My first journey through Skyward Sword HD has been finished. And when I had started this blog series, I didn't expect it to last this many posts. Of course it's still less than the other 3D remaster or remakes, like the Twilight Princess HD Diaries from 2016, but it's still a good amount, considering that the only novelty were the new controls.
And I kept using the new controls for most of the time, where I wouldn't want to miss them from this point on. The third Ghirahim battle worked significantly better with the stick controls, where for example it's much more reliable to reflect his sword beams and to stab his chest. And fighting Demise was great as well, simply because you don't have to worry about Link not holding his word up properly.
But first things first. Before going into the Sky Keep, I actually spent some more time at the Statue of the Goddess to farm Skyloft Mantises and Sky Stag Beetles, just because I can. I'm not sure I will go to the same extremes as on the Wii, where I had 99 of almost everything, but I'm having fun with this and I want to spend more time on making the most out of this savegame, before I go in to a New Game+.
This includes minigame records as well, where I'm spending some more time getting good times against the individual bosses and in all the Silent Realms. For the latter I wanted to score at least a rare treasure with each one, where Lanayru has specific time requirements for every single Silent Realm.
With some of the other minigames I want to have some good scores as well, where I've managed to get below 63 seconds in the Heart Stopping Rickety Coaster for example. This particular minigame seems to give people some troubles, where you normally need to go under 65 seconds for a Piece of Heart. I also want to achieve those 43 cuts in the Clean Cut, but I couldn't do it yet with either controls...
Anyway, after all these distractions it was finally time to go into the final dungeon, the Sky Keep. And this is still one of the most unique final dungeons in the series thanks to the idea with the slide puzzle. The rooms themselves are simply based on the six main dungeons, where this is similar to the final dungeon in Ocarina of Time and some other Zelda games, so nothing too special. But the fact that you can rearrange the entire dungeon via terminals always makes this interesting to play.
Still, the different themes, as well as the combat sections give you a good idea how a Savage Labyrinth / Cave of Ordeals could have looked like in Skyward Sword, where it's a shame that they didn't consider to add such a dungeon for the remaster. With the new confidence that I've found in the button-only controls, I would have liked such a challenge.
It also could give you some additional rewards, like more Medals or another empty bottle. The five bottles in the game are enough for all five different potions, but I like to keep one fully upgraded potion of each time around for my "collection". And with that it would be nice to have a sixth bottle for some other stuff, like fairies.
Well, one enemy where I would have to practice a lot more is Dreadfuse, where I find this battle in the Sky Keep to be quite frustrating, because this mechanical monster just behaves so erratically different from everything else in its third phase that I'm having quite some troubles with it. And since this fight has you completely cornered, there is no way to catch some breath. You have to figure it out somehow quickly or it kills you.
Now, I want to play the game again in Hero Mode soon, maybe even once I'm done farming treasures and insects, as well as competing in minigames and the Lightning Round. I'm not sure when this will happen, probably around September, where this might keep me busy until Metroid Dread comes out.
About Hero Mode, I completely forgot that you can start a new quest log in Hero Mode as well, where this lacks the New Game+ aspect of it. This would have been more interesting when I was replaying the Wii version four and a half years ago, before Breath of the Wild came out, because without the need of collecting treasures and insects the game wasn't really that enjoyable to revisit.
This might sound contradictory right now, as I'm in the middle of preparing such a Hero Mode playthrough yet again, but I think this is okay for playing the game in Hero Mode again right away. But should I decide to play Skyward Sword HD a third time in a couple of years, then a fresh Hero Mode quest log will certainly be the way to go. It's effectively a third way of playing through the game.
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.
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.
Last post I left off at the Lanayru Mining Facility and this is where I've learned to appreciate the new button-only controls a lot more. Well, in the original game this used to be one of the most frustrating parts of the game with using motion controls, mainly because I often had issues with landing those stabs in the eyes of the Beamos and Moldarach. But with the press of a button, or a stick in this case, it's easier than ever.
After the first two boss battles were really annoying, everything went quite well with fighting Moldarach, where I've stuck to the button-only controls ever since. I still accidentally swing diagonally instead of horizontally from time to time, but that's mainly because I'm not always holding the controller completely straight, where this also happens to be an issue in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. So, it's not the fault of the game, it's just me and those completely round control sticks.
Nintendo GameCubes in HD
I'm still not fighting those Technoblins in the rest of the desert normally, however. Either I use shield bashes, which are easier now, or I rush them when they have yet to pay attention. The Beamos, however, seem ridiculously fast with their lasers, where they often tend to hit me before I can even reach the pole. But all those electric enemies in Skyward Sword never have been any fun to begin with, because those stuns are just too punishing... In the least I'm usually getting clean cuts on those Beamos now, unless I'm swinging diagonally by accident again.
Speaking of clean cuts, the Clean Cut mini-game can also be cheesed heavily with these new controls, because you can do those flicks super fast. But you have to be careful not to trigger a Spin Attach by accident, where with motion controls this is probably still easier to do, because you can just quickly swing back and forth. In any case it can score you an early Evil Crystal to upgrade the Bug Net, before going into the Ancient Cistern, even though I hadn't bothered with that myself up until right before that dungeon.
Also, the Goddess's Harp works wonderfully with the button-only controls as well. This was another thing where I struggled with the motion controls on the Wii quite a bit, but following the "waves" with the analog stick works effortlessly. Kina was even very happy with my performance on first try, which is something. And the duets with Fi no problem at all.
However, it's weird how the Goddess's Harp is permanently assigned to the X-button now, because it feels like this should have been used for something else. But the game is really focused on using both of the analog sticks all the time, where the shoulder buttons are more important.
At this point in the game you also get to make a couple of choices with the side-quests, where now I did the opposite of last time: it's full love mode, where Pipit and Karane are a happy couple and Peatrice is all over Link. It's disgusting, but at least I have now all combinations at least once, together with all my save files on the Wii. And in Hero Mode I will probably do the opposite again, so I have all outcomes on the Nintendo Switch available.
But I've never been a fan of these choices in Hidemaro Fujibayashi's earlier Zelda games, even if they add to the replay value, but you'll never have a "definitive" save file thanks to them. So, it's probably a good thing that this got dropped with later Zelda games.
On a site note, when Pipit discovers the conversation between Cawlin and Karane, it plays the sound that they've later used in Breath of the Wild for when you are finished with cooking a meal. That was kind of funny.
Again, I can only repeat how beautiful Skyward Sword looks in HD, where there was even a visual update to one of the areas: the Thunderhead. There is now this heavy rain effect all over the place, where this was probably always supposed to be there, but couldn't be realized on the Wii. Maybe. It looks a little bit off, though.
Now, I like the second major part of the game somewhat more than the first, because it's more focused on exploring and finding your way forward in the familiar environments, as opposed to working your way through a mostly linear set of obstacles, like during your first visit to Eldin Volcano and Lanayru Desert. So, it's more on par with Faron Woods in the early game.
There is also a rich variety of different activities. Well, you always have to do one of the Silent Realms first, where even after ten years and practicing these trials quite extensively in the past in order to write Silent Realm guides, I still feel a little bit uneasy going into them. But for the most part they are not that difficult and I like the spooky atmosphere inside them.
Then you get a new item, which opens up a path somewhere else in the environment. In case of the Water Dragon's Scale this always used to be quite underwhelming, but at least the button-only underwater controls are now much more enjoyable and reliable. Still, the whole Lake Floria is quite disappointing by how small and linear it is, even after nearly ten years and despite looking really pretty in HD.
At the same time, I still think that revisting Skyview Temple in an altered state was an excellent idea, where it's a shame that this concept never has been explored again after all those years, unless you count the Drabland Challenges in Tri Force Heroes. But there is a lot of potential here, where I even hope that the sequel to Breath of the Wild might go more into such territories. After all, you will be re-exploring the same world again.
Anyway, while the Lanayru Desert was a slog on your first visit, now it's really the highlight of this part of the game. It already starts with getting the Double Clawshots, which is easily the most exciting item obtainment in the entire game. Already in the main area of the desert around the Lanayru Mining Facility there are a variety of targets, where you can get to treasure chests or Goddess Cubes. And there are multiple interesting points to use the Clawshots around Skyloft and Faron Woods as well. It's backtracking at its finest.
And as much as I love Breath of the Wild, this is something you don't get from a game of this giant scale. The focus there was solely on becoming stronger, where there was no real item-based progression, like in traditional Zelda and Metroid titles, since you get all major items on the Great Plateau.
To be fair, there isn't all that much item-based progression in Skyward Sword either, at least not in the traditional sense with the main items. The Double Clawshot might even be the exception here, where most of the other items in the game suffer the fates of their counterparts in Twilight Princess. The whip for example feels like an amazing addition during the Ancient Cistern, but after the dungeon its main use seems to be stealing the horns from Bokoblins. It's so important that Fi even still tells you about it.
Progression in Skyward Sword is overall a lot more scripted, where it relies on the Tablets in the early game and on your sword upgrades later on, which then lead to a new song at the Isle of Songs, which opens a Silent Realm, which gives you a new item, which lets you enter the next area with the dungeon, which lets you upgrade your sword again, until you finally have the Master Sword. It's quite repetitive, where the variety mainly stems from the new areas and the tasks there.
With that said, I'm off to what used to be my favorite of these additional areas: the Lanayru Sand Sea. Let's see how this holds up in HD... In the meantime, here are some sky kittens for your enjoyment:
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.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD was released today and its big new feature are the new button controls. Let's take a look at how the game plays now and how the different control options compare.
First of all, the game supports every way you want to play: Joy-Cons, Pro Controller, handheld mode or on a Nintendo Switch Lite. When playing with Joy-Cons you can switch between motion controls and button-only controls at any time via the options, which is very practical. With a Pro Controller or in handheld mode you're stuck with the button controls, of course. You still have the option to use motion controls for aiming (similar to all other 3D Zelda remasters), however, and to use motion controls for steering the camera, where both of this can be set individually.
There are also options to invert the camera controls, both horizontally and vertically, but this will invert the controls for aiming / the first person view as well, where there are no separate options for this. This was already done better by other Nintendo games, like Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, and hopefully will get patched in later on. At least there is a separate option for inverting the vertical steering of your Loftwing, Beetle and so on. That was thoughtful, because the inverted scheme might feel more natural here, especially with the Loftwing.
Now, the following button layout is the same for both the motion and the button-only controls:
A: actions
B: dashing / Loftwing slow down
X: use Harp / Loftwing charge
Y: re-center motion controls
ZL: target enemies
ZR: swap and use items
R: access items in your Adventure Pouch
For the button-only controls, you will use the right stick to do most of the actions that normally get done with the Wii Remote or the right Joy-Con. So, you will swing your sword in the direction of the stick inputs and you can stab by pressing the stick. It's also used for throwing or bowling objects in your hands, as well as using certain items, like the Bug Net.
The Bug Net feels really awkward, however, where it snaps back to the center whenever you let go of the stick and it's not so easy to change its orientation properly with just the stick. You might accidentally scare off the insects with that behavior, before you ever catch them.
And while sword works overall quite well, using the stick comes with a slight amount of delay, where this latency can be quite critical... Deflecting Ghirahim's projectiles with the sword for example seems now a lot harder than it used to be because of this.
This delay is probably there, because the game makes you hold out the sword when you press the right stick in any direction. To actually swing the sword you have to flick the stick, where the game probably first has to check that you're not holding, which then causes this latency.
All actions of the Nunchuk / the left Joy-Con motions got mapped to the L-stick button, so you roll while dashing and perform shield bashes by pressing the left stick. This sounds awkward at first, but actually works surprisingly well.
What doesn't work so well is switching items, because you have to hold the R or ZR button for this, then press the right stick in the direction of the item, hold the stick and then release R / ZR. If you release the stick before the shoulder button, nothing will happen. This worked a lot more intuitively with the motion gestures.
This is similar for throwing or bowling objects in your hands, like bombs, where you have to press and hold the R-stick either up or down for this, aim with the L-stick and then press the button.
And while it's nice that you can move the camera freely now via the right stick, having to hold L for this takes some getting used to and might lead to some accidental sword swings.
But the weirdest part about the button controls are Spin Attacks and Fatal Blows, for which you have to quickly move the R-stick left, right, and left again or up, down, and up respectively, which also works in the mirrored way. That's prone to errors, where the motion controls with moving both Joy-Cons in the same direction work much more reliably for this.
Overall the motion controls feel quite close to the Wii (U) counterpart. They are somewhat better, because you get two gyroscopes instead of just one, which makes all actions that originally got performed with the Nunchuk (like shield bashes) a lot more reliable.
However, since the Nintendo Switch doesn't come with a sensor bar, there is no way of automatically re-centering your controllers towards the TV. Of course this used to be a double-edged sword, because other light sources could interfere with the Wii Remote. You won't have this issue with the Joy-Cons, but you'll also have to re-center them very often with the Y button.
This doesn't seem to happen on its own whenever you use one of the items that require aiming, like the Slingshot or the Beetle. You activate the item and it can already start off-centered, which is super bad and can even screw you up during battles. An easy fix would be to re-center your aiming automatically whenever you swap to an item. This would solve a lot of issues here, where hopefully Nintendo will provide a patch for this as well. Curiously, if you use motion controlled aiming for the button controls, it already does exactly that.
So, neither the button-only controls, nor the motion controls seem fully ideal for this... Which is a shame. The game works mostly fine with either variant, but mistakes will happen, maybe even more so than back on the Wii.
Yes, I'm part of the problem. But I'm a collector, who doesn't want to miss out on anything Zelda, so I can't help it and Nintendo gets their money. It's still the most lackluster of the 3D Zelda remasters so far, which costs full price nonetheless and locks one of its important improvements behind the amiibo. The fancy Joy-Cons will only provide you with "joy" for so long, until they start drifting eventually. And good luck with getting those replaced.
It's not Nintendo at its finest, but it's still Nintendo and it's still Zelda, where it's hard to boycott or ignore. As a fan, you still like to have all these things, despite their flaws. The Zelda & Loftwing amiibo might even see some better usage in the upcoming sequel to Breath of the Wild, where you could get some nice cosmetics out of it. And I will use these Joy-Cons sparingly, so they hopefully will last....
It also would have been nice to get a Limited Edition or something that has all these items in one package, where instead you had to hunt for three individual collectibles. The steelbook was a pre-order bonus at certain retailers, similar to Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury earlier this year (see here), but luckily I got this in time this time, so I can already try the remaster myself later today.
The amiibo is actually quite small – with the price point of 25€ I expected it to be significantly larger. It was even more expensive than the Breath of the Wild Guardian, after all, but it's hardly any larger than Twisted Sword Link:
This guy isn't even supported by the game, what a shame. I don't get why Nintendo didn't went with a simple treasure system, similar to Breath of the Wild. They could have even thrown some new Medals in there, where the Medal from Zelda and her Loftwing could equip your Loftwing with two additional blue wings for more stamina. But nah, let's lock the new teleportation system behind the figurine, because Nintendo. Still, it's a very pretty figurine, I give them that.
Anyway, with the Master Sword and Hylian Shield Joy-Cons this is the closest I'll get to a Zelda Edition Nintendo Switch for now:
It looks better than I thought it would. If you're wondering about the Nintendo Switch Dock sleeve, I got this one from Active Patch. It saves your system from scratches and goes quite well with those new Joy-Cons.
