Since I play mostly in portable, the majority of my time was spent with the button controls. To remedy this and allow for portable play, Skyward Sword HD presents players with two control schemes: button only (which uses the right stick for “motion controls”) and dual Joy-Cons (which works the same as the original). Wii Motion Plus was heavily dependent on a lack of wireless interference to function properly, so some people simply couldn’t get the couldn’t get the controls to work. This is integral throughout the entire game, with just about every combat encounter and puzzle requiring precise inputs. You swing the Wii remote left, Link slashes to the left. Skyward Sword was designed around 1:1 motion input. For example, did you know that Bokoblins have a weird obsession with stylish underwear? Regardless, while Fi has been made somewhat less intrusive, the other major sticking point of Skyward Sword has been vastly improved. It’s a shame that more character wasn’t injected into the mandatory dialogue, because her analysis of enemies and situations can be pretty funny with her deadpan delivery. While I maintain that Fi is a good character at her heart, she’ll still bug you frequently enough to be annoying. The unnecessary dialogue has been trimmed down or made optional throughout the game, but not enough to remove the problem entirely. Most of this came as repeating the same information several times over usually through your companion, Fi. Part of that effort to focus on the plot of the next Zelda game led to the game being… Well, wordy, to say the least. While in the future I’d like to see Link be more customizable, like having explicitly female or non-binary options, this development does a lot to help him feel central to the story. You can even see this character development as you enter each masterfully crafted dungeon in the first Link approaches cautiously while the last sees him charging forward to meet the challenges ahead. There are several times throughout the story where you have dialogue choices in a cutscene and as you progress these change from sounding fairly meek and shy to confident and heroic. This version of Zelda is the most well realized we’d see until the next game, Breath of the Wild, and Link especially has a lot of subtleties to his character despite remaining mute. Honestly, I’d like to see a return to this style, since while it’s not breaking any new ground it certainly makes the game more memorable and engaging. Skyward Sword came out in a strange time for Nintendo, when they were focusing on adding more depth to their stories just before trying to avoid stories entirely for most of the Wii U’s life and finally settling back on the middle ground we’re used to. You could argue this simply adds more character and personality to our hero, which is certainly in abundance in this title. The only caveat to this improvement is oddly enough with Link’s face: the definition around his eyes and nose looks a bit too prominent now, making him appear tired close up (which, I mean, same) but it can look odd at this higher fidelity. Combine all this with the impressionist art style and this makes for the best looking and performing Zelda game on Switch, at least in my opinion. Textures have seen a huge overhaul and look clean even up close, and best of all Nintendo has implemented anti-aliasing to remove the disgusting amount of jaggies that were present on the Wii. In docked mode the game has a resolution of 1080p while portable is at a respectable 720p, but both run at a constant 60 frames per second which is double that of the original. Since it’s been around ten years since the game first came out, you might not notice the vastly improved visuals. With new control schemes and quality of life improvements, is this HD release enough to turn that reputation around? I understand it has many problems, but I still like it a lot just the same. Thoughts on the game grew worse and worse over the years as more people detailed their gripes with the game, such as Arin Hanson of the Game Grumps on YouTube. It was received well initially by critics, but the general public had more mixed feelings thanks to the console’s sub-optimal motion detection dependent on the player’s environment. Skyward Sword has had a rough reputation since it first launched on the Wii in 2011. But where did this epic originate? The first of these many adventures began in the sky, with two star crossed lovers unaware of the destiny before them. Its actors and setting may change, but at its core this is the same story. This is a tale passed down through the ages.
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