedious to have to slowly fly to every single area of the game from Skyloft.
In terms of the rest of the game, which mostly takes place on The Surface. This area initially feels exciting at every turn, and that remains true until the end of the game. However, with a game as long as this (I finished it in around 35hours), I do think there needs to be more unique areas to traverse.
The game tries its best to freshen up each area with new challenges and changes in the environment, but usually these changes do not differ much from the original look of the environment, and in some cases (Faron Woods), they become worse for their changes by becoming flooded with immense amounts of water. Trust me, you do not want to be trying to move through a world filled with water with motion controls whilst having to accurately collect notes on a timer.
The game also introduces Silent Realm versions of each world, which are the most unnecessarily stressful sections of a game I think I have ever gone through. Ultimately, the world is vibrant and memorable, but I think for the length of the game there can be a little bit of staleness that settles in through the world progression and development later on in the story and although they attempt to freshen things up with the environment changes and aspects like Silent Realms, they never really make the experience change for the better.
Controls –
Moving onto the controls, which judging from the internet, was one of the main reasons Skyward Sword was regarded as a bit of a disliked title when it originally released on the Wii in 2011. If I was totally honest, this game would definitely be a lot more enjoyable if it had the controls of a traditional console title. However, that isn’t to say the motion controls are disgusting. They are sometimes annoying, particularly when the game forces you into an entire world of water, but they can often immersive in some cases too. For the most part though, the motion controls are bare-able, and just leave you imagining how much more enjoyable this already great game could have been had it been made with button controls in mind.
Speaking of button controls, this is something the Switch version of Skyward Sword attempted to address. The key word here being ‘attempted’. It is an incredibly difficult task to make a game designed for motion controls to work with solely button controls. This is particularly noticeable in areas of the game that have design choices such as making every encounter with an enemy a puzzle in itself, that the player has to work out through the use of guiding your weaponry through motion.
Aspects of the game such as this that are designed with motion in-mind are possible through button movements, but never really feel like a real alternative. Essentially, button controls sound good in concept, but in this game, they are completely worthless. This comes mainly due to being unable to efficiently move the camera via gyro and just design choices being designed with purely motion in-mind back in 2011. I played almost the entire game with motion controls, as buttons never felt like a real option.
Freedom Within Linearity –
This section of the article is based completely on personal preference. I understand that a lot of people prefer to have a more open-ended adventure, something akin to Breath of the Wild. However, for me, I find my mind more focused and attentive to a game that is open-ended, but still promotes linearity in its objectives.
What I am trying to say is linearity within games and clear goals promote freedom within my mind as the player. Games that have vague or optional goals, such as open-world titles are less preferred for me, and I often find it incredible difficult to ever have the motivation to finish them. I like knowing where I am going, what I am doing and everything I am doing being focused toward one particular end-goal.
As someone who had only ever really played Breath of the Wild before Skyward Sword HD, I never really considered myself a Zelda fan. I enjoyed and was blown away by Breath of the Wild, but the open-ended nature of the game never really allowed me to fully immerse myself in the story or world. Skyward Sword’s linearity addresses all these issues for me and allowed me to have a focused experience where I was fully immersed every single time I sat down to play.
It was this alone that made me realise that it isn’t that I am just ‘not a big fan of Zelda’, instead it made me realise that I just am a fan of a ‘particular’ Zelda. That being, more linear 3D Zelda games!
Boss Fights –
Boss fights in this game are memorable and never really easy the first time around. I expected a Mario level of boss difficulty with the bosses and was surely surprised. However, they are not exactly unbeatable. Almost all the bosses in Skyward Sword balance a good difficulty with beatability. Ghirahem and Demise are great ultimatum villains in particular.
However in contrast, was it REALLY necessary to fight The Imprisoned, not once, not twice, but THREE times? To make it worse, the fight just becomes a more annoying and tedious version of itself each time it occurs. It truly is was the worst experience in the entire game one of the worst experiences in the game.
Visuals –
Visually, this game obviously falters in some areas given its age and just generally some bad animation choices. These odd facial expressions can be seen a lot, but are none more obvious that whenever Fi decides to spawn satan with her signing animation. It truly is a thing of nightmares.
However, beyond that nightmare. Most of the visuals look fantastic. I think the design for Zelda is my favourite in the series, and Link looks great too, although not my favourite design of him personally. The world is bright and vibrant, and just completely bursting with life, or a lack of it through dark-toned areas.
Skyward Sword HD is one of the more cinematic Zelda games from my understanding and is definitely one of the more cinematic games I have played on the Switch. There is an endless amount of iconic scenes, one in particular for me is when Link plays the harp whilst Impa sings for the first time. This was the one scene in particular that made the hairs on my arms stand up, it was the point in the game where it finally clicked for me that ‘this’ was THE Zelda experience I had been waiting for.
For a Wii game that initially released in 2011, I personally think Skyward Sword looks great, and with it being in HD with this port, it looks even better. It is definitely the peak cinematic experience I have played through on Switch thus far.
Music –
I have never really been a fan of any music from the Legend of Zelda series. In Skyward Sword HD though, that all changed. Although there is a lot of tracks that I am not a fan of, the ones that do click with me were more than enough.
It all begins with the title screen. My first experience of this game was literally sitting moving the motion pointer in tandem with the beats of the title screen theme to the noise that your save files make. As mentioned earlier, the place you’ll visit most in the game consistently is Skyloft, and thus, it needs to have a memorable and lovable theme that never gets old. This is perfectly achieved through its theme that is heart-warming, calming and just generally amazing all round.
There isn’t just joyful themes though, how I judge a game’s music is if a track truly indulges me in the experience. If it connects me with the game I am playing. Songs in Skyward Sword HD such as the Ballad of the Goddess, and the theme of the Gate of Time are pieces of music that I think will stick with me until the day I die. These themes awakened something in me, something I don’t think I have felt since I was a child, and that is pure nostalgia, pure immersion, complete fulfilment from being in-the-moment in a game. They are bone-chilling, they are what I think of now when I think of the Legend of Zelda.
Toxic Traits of Nintendo –
With all the positives being said, and some negatives. I do think there is some things that need to be addressed regarding Nintendo, not so much Skyward Sword HD before capping off this review. This is obviously regarding some of the anti-consumer practices that cropped up through Skyward Sword HD’s release, and some Nintendo releases recently in general.
The practice of pricing with Nintendo has been a major issue. I fully think Skyward Sword HD was a full-price experience, however, when it had been available on Wii-U for €19.99 before releasing on Switch, it is easy to see why charging essentially triple the price for the same product is wrong. It also just makes no sense. How can a HD port of a Wii game cost the same as Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury? How can it cost the same as Super Mario 3D All-Stars? Where is the logic and continuation in how products are priced with Nintendo.
Also, the practice of looking features behind amiibo is wrong also. I am not talking about locking invincibility or extra-life behind amiibo, but locking fast-travel behind a figure that is not even readily available for all fans of the game shouldn’t need explaining as to why that is wrong, even if I found that a lack of fast-travel bore almost no impact upon my personal play-through of the game.
Conclusion –
Despite the obvious negative connotations that came with Skyward Sword HD, I have to admit I was wrong. I fully expected this game to leave me feeling unfulfilled and robbed, and instead, I got one of the most beautiful, complete, and immersive gaming experiences I have ever had the pleasure of going through. Not supporting Nintendo’s ridiculous practices is perfectly justified, however, for anybody sitting on the fence as to whether this game is worth the money, I can just say, take the leap of faith and you will not be disappointed.
Final Score – 9/10
Nathan Brennan 