The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD | Review
The reasons behind our doubts were all to be found in the intrinsic structure of The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword, which has always been imprisoned in a limbo made up of undoubtedly interesting but also few elements refined. A control system entangled in the need to enhance the motion controls proposed by Nintendo Wii, a gameplay that sought to rejuvenate a formula that has now been repeated for too many chapters and a fluctuating artistic direction.
If you also consider that , excluding the three-dimensionality, The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD and Breath Of The Wild are two diametrically opposite chapters in practically every element of the game, it comes as if there was more than a doubt about the choice of Nintendo.
It is not, in fact, a situation similar to that experienced with the remake of Link's Awakening. In that specific case it was the remake of a Game Boy title, characterized by a completely different playful proposal compared to the one proposed by Breath Of The Wild. The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD offers different points of union with the masterpiece of 2017 and wanting to point it out from Nintendo risks generating completely wrong expectations.
It is not our intention to scare you, in the days spent together with The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD we found ourselves in front of a "remastered" made with care, careful to correct the errors of the past and designed to make more fluid all those game dynamics, which already in 2011, were excessively staid.
We are not talking about a production free from various smudges but the quality that has distinguished the series for thirty-five years, is undoubtedly present in The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD. Our biggest worry is to explain to you, in the best possible way, what awaits you once you are immersed in this chapter which, in some respects, has indissolubly changed the famous Nintendo saga.
Alla discovery of the Earth
One of the greatest strengths of The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD, was its ability to change the cards in the narrative that has always distinguished the series. Nintendo in fact abandoned the classic formula that proposed self-concluding chapters, and which shunned a precise timeline, in favor of a completely different story and which would be the beginning of the entire saga.The reasons behind this choice are all to be found in Nintendo's desire to create, The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword, a point of arrival and departure for the series, taking advantage of the celebrations for the previous 25th anniversary of the saga. A breaking chapter that, thanks to his desire to change a formula that has been abused for too long, has given way to that series of events that led to the creation of the next Breath Of The Wild.
A choice also given from the desire to please the fans who were clamoring for an official timeline that would arrange the numerous chapters of the series in a specific order. A list that Nintendo, in all honesty, has drawn up in a slightly forced way, forcibly exploiting the exploit of different and parallel timelines but which ultimately allowed The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword to stand out as "chapter 0" of the entire EA series in Breath Of The Wild to act as the last act of this huge epic.
The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD begins in Oltrenuvola, an island suspended above the clouds where two young teenagers named Link and Zelda grew up together, cultivating feelings that clearly go beyond just friendship. The customs of the island require that each student of the gun school take a final test aboard a Solcanubi, the birds used as a means of transport by the people who live above the clouds.
Trying not to anticipate too many details about the history of The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD, we can tell you that during the celebrations at the end of the final test of the weapons school, the young Zelda will be engulfed in a mysterious vortex forcing the young Link to embark on a long journey to save her. An odyssey that will lead the player to discover the genesis of numerous elements that have become the cornerstones of the series over the years.
The storyline of The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD works today as it did then, resulting in the best realized aspect of the entire work. For those who had approached the series for the first time with Breath Of The Wild it is right to know that the narration, although it turns out to be much more substantial than the last chapter of the series, is shown throughout the duration of the game through numerous lines of dialogue. . There are no dubbed parts and the kinematics can be counted on the fingers of one hand. An element that could be in some ways anachronistic, especially in a context like that of action in three dimensions offered by The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD.
Between clouds and dungeons
The structure ludica of The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD slavishly pursues the canvas that made Ocarina Of Time a timeless masterpiece. A linear structure, dotted with dungeons full of puzzles, bladed combat, bosses of various kinds, equipment to be found in order to continue with the adventure and a strong will to focus on the progression of the narrative.A formula diametrically opposed to what Breath Of the Wild proposed and which entrusted the task of innovating precisely to those affinities with the 2017 masterpiece. The stamina bar, the Magic Mantle (later evolved into the iconic paravela), the equipment subject to decay and a renewed possibility of interacting with the environments by clinging, climbing and moving with greater freedom than in the past, were elements that did not they had never been seen in the saga and who tried to offer the classic breath of fresh air to a series that had been stagnating for too long in a "comfort zone" born from wanting to repeat the success of Ocarina Of Time.
A set of elements that precisely due to their assonance with the most recent Breath Of The Wild, could obtain the reverse effect of what they were conceived for in 2011, resulting as an involution compared to what Nintendo proposed in 2017 and risking to place the new user in the position of making involuntary comparisons between The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD and the most recent chapter of the saga.
Net of these considerations, The L egend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD remains a solid and fun experience that rests on a timeless play structure and still today able to teach many exponents of the genre. To complete all that the title will have to offer it will take about 60 hours between main story, side missions and the inevitable collectibles. A conspicuous number of hours that will never be tedious or redundant, with the exception of some phases excessively devoted to backtracking and daughters of a videogame generation now distant.
As far as the comparisons with the most recent Breath Of the Wild are a must for anyone who approaches The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword for the first time, the general quality of Nintendo's production continues to stand out above today's standards, offering an action game with an incredibly refined level design, playful solutions that remain all now unprecedented for the genre and an alchemy between storytelling, action and exploration that has defined the canons of a genre that for over thirty years ago was “sampled to itself”.
Immerse ourselves again in some of the best dungeons ever made in the saga, as well as getting lost in the stories of the various characters, filled with dialogues and emotional subplots, made us remember what the structural upheaval brought about by Breath O f The Wild, was unable to replicate in 2017.
Let's talk about the indescribable emotions that the more linear chapters have been able to instill in us for decades, that ability to give a shape, and a color, to sensations such as wonder, tension and amazement, and which we hope will be experienced, in a similar way, also by the new videogame talent who will approach, for the first time, The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD.
The Joy-Con hurts more than the sword
One of the most controversial aspects of The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword, was its control system totally focused on the motion control proposed by the pairing composed by Wiimote and Nunchuck. A system that in view of the landing on Nintendo Switch necessarily had to be changed, in part to respond to the criticisms received in the past and, above all, to make The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD compatible with all models of the Switch family.We are aware that, considering that one of the dynamics underlying the gameplay of The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword lay precisely in exploiting the motion controls to allow Link to make sweeps in every possible angle, to readjust a game system for traditional controllers based on motion control is not a simple undertaking but what Nintendo proposed with The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD, did not fully convince us in every aspect.
The reasons are all to be found in some choices, apparently incomprehensible, which make this renewed control system excessively cumbersome in some of its aspects, forcing the player to adapt to the controls, Instead of offering enough options to embrace different play styles.
To make you understand better what we mean, in The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD the right analog controls Link's corresponding arm, pointing the sword the direction in which we decided to tilt the lever. Quickly flicking the joystick, in one of the eight available directions, instead causes Link to swipe in that direction.
Pressing the right analog, finally, makes our hero in tights perform a front lunge. A peculiar control system that turns out to be very intuitive, yet not always as precise as one would like precisely by virtue of the complexity of tilting the analogue precisely in the moments in which the action becomes more excited.
If the system with which the Wiimote is emulated through the right analog turns out to be ingenious and well developed, the same cannot be said for the rest of the actions that Link can perform, which are bound to a series of key combinations not always intuitive and natural. The right analog, in fact, also takes care of moving the camera freely, as in any third-person action game, the problem is that to do this you must first remember to press the L key if you do not want to end up drawing the sword and slashing through the air.
In the same way, the pressure of the left analog is associated with two completely different actions: holding the shield when stationary and rolling while sprinting. A decision that, similarly to what has already been explained regarding the management of the camera, generates an unnecessarily confusing result, especially when it is realized that it would have been enough to reassign the keys in a different way to offer a simpler and more intuitive control system.
Precisely with regard to this last detail, we find the total absence of an option to “remap” the game controls incomprehensible. Greater care in this respect would have been enough to make the readjustment operation carried out by Nintendo almost perfect. Don't get us wrong, as we mentioned earlier, it only takes a few hours to fully master the renewed control system of The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD but we continue to find some choices made by Nintendo excessively anachronistic, especially in 2021.
Nothing to complain, however, as regards the movement controls which thanks to the high precision offered by the Joy-Con, are finally able to shine in every aspect, finally doing justice to the original concept of ten years ago. The movements of the arms are always recognized in a precise way and the greater number of buttons present in the Joy-Con allows you to perform each action in an intuitive way, making the motion controls the best choice to fully enjoy the experience offered by The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD.
The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD
Let's cut the bull's head now! Even following the timid restoration operation carried out by Nintendo, the technical sector of The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD is dated in many respects. Not for this reason, however, should we accuse the Kyoto giant of having "worked in economics", as the number of improvements made to the quality of life of the title make it much more than a simple marketing operation.Setting aside the innovative control system for a moment, the first handful of hours together with The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD are enough to notice how many little things have been changed by Nintendo to make the gaming experience more dynamic and less staid. br>
Significantly reduced game action interruptions, less frequent text boxes, narrative structure filings to make the adventure smoother, improved on-screen indicators, small introductions to the hint system and a plethora of small positioned tricks here and there, which make The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD an operation similar to what was done in the past with The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD on WiiU.
Propr I by virtue of the numerous similarities with Breath Of the Wild, which Nintendo itself has repeatedly remarked during the presentation of The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD, a total makeover of the graphic sector would have proved a real panacea to make it shine under a new light for the title but it is also useless to dwell too much on what could have been.
Nintendo, with The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword HD, has limited itself to increasing the resolution (which now settles at 1080p in docked mode and 720p on the go) and the frame rate (which in this version remains stable at 60fps in both modes). An operation that fails to "rejuvenate" a graphic sector of a decade ago. Many settings are bare and devoid of details, as well as the polygonal models of the various characters offer a fluctuating quality of animations.
The artistic sector, on the other hand, remains unchanged, with its peculiar alchemy between realism and watercolor colors that already ten years ago it split the general opinion in half, showing itself as one of those elements whose evaluation is totally subjective. There are those who have appreciated and those who hated the style of The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword, with its constant search for excessively realistic and human expressions, which do not marry badly with the fairytale atmosphere of which the entire work is permeated.
Finally, nothing to complain about the localization in Italian, made with the usual care that Nintendo has accustomed us to, just as the audio sector reveals itself, as per tradition for the series, inspired and full of symphonies that are enter the history of the franchise by right as the now iconic Outset Island, Fi's Theme and The Sky.
