4/5 ★ – TNGLiam's review of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD.

Platform: Switch Time Played: 35.75 hours Status: Beaten In all honesty, Skyward Sword was one of the Zelda titles that I was the most interested in finally getting around to, even more so than Twilight Princess. But when it comes to which one I liked more between the two, it’s a real toss up. Let me start off by talking about the elephant in the room that everyone complains about, Fi. Damn you Fi, you annoying robot spirit thing, why do you have to be the most annoying Zelda companion to date, and to know that this HD version cuts down on her interruptions makes them just a tad more annoying, just knowing that the original version on Wii had more of Fi just makes me shiver. It is so annoying to see something happen in a cutscene, only for Fi to immediately pop out of the Master Sword and explain to Link what we literally just watched. Did the writers for Fi ever hear of “show, don’t tell”? And the frequency of these explanations of what we already know happen way too frequently, sure they may end with some useful information, but why did you have to recap what I just watched less than five seconds ago? Not even the advice you ask her for when you do summon her is all that useful, it’s once again just shit you already know, or something that isn’t helpful in the slightest. It just turns her into one of the most annoying and worst side characters in the Zelda franchise, and for good reason. Not even that little final moment when she finally begins to understand human emotion (which was a little touching) could save my thoughts on her character. Please continue to stay inside the Master Sword, Fi. Moving past the obvious complaint and onto the other common complaint! The motion controls! Going into this, I didn’t think I would mind the motion controls, but I also knew that the Switch version also had button controls in case the motion controls didn’t end up being my thing. For the first few hours, I must’ve had some gyro calibration issues with my Joy-Cons because man were those opening hours abysmal when it came to the controls. Afterwards though, I swapped controllers, and things finally started to feel good when it came to controls. Also I swear the game doesn’t tell you how to flap the Loftwing’s wings during the tutorial? I just had to find out on my own. I genuinely found the motion controls fairly intuitive when it came to playing with the Joy-Cons. Running around with Link, swinging around his sword in the different directions, flying around with the Loftwing, and pointing Link’s gear in certain directions like swinging the whip and clinging to stuff with the Clawshot, all felt really fun and great to control. Maybe not the pointer controls as much as the rest, but a quick press of the calibration button always helped. I think the art style in this game was pretty great, not the best the franchise has to offer nowadays but I definitely think it looks better than Twilight Princess in all honesty, as that gave just felt a little too edgy with its art style, whereas this game feels like it fits the story and world just right. Sure some people don’t like the character designs of Groose, his gang, some of the residents of Skyloft, among many others, but I think it all fits very well. But when it comes to the main cast, their designs are superb, take for example Link, Zelda, and Ghirahim. I really like the romance between Link and Zelda in this, it gives the story a lot more personal stakes than any game in the series before Skyward Sword. And don’t get me started about Ghirahim, he is genuinely one of the best Zelda villains to date, like god damn did I love his flamboyant but intimidating and insane personality, design, character choices, and actions. Christ, I love Ghirahim. I really liked a lot of the bosses in this game, it felt so good to literally slash away at enemies with the motion controls, and especially bosses. A lot of their designs and the overall fights were really fun and interesting, and I didn’t dislike any of them as they were all great. Mowing down that army of Bokoblins leading up to your last fight with Ghirahim, or sending charges of lighting towards Demise during the final boss to decide the date of the world was awesome. Flying around with the Loftwing and going to different places around the sky after unlocking chests via the Goddess Cubes on the surface, jumping off of said Loftwing and falling down to the surface. Flapping the Loftwing’s wings and diving down to gain speed, or even going through those weird rock formations to zoom through the skies to my desired destination was just really fun. One thing I will say is that the dungeons did get a little confusing at times, and sometimes annoyingly so. There were definitely times where I got really frustrated and had to take several sanity breaks throughout the dungeon, but in the end all was fine. All in all, I really liked Skyward Sword, surprisingly a little more than Twilight Princess even. I really like being able to physically slash away at enemies due to the motion controls, as it felt incredibly satisfying to do so. The character designs were great, and so were the characters themselves, as I really liked seeing the characters themselves and their relationship between each other grow. And Ghirahim, god damn was he great. The story itself was also pretty cool, no deep themes or anything, just a pretty nice story. Sure this wasn’t the best Zelda game ever, but it was still very fun nonetheless!