The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD review
Our Verdict
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Hard disk makes a few smart improvements to an splendid game. A cumbersome control scheme even so holds it back, however.
For
- Skyward Sword is still an excellent game
- 1 of the better Fable of Zelda stories
- Looks great and runs well
- Motion controls no longer required
Confronting
- Motion controls are still frustrating
- Smaller and more linear than Jiff of the Wild
Tom's Guide Verdict
The Fable of Zelda: Skyward Sword Hard disk makes a few smart improvements to an splendid game. A cumbersome control scheme still holds it back, however.
Pros
- +
Skyward Sword is still an splendid game
- +
One of the better Legend of Zelda stories
- +
Looks great and runs well
- +
Motion controls no longer required
Cons
- -
Motion controls are still frustrating
- -
Smaller and more linear than Breath of the Wild
When Nintendo announced The Fable of Zelda: Skyward Sword Hd for Nintendo Switch, fan reaction was mixed. Some fans were disappointed that nosotros weren't getting the Wii U ports of Air current Waker and Twilight Princess; others had wanted more substantial information about Breath of the Wild 2. Only there were indeed some fans who remembered Skyward Sword on the Wii every bit a flawed but ambitious Zelda title with a lot going for information technology, and were eager for a take chances to replay the game.
I count myself amid the third camp. While Skyward Sword will perhaps never be as universally beloved every bit A Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time, it was a challenging, creative and thoughtful Zelda game, at a fourth dimension when the franchise was starting to fall back into complacency. Skyward Sword HD is a faithful and loving remaster, including everything that made Skyward Sword piece of work, and excising a lot of what didn't.
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Granted, Skyward Sword HD can't quite overcome the original's biggest sticking signal: the motion controls. They were imperfect on the Wii, and they're nonetheless imperfect on the Switch. A superior controller-based scheme alleviates some of these problems, just also introduces a whole set up of new ones. While The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Hd is a fantastic game, there's still no swell way to control information technology after all these years.
Skyward Sword Hard disk is, for the about part, just similar the original game: ambitious, flawed and ultimately a joy to play. Read on for our full The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Hard disk review.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD review: Specs
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Cost: $60
Release Date: July sixteen, 2021
Genre: Action/adventure
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Hard disk drive review: Gameplay
After the inventive Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD will either experience similar a step back or a return to form. Skyward Sword HD, in spite of its unique setting and pronounced motion command mechanics, is very much a traditional Zelda adventure. That ways you'll take command of perennial hero Link every bit he explores a varied overworld, solves ingenious puzzles, finds helpful equipment, delves into dungeons, completes tasks for friendly townsfolk, then repeats the whole cycle about half-a-dozen times.
Skyward Sword HD makes up in depth what it lacks in latitude
This fourth dimension, the action takes place in the aeriform realm of Skyloft, where Link flies from floating island to floating island atop a huge mountable bird called a Loftwing. Departing from a central hub town, he'll travel to the verdant Faron Forest, the scorching Eldin Volcano and the forbidding Lanayru Desert earlier all is said and done.
While "one boondocks plus three areas" may sound stingy subsequently Jiff of the Wild'due south huge, sprawling map, Skyward Sword HD makes upwardly in depth what it lacks in breadth. Each area is much larger than information technology appears at offset, with multiple sub-areas and dungeons hidden abroad behind seemingly modest obstacles.
Take the early-game expanse Faron Wood equally an example. During your first trek to the surface globe, you'll guide Link through this leafy woodland. Equally you explore the expanse, you'll fight off enemies with your sword, use your inventory items to solve logical puzzles, and unlock shortcuts to make backtracking easier. While the Faron Woods — and the other areas in the game — seem somewhat small, compared to the huge Hyrule Field in nearly Zelda games, traversing them tin be surprisingly tough. Almost every expanse has a puzzle to solve, making the overworld areas experience more like worthwhile challenges, and less like simple interludes between dungeons.
During your first trip to Faron, yous'll explore 3 large subsections and a dungeon. But when you return later, with the help of an particular that lets yous swim underwater, y'all'll also explore the inside of a massive tree, a sprawling underwater urban center passage and an even trickier dungeon hidden behind a waterfall. Skyward Sword Hard disk drive is masterful at presenting you with areas that seem small and manageable, and then open upward as you return to them multiple times.
Beyond that, if you've played a classic Zelda game, you'll know what to expect hither. The dungeons are the existent stars of the evidence. After Jiff of the Wild'due south fairly bare-bones Divine Beasts, it's actually comforting to explore Skyward Sword Hard disk drive'due south seven labyrinths, with all their locked doors, hidden passageways and puzzle-solving items. As you become, you'll acquire series mainstays such as shields, bombs, and a bow and arrows, likewise equally more inventive fare, such as an energy whip, a portable bellows and a controllable flying beetle. (You will be seeing a lot of this beetle.) The particular variety keeps y'all on your toes, since you're never quite certain which item you'll find in which dungeon, or how y'all'll ultimately use it to solve the devious puzzles.
The Fable of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD review: Controls
It'southward impossible to discuss The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD without too discussing its control scheme. The original Wii championship was one of the start games to utilise the Wii Motion Plus controls, which offered greater directional precision for Nintendo's motion-controlled panel. In theory, this was very cool, since it let Link swing his sword horizontally, vertically or diagonally — and various enemies could anticipate, and react to, the direction of your strikes.
In practice, though, it was often a clunky way to play. While Skyward Sword offered some moments of true swordfighting splendor, it besides had a terrible habit of parsing commands just slightly wrong, such as performing a downward diagonal swing instead of a vertical 1. This led to a lot of frustration, and yous can't aid but experience that information technology's one of the reasons why yous start off Skyward Sword with twice the health you lot'd normally receive in a Zelda game.
Nintendo complemented a questionable control scheme with a slightly-better-simply-still-questionable command scheme.
Like its Wii predecessor, Skyward Sword HD's motion controls focus primarily on swordfighting. For this application, they're OK — although you'll oftentimes miss the mark, peculiarly since there'due south no helpful motion sensor bar to put on acme of your Television set this time. However, you can also use motion controls to pilot your bird, or your beetle, or yourself while swimming. Generally speaking, any kind of traversal with the motility controls is a miserable experience. The inputs are not precise plenty to maneuver effectually obstacles or make fast turns, pregnant you'll be stuck flailing your arms around and hoping against hope that yous air current up somewhere in the general vicinity of your goal.
However, Skyward Sword Hard disk has i huge advantage over its predecessor: the ability to use a standard controller. Whether you're in handheld mode, using the Joy-Cons in their controller mount, or employing a Switch Pro Controller, you tin can now move, aim and airplane pilot with the left analog stick, and swing your sword with the right analog stick.
This solves all the traversal-related problems — but opens up some combat bug instead. The control stick isn't ideal for precise, quick sword strokes, particularly since it'due south tough to differentiate between swinging your sword at an enemy and simply pointing your sword in a certain direction. When facing multiple enemies, information technology's besides extremely easy to accidentally apply your special attacks and deplete all your stamina in the heart of a heated battle. Using the right analog stick for your sword also means at that place's no like shooting fish in a barrel way to control the camera.
In the cease, Nintendo complemented a questionable control scheme with a slightly-meliorate-but-still-questionable control scheme. I'm tempted to say that the controller scheme fares meliorate than the motion controls, just information technology might just come down to individual preference. You may want to use both, depending on the situation, as neither 1 works perfectly on its ain.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Hard disk drive review: Story
Ane expanse where The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD holds up beautifully is in its story. While a lot of archetype Zelda games accept thinner stories than you recall, Skyward Sword HD still has an intricate bandage of characters, a fascinating earth and a sweeping narrative, with real stakes for the rest of the franchise.
Skyward Sword HD is substantially an origin story for the whole Zelda mythos, taking Link and Zelda from humble townsfolk and transforming them into heroes who recur throughout the ages. If you've ever wondered about series mainstays like the Master Sword, the goddesses of Hyrule, the Triforce and even the demonic Ganon himself, Skyward Sword provides satisfying answers, with lots of meaningful connections to games like Ocarina of Time and even Breath of the Wild.
My but potential criticism here is that the lore-heavy story can feel a little self-indulgent if you lot're not heavily invested in Zelda lore. Skyward Sword HD expects y'all to exclaim, "Oh, I know that!" whenever you see a familiar character or symbol. If you lot don't, or can't, and then the story doesn't feel very cohesive until near the end.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Hard disk review: Visuals and audio
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD finally makes expert on the artistic hope of the original game. While Skyward Sword had a gorgeous, colorful art style, the Wii wasn't really powerful enough to return it with perfect fidelity. On the Switch, the game runs at an impressive sixty frames per second, in both handheld and docked modes, and presents the anime-inspired characters and environments in precipitous, gorgeous particular.
Likewise, the music is some of the best in the Zelda franchise. Information technology delivers a fully orchestrated soundtrack that runs the gamut from arctic banjos in the Lumpy Pumpkin, to haunting harps in the Ballad of the Goddess. There'south no vox-interim in the game, merely the recognizable character noises and competent sound effects get the job done.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Hd review: Verdict
I've ever had a soft spot for Skyward Sword, insisting that the cumbersome motility controls on the Wii kneecapped what could have been a peak Zelda game. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD is closer to realizing the game's potential, even if neither control scheme gets it at that place fully.
In spite of some controller woes, yet, Skyward Sword HD is all the same a gorgeous and riveting game, total of interesting puzzles, intense combat and heartfelt characters. If you bounced off of it on the Wii, I'd recommend giving it some other chance. And if you've never played Skyward Sword before, so at present's the time to come across how the Legend of Zelda begins.
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Marshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom's Guide, overseeing the site'south coverage of gaming hardware and software. He comes from a scientific discipline writing background, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of science and technology. After hours, you can notice him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/zelda-skyward-sword-hd
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