Skyward Sword HD Blade Journal, Entry 1

Now, this journal is something special, because Skyward Sword is actually the first Zelda game where I will have been blogging about my journey through both the original game and its remaster. There's my Skyward Sword Blade Journal from late 2011 / early 2012 and now we're going back to the game on the Nintendo Switch after all these years. The next Zelda game where this might happen will probably be Spirit Tracks... or even Breath of the Wild. But not anytime soon.

Anyway, this journal probably won't be as extensive as the original one, because with Skyward Sword HD you're effectively just replaying the game, if you've already played Skyward Sword on Wii (U). The only real new experience to talk about are the controls and that's one experience to go down the toilet...

Since I have large hands, playing with Joy-Cons is very uncomfortable for me personally, where I prefer going with the Pro Controller. But the button-only controls come with a variety of drawbacks, where the biggest issue is the latency of the sword strikes. The Bokoblins still change their stance rather quickly, where you often just keep hitting their blades, where I don't even try against the Technoblins. And the inputs for Spin Attacks and Fatal Blows are somewhat unreliable, which is bad.

Before Skyward Sword HD came out, I returned to the Wii version of the game and practiced most of the bosses again to earn the Hylian Shield in the Lightning Round in Hero Mode. That's a tough challenge and I was hoping that the new controls would make this a lot easier. Instead, my first battles against Ghirahim and Scaldera were just absolutely frustrating...

Ghirahim even managed to steal my sword for the first time ever. This has never happened to me before and while I've seen this happening to other people, it still surprised me. And battling Scaldera is just an absolute catastrophe with these convoluted controls. You have to press ZR to take out a bomb, then hold the R-stick forward, aim with the L-stick and then press ZR again. This might sound simple enough on paper, but in reality it's just a mess and easy to screw up. It's just not intuitive at all, where the motion controls for using bombs worked much better.

An easy solution for this problem would have been to activate the throwing stance per default, since you can always put things down by pressing A. In the least they shouldn't make you hold the R-stick. Overall it feels like many of the button inputs could have been achieved in easier ways, where it's just not enjoyable to play the game like this.

Now, you would think that using motion controls is the solution for my problems, but those come with their fair share of problems as well, like the constant need to re-center. While the sword slashes with the R-stick can be too slow, the sword slashes with motion controls are now too imprecise, at least for me. I even had issues fighting a normal Deku Baba, because Link would slash diagonally most of the time, instead of doing clean horizontal or vertical swings. And that again is a killer, where I instantly miss the precision of the R-stick.

But the R-stick is not the solution to everything, where the Bug Net is the prime example. Not only do you have to swing the net from different angles, you also have to turn it properly with your hand. With motion controls this works fine, but with the R-stick you can't replicate using a tool in three dimensions like that, where it just does weird things with orientation of the net depending on where you are. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And that the camera has this weird downward angle whenever you take the Bug Net into your hands also doesn't help much with all the insect above your head, where all of this makes catching certain types of bugs quite difficult.

And I want to catch those bugs. Collecting treasures and insects to get better stuff from the Skyloft Bazaar is the most fun I had with Skyward Sword since 2011. When I replayed the game in early 2017, right before Breath of the Wild came out, I was going with Hero Mode created from a file where I had all the treasures and insects in the world, which lets you get everything right away. 

This took away from the game quite a lot, because looking for Rupees, treasures and insects is one of the few things that make exploring the overworld sections interesting, which are otherwise just these giant obstacle courses on your way to the next dungeon. Well, at least the Faron Woods are open and exciting when you first get into the main area with the giant tree, but both Eldin Volcano and various parts of the Lanayru Desert are mostly linear.

Oh, and it just feels good how it finally remembers what treasures and insects you already have after reloading the game. I still have this itch in my head when I'm about to pick up an Amber Relic or an Ancient Flower for the first time of a play session, where there's a slight relief when the game simply lets you pick those up without interruption. It's a small, but significant improvement to the game.

In any case, the best part are the side quests right now, where I love to regularly return to the sky to look for those Goddess Cube treasure chests, shop at Skyloft or do similar things. Normally, the Bird Statues are the perfect points to do so and I keep returning to the sky quite often, even though that's a very inefficient way of playing the game.

I still tried the new Zelda & Loftwing amiibo once, when I needed to repair my shield inside the Earth Temple. You call Fi, you scan it, you return to the sky and when you use it somewhere on the sky islands again, it puts you right back on the spot where first scanned the amiibo on the surface or inside a dungeon. And this is such a good feature, where I'm really torn about this.

On the hand they really shouldn't have locked this behind an overpriced figurine. This is simply not okay and also quite inconvenient to use, where in my case it even failed twice to recognize the amiibo so far. On the other hand this new quick travel feature is so good that it almost feels like cheating, which is something on the line of what amiibo usually do in games. Still, this should have been solved in a different way.

As for Hero Mode, a lot of people wanted this to be available right from the start, where this is not the case and the remaster keeps the "New Game+" nature of it. I personally don't mind, because I always play through the Zelda games in their normal difficulty first anyway and I feel like Hero Mode would have made the new controls all the more frustrating. I have to get used to them first, before I'm willing to take any meaningful challenge here. Still, it would have been nice to have a separate option for those who are willing to take it.

Watch out, Link! There's an annoying ghost behind you!

During the tutorial phase I didn't notice any significant changes, other than that certain characters aren't interrupting you from a distance any longer. But the sword tutorial really hasn't changed for example. If you try to leave without talking to the instructor, he will stop you at the door, just like before. You don't have to practice with the sword at all, but this was already the case back on the Wii.

The only major change seems to be that they have removed the Sheikah Stone from the game. I suppose that they didn't want to recreate all the visions in HD, especially since you can just find solutions for everything on the internet anyway. This gives me hope that they will remove the Sheikah Stones from the Nintendo 64 Zelda games as well when they remaster them a second time in the distant future. Those stones looked quite misplaced there and for fans of the games they were also useless. Of course it was a good feature for newcomers who were seeking help, but it's not like those needed something similar in Breath of the Wild.

What remains to say for now is that the game really looks beautiful in HD. Of all the 3D Zelda remasters so far, Skyward Sword HD is the one with the slightest amount of graphical overhaul, where the textures look all so simple that it's hard to say what Tantalus was even working on... However, the simple visuals have aged rather well, maybe not as well as The Wind Waker, but certainly much better than Twilight Princess and the others, where the painted look really shines in HD and certainly didn't need any bigger changes. It's a pretty game and together with great soundtrack it really draws me back in on the Nintendo Switch.

And this is despite the fact that this is my least favorite of the 3D Zelda games and I'm finding myself unmotivated at times. I'm currently sitting in the middle of Lanayru Desert, which is just this continuous series of mine cart tracks around Timeshift Stones and quicksand areas. This just keeps going and going and that's all before you even get into the Lanayru Mining Facility...

People might like to praise the dungeons of this game, especially after the lack of real dungeons in Breath of the Wild. And while this is true for the later game, the first three dungeons feel like a slog. Of course they come with new ideas, but there's also a lot that gets repeated from what you were already doing outside, where the Lanayru Mining Facility is probably the worst. More quicksand, mine carts and Timeshift Stones, yay.

I personally always liked the idea of what the E3 2010 demo of Skyward Sword was going for, where the Faron Woods were a dungeon in itself. The bombable alcove with a Piece of Heart in it there led to a small cave with the Stalfos battle for example. I thought this was really cool and that they should have expanded upon that, instead of adding those dungeons, which simply make the game drag too much.

 

Well, see you on the other side...