Skyward Sword HD Blade Journal, Entry 3

After getting the Double Clawshots, it was finally time to revisit my favorite part of the game in HD: the Lanayru Sand Sea. I just love almost everything about it. The idea with the time traveling boat is awesome, the visuals are great, the different islands are all very unique, the music has a beautiful atmosphere to it and the Sandship is certainly one of the best dungeons in the game.

It was often noted how Skyward Sword took some inspiration from every Zelda game, where this meant quite a big deal for the 25th Anniversary of the series. The dungeon entrances that make you go down into the earth are clearly reminiscent of the first The Legend of Zelda, the Statues of the Goddess were inspired by the Trophy item in Zelda II - The Adventure of Link and so on... And Phantom Hourglass basically got so lucky to have an entire section of the game devoted to itself, where the Sand Sea kind of plays like what the Nintendo DS title would be like in 3D, just with a desert theme to it.

But this part of the game also feels poorly optimized, compared to some others, especially around the Pirate Stronghold and the Sandship. Fi appears here unnecessarily to give you hints multiple times, where they should have gone with the sword blink instead. And there are also some puzzles with pressure plates that remove the grates from a door, where the game feels the need to show you this in a short cutscene every single time, both for removing the grates and for when you let go of the switch. It's not the case for all of these puzzles, but it's highly annoying for those where this persists, because it just needless interrupts the gameplay, much like Fi.

Besides this, the Sandship is really the only dungeon in the game that makes you think, other than the Sky Keep. Okay, the Ancient Cistern has also a slightly clever puzzle to it at the end, but it's nothing too complicated and the dungeon is about as linear as the rest of them. The Sandship, however, gives you a lot of freedom, where you often have to figure out what's the way forward. It's a smart dungeon and I enjoy replaying those a lot more than the linear obstacle courses that you often get.

The Bow still made me feel disappointed, however, because it doesn't seem to support the quick draw feature in the button-only controls. With motion control you press the L-button and then whirl the left Joy-Con, which is identical to how it was done on the Wii (with the C-button and the Nunchuk). But with a Pro Controller there doesn't seem to be a way...

Overall the aiming works better with button-only controls, because here it actually re-centers your reticle whenever you activate an item, which is also how it should work with the motion controls. But the lack of quick draw is a disadvantage. It's not required for anything, where the only part in the game where it can be crucial is probably the battle against Tentalus, but only if you miss your first shot and want to do a quick follow-up. Still, it's not okay that there is no way of replicating this with the button controls.

And the Tentalus battle is actually a mixed bag with the new controls. On the Wii I usually had issues with holding the sword up and getting those Skyward Strikes for the tentacles in the first phase, which is not problem at all with the R-stick. But the R-stick doesn't work too well against the tentacle hair attacks in the second phase, where you want to keep swinging diagonally in both directions.

Anyway, with both control methods I managed to get over 600 points in Fledge's Pumpkin Pull on first try, so it works will enough. You don't need to quick draw in this mini-game and neither is it required to snipe those Bokoblins during the Scrapper escort mission at Eldin Volcano.

Speaking of Bokoblins, for some reason I rarely ever get their Ornamental Skulls, even though I always keep the Treasure Medal in my Adventure Pouch. I have actually more Golden Skulls right now, which is a joke. And overall I didn't have any troubles with getting enough treasures for all the upgrades, except for these (and to a lesser degree the Monster Claws from Keese), where I've just finished upgrading my two Seed Satchels only after the Fire Sanctuary.

Each time a Bokoblin now drops a Ornamental Skull, I rejoice, but it doesn't really help that the game only keeps dropped items for about six seconds, before they vanish. It's quite the short time window, which should have been prolonged. Yes, it's enough time for when the enemies die in front of you, but if you shoot them with a bow and want to collect the loot afterwards, you often don't make it in time. Earlier 3D Zelda games had similar issues, but if you're only missing some Rupees, it's usually not a big deal.

That's really all on my mind for now and there isn't much left to say, because it's business as usual, where I'm effectively just replaying the game. I've defeated the Imprisoned for the second time and finally got the good sword beams, which will be an achievement that lasts for future Hero Mode playthroughs. And now it's time for the final part of the game yet again, the Song of the Hero quest. Joy.