Zelda HD Collection?

This idea has been on the mind of many Zelda fans ever since the Nintendo Switch became a thing: a collection of Zelda HD remasters, which ports both The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD over from the Wii U and adds more to the list.

Ever since the rumors in March that Super Mario could be getting a similar collection this year for its 35th Anniversary, I've been considering the same for Zelda and putting some more thoughts into this. Such a "The Legend of Zelda HD Collection" could come to Switch next year and potentially include the following four titles:

• The Wind Waker HD
• Twilight Princess HD
• Link's Crossbow Training HD
• Skyward Sword HD

As for The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD, it's only a matter of time before these two HD remasters will be ported to the Switch, just like the rest of the Wii U library. Enough time has passed to not make it feel completely ridiculous for every Wii U owner. And for Nintendo it's easy money, but it also makes sense to bundle them somehow, because we would steep into ports of ports with these titles. There has to be a limit of what Nintendo can sell as a standalone full price title and putting them together wouldn't feel like the cheapest effort of making good money with video games ever, even though they probably would sell just fine on their own...

Additionally, both games made good use of the Wii U GamePad for maps and alike, which would all be lost in the Nintendo Switch versions. So, they might even end up as inferior versions when compared to their Wii U counterparts. But if you put them together on one cartridge, no one can really complain about the value.

And Link's Crossbow Training HD would be a fun bonus for the whole package. It's not a game that you would ever expect to return on its own, where even on the Wii it was just meant as an addition for the Zapper. Here half of the work was already done by Tantalus with the remaster of Twilight Princess, where its assets for the updated graphics could be used to remaster Link's Crossbow Training as well, since the game was pretty much just a mini-game add-on for Twilight Princess, re-using its environments, enemies and so on.

Finally, there's Skyward Sword HD, which always felt like the natural choice for an HD remaster on the Switch with its Joy-Cons and all. In the past I was convinced that this would be released as a standalone title, simply because that's how it was for The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD. But there are three good reasons here, why this might change with Skyward Sword...

1) The game is pretty much the anti-thesis to Breath of the Wild, which has become by far the most successful entry in the series. Aonuma even admitted that the starting point for the development were the shortcomings of Skyward Sword with its restricted world and lack of exploration. So, to put focus on such a different 3D Zelda game, which does the complete opposite of the Zelda game that made many people buy a Switch in the first place, might not be the best idea at the moment. But putting this in a collection of various older Zelda titles would easily prevent any wrong impressions.

2) Even if you try to reduce the motion controls of Skyward Sword as much as possible, getting the sword combat to work without the Joy-cons would probably be very difficult or unsatisfying. As a result the game would only be playable with Joy-cons and not in handheld mode, which could be a big reason for people to not buy the game, especially for owners of a Nintendo Switch Lite. But bundled with The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, which both work with traditional controls, these people would still have something to play.

3) The Zelda series has gotten a new brand styling with Breath of the Wild, where everything is made in a flat design. The logos of both Breath of the Wild and Link's Awakening are in plain white against a background, for example. However, for an HD remaster of Skyward Sword this would probably feel odd and not like a good fit. It should keep the logo and menu design of the original, similar to The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD, since it's really just supposed to be a remaster and not a new thing.

A "Zelda HD Collection" could be sold in the new brand styling, however, where the cover and the main menu are in the same style as Breath of the Wild and Link's Awakening, while it keeps the logos and everything else of the HD remasters the way it was. Problem solved.

With all of this in mind, it really feels like a good idea to put these three or four titles all together in one package. It would be an amazing way of celebrating the 35th Anniversary of Zelda, while dodging any complaints that would come with re-releasing these titles on their own for the Nintendo Switch.

No Ocarina of Time & Majora's Mask HD?

Well, some fans would probably want the two Nintendo 64 titles as well and you can't blame them, but this would really be too good to be true all at once, which is why they weren't considered for this list.

For making the above collection Nintendo could hire Tantalus again, the studio responsible for remastering Twilight Princess on the Wii U. They could apply their expertise on both Link's Crossbow Training and Skyward Sword, where the latter would already generate enough efforts for this project, and then put everything together.

Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask on the other hand would need full-fledged remakes, something done from scratch again, where this would increase the effort for such a collection significantly. Probably even to the point where Nintendo would need to hire another studio in addition. But GREZZO was already busy with remaking Link's Awakening, where the Oracle games should come next and not the N64 games again.

Remakes of the N64 titles were already done for the Nintendo 3DS by GREZZO in the last decade and doing this yet again might be a little bit too early, both for the developers and for the customers. Nintendo is even still selling New Nintendo 2DS systems and both of the previous remakes. And if Nintendo 64 games get added to Nintendo Switch Online eventually, you will be able to play Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask on the Switch anyway...

Also, keep in mind that we're talking about games here, where each remaster and remake so far has gotten a dedicated standalone release with years of development. Even if the Super Mario HD collection turns out to be true, this still might be a little much to ask from Nintendo's forces. The above vision is already optimistic as it is, so it's best not to expect anything more than that.

And new remakes of the Nintendo 64 games shouldn't be something that's done on the sidelines. They deserve releases on their own, starting with Ocarina of Time, with gorgeous graphics, new features and alike. This is something that I can see happening in the future, but not necessarily on the Switch where such remakes for the GameBoy Color Zelda games should have priority.

Global Collectible?

Let's say such a collection happens, it would be nice if all these games were to offer a collectible that spans all titles. Something to unlock artwork and additional goodies in the main menu, similar to the Credits in the Metroid Prime Trilogy.

This would go hand in hand with the fact that both The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD had special Miiverse features that would be in need of replacement on the Nintendo Switch, since the Miiverse is history now. In case of The Wind Waker HD these were the Tingle Bottles, while Twilight Princess HD had the stamp collection.

It would be a shame, if Tingle wasn't to get something new to replace the Tingle Tuner a second time and if all those chests in Twilight Princess contained a ton of useless Rupees again... So, an idea would be to have something here that lets you unlock things globally in the HD collection.

This could be something simple as scrolls, like "Ocean Scrolls", "Twilight Scrolls" and "Sky Scrolls". They could contain a bit of lore as an extra and would give you access to artworks and other goodies. Maybe additional scrolls could be unlocked via amiibo to also give you stuff from other Zelda games.

With Skyward Sword HD they could even tie this into new features. For example they could expand the sky world a little bit and add more to its islands. Or they could let you go on a full night-time exploration later in the game, where you're hunting for Poes or special Goddess Cubes or something similar, which in return rewards you with the new global collectible.

And in Link's Crossbow Training HD they could add new secret targets throughout all the levels, maybe one per level, which will score you with these scrolls.

In any case it would be nice to have something that spans all games in the collection, as an incentive to play them all.