About a week before Skyward Sword HD was released, I had been revisiting Skyward Sword on the Wii U a bit, where I had played the Song of the Hero Quest. And now I was back to this part yet again already, which many consider to be the worst part of the game...
But before this, it was time to have some actual fun and return to one of my favorite mini-games: the Bug Heaven. I don't know, there's just something that appeals to me with these types of mini-games, where you have to scavenge an area as quickly and efficiently as possible. It's the same with the Rupee Rush mini-games in A Link Between Worlds and even the Silent Realms in this game, though I don't enjoy the latter that much because of the "stealth" aspect.
There are no guardians on the Bug Rock, though, so it's just you, some beautiful ruins and lots of insects. It's always the same two sets of insects, which gets boring after a while, but at least you can think about creating an optimal route for the best possible time.
Anyway, another detour led me back to Skipper's Retreat, one of the best farming spots in the game, where you can get lots of Sand Cidadas and Amber Relics very quickly, as well as a fair amount of Jelly Blobs and Goddess Plumes, all by simply going in and out of the hut.
However, I faced a weird phenomenon here, where either I was just really, really unlucky or something was off with my game at the point, because I couldn't get any Goddess Plumes. This used to be the best farming spot for them, where there are five spawning locations for Amber Relics under the sand inside the hut and you would occasionally find a Goddess Plume there instead.
Except that I didn't. I even maxed out my Amber Relic count before I could find a single Goddess Plume, which was really weird. This led me to believe that either the HD remaster nerfed this or that something at this point in the game – during the Song of the Hero quest – prevents you from finding Goddess Plumes altogether. But I went back there after finishing the quest and got some right away, so this doesn't seem to be a change of the remaster...
What the remaster should have changed is the accessibility of the whole place, though. That you have to climb up there the first time is of course part of the experience and the "challenge", but once you've gotten the sea chart, the game should simply flip the position of the zip line handles on your next visit, so that you can quickly go back up again... There is no good reason to make you climb everything again.
Now, after I was done procrastinating, I finally moved on to the Song of the Hero quest, where for the first time I went for Lanayru first. I've always avoided doing this, because the Wii version had this bug, where you couldn't progress by talking to Golo a second time, after obtaining Lanayru's part of the song, because this triggered a lock for the other two sequences to take place. In fact, once you have the Life Tree Seedling, you can go to the other areas normally. The Faron Woods will be flooded, but the Imprisoned won't appear and you can just plant the tree.
And this state could be caused a second time on the Wii, where the only way of getting out of it once you've saved was the savegame repair tool provided by Nintendo. Now, I've tried to replicate this glitch on the Nintendo Switch version, but this seemingly got fixed. And it would have been very worrisome, if this wasn't the case, considering how much awareness this glitch had back in the day.
As for the tasks themselves, I had an even easier time than three / two weeks ago on the Wii U. Collecting the Tadtones is so easy and carefree with the button-only controls that I was able to do it with a single Air Potion+, so under six minutes, while previously I needed two of them. It was just super simple and there is no reason to complain about this part left at all.
Also. I was able to get the Hylian Shield in the Lightning Round without any major problems, where in this case I had to defeat all eight available bosses at the time and things actually ended with the shield. But I did it on first try, where this simply shows how much I've grown accustomed to the new controls – once you've gotten truly used to them, they do their job remarkably well. Both Ghirahim and Scaldera, which gave me quite some trouble early on, I could defeat quite easily now.
The only boss that still gave me troubles was Tentalus, but this was mostly because I kept missing the eye for some reason. And the hair at the end is still not easy... Sometimes when I mash the right control stick, the game thinks I want to hold the sword, which renders you defenseless. Then I'm just stuck with Link who prefers to use his sword as an antenna, instead of actually swinging it. And with Tentalus' hair that's just a guaranteed hit, because it attacks so quickly... So, this is still frustrating and will require some more practice to not mess up in Hero Mode, where every heart counts.
There is one more thing I noticed for presumably the first time and that is that the Sealed Grounds actually have the wall art from the intro of the game. I don't think I ever really paid any attention to this on the Wii, but it was always there and it's just that the HD helps.
I also might have simply forgotten this, where it's the same with some other things, like the updated dowsing descriptions. Once you've found all Goddess Cubes or all Gratitude Crystals, the description in the menu actually changes to "There are none left for your sword to react to". That's handy and I think I knew this already, but it's been almost ten years, so I'm not sure. But it's certainly nice to have an easy indicator for when you've found all Goddess Cubes, since there is nothing on the maps.
Another thing is that the Spiral Charge of your Loftwing can actually dissolve those tornadoes, so you can just go right through them, which is also super useful. But in this case this really was news to me, because this is something that I would have remembered for sure. Well, in any case, it certainly was good to spend some more time with this game to really get to know it again and refresh some of my memories.
And with those beautiful looks in HD, as well as the new control options, it's certainly a joy to revisit Skyward Sword, which is a big compliment to the remaster, despite some of its shortcomings. What's now left is the final dungeon, which always has been one of my favorites, so I'm looking forward to this.
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