3.5/5 ★ – gamingitlaldy's review of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD.

In my quest to complete all the console games of The Legend of Zelda Series before Tears of the Kingdom comes out, Skyward Sword (HD) was second on my list after Majora’s Mask. Despite loving the franchise, like Majora's mask, I could not wait to complete Skyward Sword. Both games have been a bittersweet experience. As I never owned a Wii I had never played the original game but was encouraged to play it after the HD release for the Switch came out. The Switch remaster adds some quality of life improvements and cleaner visuals. One of the features added was streamlined Fi interactions, skippable cutscenes and dialogue. Nintendo also released a Zelda and Loftwing Amiibo which allowed you to return to the sky at any point. While I used it a few times it didn’t save me loads of time as you’re never far from a bird statue anyway. This review is going to come across as mostly negative but I did still have an overall enjoyable experience playing this game and it is a good entry into the series. I did however say “oh, for fuck’s sake” FAR too many times while playing this game. Skyward Sword is seen as the first game in the Zelda timeline. Where we learn more about how the world was created and we also see the birth of the Master Sword, which was cool to see the progression of your sword upgrading through the later parts of the game. It’s one of the very few Zelda games as well that has a pretty decent story with more human feeling interactions between characters than before. My first impressions of the game were that the character models looked amazing and I loved their art style but the backgrounds were very low res and blotchy, like we had been given a Nintendo DS port. If the team at Nintendo had supplied some HD background textures that would have been very much appreciated, however I do get how the textures in their current state lend themselves well to the art style of the game. As the game progressed and background textures were further away I forgot all about them. What originally put me off the original N64 Ocarina of Time was the slow text, I was glad to see it was fixed for the 3DS version but the Switch HD version of Skyward Sword did not provide fast text boxes and they feel an absolute slog to get through. I know that at the time of Skyward Sword’s release the Zelda games did not feature voice acting and by this point it was a choice not to have them however voice acting in this game was notably absent. I think if they had voice acting in this game it would have improved the cutscenes greatly, improving their emotional impact. I first opted for button controls as many people would agree, fuck motion controls. I was annoyed that I had to hold the L button to move the camera and it wasn’t solely the right stick. The button controls are convoluted but are probably the best Nintendo could do while remastering the original game which was based around a completely different controller and motion controls with no option to switch. Flying and swimming felt so annoying with both button control schemes. It appeared to me that using button controls and swinging your sword depleted your stamina very fast making sword fighting very frustrating. Yes, you can flick the joystick and not use much stamina but on the Switch’s joy cons, the joy sticks are so small and have so little travel that it was very difficult. I would use button controls for most things but would swap to motion controls when it came to fighting as you could literally walk up to an enemy, shake the joy con like you’re making a milkshake and it would take care of most enemies and bosses. This method of fighting, rather than using an in-game stamina is based on your own stamina, thus is very overpowered. I think Nintendo severely underestimated the wrist endurance of its fanbase. Moving around with motion controls and button controls I felt as though I was QWOP’ing my way around the game. Especially as I played a very dangerous game of bomb bowling using motion controls which nearly cost me my life. At one point during the later stages of the game, my joy con battery died and I swapped to my 8bitdo Pro 2 controller and my god what a difference. Using the button control scheme with the superior joysticks to play that game was so much better. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows though, as the motion controlled joy con fighting was still far superior. As I did with previous Zelda games, I told the mini-games to fuck off due to having a hard enough time playing the main games with the control scheme but when I swapped controller I actually went back and completed one or two of them….the rest can stay fucked off. Playing this game after Majora’s Mask you can certainly see early signs of Breath of the Wild and early mechanics and features of that game. I did enjoy some other aspects of the motion controls such as the Skyward strike, playing the harp and using the whip. As previously mentioned they streamlined the irritating, pace slowing companion Fi. I have no experience of the original so I can only imagine how much more painful she must have been if I found her an absolute pain in the HD version. She constantly tells you stuff that is obvious and that you already know. Often killing the pace of several sections of the game. Her voice also reminded me of the turrets in the game Portal. Having the word Sky in the title and having birds featured in the artwork you’d think this game was going to have more of an emphasis on flying. You start the game by rescuing your bird which you’d be mistaken for thinking the bird was going to be your best friend and companion of the game, unfortunately it is little more than a personalityless vehicle. Getting around in the sky was absolutely tedious as well. The only thing to really see in the Sky is Skyloft, the rest is just small islands. Absolutely zero exploration involved. I would have preferred a proper fast travel instead. This game has a sort of fast travel but you can get from point-to-point in the same area you need to return to the sky first to then get to the next point in the map which was frustrating. You can mount your bird most points in Skyloft but not all ledges, some ledges you jump or fall from only to be berated by the bird crew that patrol the skies. Skyward Sword HD is a very nice looking game considering the low res background textures. The gameplay can be fun and the enemies varied and sometimes fun to fight, apart from the ones that can electrocute you. The motion controls do lend themselves well to the gameplay and make dungeon puzzle solving much more interactive and creative. While I would recommend this to current Zelda fans I would absolutely not recommend this to someone who does not have prior experience of the other Zelda games despite the game being very hand-holdy. I can say for sure despite my mostly positive experience this will not be a game I will be revisiting in the future. Next up, Twilight Princess HD!