Skyward sword switch reviews8/11/2023 ![]() ![]() Every dungeon, for instance, is preceded by long and arduous quests that are meaningless filler, existing solely to pad out the game’s runtime, and though there are certainly highlights even in these sections, by and large, they feel like pace-killers. The problem is, you just have to cut through so much crap to actually get to that stuff. Skyward Sword is at its best when you’re in the dungeons, which are some of the best and most ingeniously designed dungeons in a Zelda game. ![]() Unfortunately, those niggling issues weren’t the only thing that made the original Skyward Sword such an uneven experience- poor pacing was basically built into the game’s design, thanks to sections that felt like little more than needless padding. That really does make a difference, to say the least." "Excessive handholding and constant tutorializing aren’t major issues anymore, gameplay isn’t constantly interrupted by needless dialogue boxes or prompts every time you pick up an item, and there’s just far less friction in general, which means that actual gameplay isn’t interrupted nearly as often as it used to in the game’s Wii version. That really does make a difference, to say the least. Excessive handholding and constant tutorializing aren’t major issues anymore, gameplay isn’t constantly interrupted by needless dialogue boxes or prompts every time you pick up an item, and there’s just far less friction in general, which means that actual gameplay isn’t interrupted nearly as often as it used to in the game’s Wii version. In Skyward Sword HD, a lot of those rough edges have been smoothed away. ![]() But when you look deeper, you realize that it makes several other smaller improvements and quality-of-life changes, and though these might each seem negligible in isolation, put together, they really do make a difference. On the Wii, Skyward Sword was characterized by how much friction there was in the experience, how Fi would pop out with long tutorials every few minutes, how characters would insist on talking to you about meaningless things in excruciating detail, how the game just couldn’t help but keep getting in its own way at every turn. On a visual and technical level, Skyward Sword HD is a very conservative remaster- to the extent that it almost shouldn’t even be called that. As you might imagine, that boosted performance does wonders for the game. Far more noticeable are the improvements made to the game’s frame rate, which is now locked to an almost flawless 60 FPS, as opposed to the 30 frames of the original. That aesthetic helps the remaster overcome issues that exist on a more technical level. Sure, it definitely looks like a better looking version of a game that came out a decade ago, but it helps that Skyward Sword had an inherently timeless art style even when it released on the Wii. On a surface level, Skyward Sword HD sharpens up the game’s visuals, and while the remastering work done here doesn’t hold a candle to what we saw in, say, The Wind Waker HD, it still looks pretty good. "Even though Skyward Sword HD improves upon the original game in several ways, not only do some of its additions just not work out, there are also flaws baked into the core of the experience that no remaster could have ever rooted out. " The problem here, however, is that even though Skyward Sword HD improves upon the original game in several ways, not only do some of its additions just not work out, there are also flaws baked into the core of the experience that no remaster could have ever rooted out. More than a few times, games have been given a new lease of life on the Switch, enabling them to capture larger audiences and, as such, more love and adoration than they could when they first launched. To celebrate Zelda’s 35th anniversary though, Nintendo has brought Skyward Sword back into the limelight by remastering it and putting it on the Switch. So loud was the criticism for those last two points in particular that Nintendo decided to respond by making Breath of the Wild, a game with almost zero tutorials and the most open world open world of all time. Forced motion controls, an abundance of padding and filler content, excessive tutorials, extremely linear design- for all of these reasons and more, the backlash against the game was ferocious. But it didn’t take long for a large number of people to take note of the game’s many flaws, and eventually, the consensus was that Skyward Sword was the lowest point of the franchise in a long, long time. Upon launch, it received widespread praise from critics, as most Zelda games do, and there’s a legion of fans out there that absolutely adores the game. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has a complicated legacy. ![]()
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