One of the big reveals that came with the Still World presentation is Zelda's Swordfighter Form, where she effectively can turn into Link – tunic, hat and Hylian Shield included –, but only temporarily. The gauge can be refilled with energy, but that energy is only found in the Still World and its dungeons. So, you have to use the Swordfighter Form sparingly elsewhere, where it acts like a joker, while you will be using it more often past the rifts.
It gives you a taste of how trivial combat used to be in games like A Link Between Worlds and Link's Awakening, making it similar to the Hypermode from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. You hit that button when things get serious and you have a much easier time fighting enemies. It even has the same blue glow to it.
At first, I was skeptical about this, because it will only emphasize how much more complicated combat with the echo system can be. By constantly reminding the player of how simpler things are with a sword, you will potentially get annoyed by fighting with echoes...
But judging from various previews about the game, which have surfaced last week (e.g. from NintendoLife), it may do the opposite. It highlights how much more of a challenge fighting with echoes actually is, which is a welcome change to the top-down series, where ever since Link's Awakening on the Game Boy the combat was rather easy. A bit too easy.
This gets even more apparent by how you obtain the Swordfighter Form. This is potentially spoiler territory, where Nintendo has only teased things, but if you don't care, then you should watch Zeltik's preview, which gives an excellent overview of the beginning of the game. Otherwise you should probably stop reading here.
The mini-boss of the first dungeon, the Suthorn Ruins, is none other than Link himself, or an evil doppelganger of him. It's not really a Shadow Link, but he behaves similarly. And if you've played around with the Shadow Link in the Chamber Dungeons of Link's Awakening, you will know that they can be quite the pain. He comes at you and destroys all the echoes you thrown at him with ease, so you have to get more creative.
Once defeated, you will obtain the "Mysterious Sword", which is different from the sword that Link has in the beginning of the game, where you fight against Ganon. We know for a fact from the PAX East demo that this one is called the "Swordman's Blade" (source).
The Mysterious Swords unlocks the Swordfighter Form and what's interesting here is that this behaves as the Suthorn Ruins' primary item. There are these dark cobwebs everywhere and the only way to destroy them seems to be the sword mode, so that's as classic as dungeon progression can get. It's possible that other dungeons will also put you against Link and that this will either make the Swordfighter Mode stronger or add new things to it, like the Bow.
And this would be a really cool system, where you gradually obtain Link's abilities as an upgrade. I doubt that it will go all too far, however, e.g. by giving a variety of Link's items, like the Hookshot or Boomerang. It's likely that you will get a "Mysterious Bow", since Link also has a bow in the beginning of the game and the X button is still free in Swordfighter mode. But it doesn't feel reasonable that this form will give you a selection of items. Both the sword and the bow will likely get upgrades, though.
The gauge also has a level attached to it, which certainly relates to how long you can stay inside the Swordfighter form, but we don't know how you will be able to increase this level yet. Maybe there is a new collectible, found within the Still World, that does exactly that. Or maybe this is something that you can get from the Great Fairy/Fairies.
PS: With this we also learn why Zelda was put into prison: the King, minister and general all got replaced by their evil doppelgangers, after they had vanished into the rift. And the evil king then ordered Zelda to be imprisoned.
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