The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD

For me, I never enjoyed Zelda's big overworlds until Breath of the Wild. Hyrule Field or the Great See are initially exciting but ultimately quite barren. Skyward Sword fixed that by having a sky and three hubs which are jam packed with game design, then BotW somehow took that and spread it over a whole open world. I think the sky is beautiful enough in terms of visuals and music that I enjoy flying around it for its own sake.

I definitely understand criticisms of SS' lack of overworld, but for me it just wasn't an issue while I was playing.

I am becoming painfully aware that all of my Skyward Sword opinions will be put to the test whenever I get around to actually replaying it . . .

The sky is barren as an overworld, but it's so stripped back as an "overworld" to not really be relevant. Skyloft is one of my favourite Zelda hub towns, I think it's excellently designed. Maybe they could have just moved like the three other islands with stuff to do on them right closer to Skyloft so there wasn't any travel around in the sky.

The set pieces up there are cool though!

JayMoyles wrote:

Treesmurf wrote:

The combat does get better I think, I'm sure I struggled a bit at first but as I moved along I was hitting enemies with pinpoint precision (although the downward finish move is still a little iffy with button controls).

Did you play with button controls throughout the game yourself, Smurf? Ironically, I've had no problem with the downward finish - it's general combat that's tripping me up!

I switched between depending on whether or not I could be bothered to sit up but yeah for some reason I could never pull off that move on command, I will say that overall motion controls are the more enjoyable way to play but when you get home after work and just want to relax with a fantastic video game then button controls are a great addition.

I'll echo these thoughts on the sky, there isn't much to do but why should there be, the sky isn't meant to be densely populated. I guess it's just the length of time to travel on occasion but even then it doesn't really affect the game too much plus Skyloft and the areas down below more than make up for it.

Skyloft is great, but I'd hate it if we lost the flying about. It's so nice!

Treesmurf wrote:

stu_the_great wrote:

I have the amiibo for tis game, but not the game itself. Go figure.

It is on my list, but to say I wasn't a fan of the controls in the Wii version would be an understatement. Regardless of the improvements, this one has a sour taste it needs to wash out with the port.

I might be biased because I enjoyed it the first time but it honestly felt so much more enjoyable on Switch, reckon it could be down to BotW being a sort of pallet cleanser for traditional Zelda but maybe it's that solid 60fps making the difference.

A couple of the folks in the office are telling me that it's much better on Switch, which I still find ironic.

Buskalilly wrote:

For me, I never enjoyed Zelda's big overworlds until Breath of the Wild. Hyrule Field or the Great See are initially exciting but ultimately quite barren. Skyward Sword fixed that by having a sky and three hubs which are jam packed with game design, then BotW somehow took that and spread it over a whole open world. I think the sky is beautiful enough in terms of visuals and music that I enjoy flying around it for its own sake.

With Hyrule Field (TP version anyway - with the OoT version you're right, it doesn't hold up) I find/found myself quite able to believe in the trickery of the rippling landscape and different buildings - that it was more than a barren surface, even if it wasn't. Meanwhile the Great Sea for me was saved from barren doldrums by the visuals and music and, on Wii U, the Fast Sail. At least for me, the sky didn't have those things. It was barren, and not being flat you could see just how barren it was - it felt worse than the Great Sea, especially in comparison to the bustling fun of Skyloft!

Anyway, it's almost certain to be a one-off.

TP is the worst of the "fields" for me because it is so disjointed and never justifies being like that. The Bridge of Eldin is great, and I like the scripted events over the field like the wagon escort, but it's just not a field I particularly appreciate or even really remember that much of (because there was nothing in half of it anyway!)

Ocarina and WW are similar in that the field is at the centre of the game world. In Ocarina the areas go off from the field like spokes of a wheel, whereas in WW the locations are set within the field (as islands in the sea). TP is more like the Majora's Mask Clock Town and Skyward Sword Skyloft model - the centre of the game world is actually the main town, and the field surrounds it. But unlike those other two, in TP the field isn't continuous. I think that's why I don't like it as much.

Yeah, the sky is still the weakest point of the game for me. The complete lack of anything to really do besides slowly traverse to the big holes in the clouds makes it feel like a bit of a nuisance and closer to an interactive loading screen, which is a real shame as the on-foot bits in Skyloft and the surface hubs has been generally ace.

I'm firmly in the second half of the game now (unless there's a mysterious third act to come) having just tackled the amusingly named Ancient Cistern - I think Rum posted that it made him think of an old toilet, and I have to agree - and I'm still really enjoying the dungeons in this. Had I not had the massive tonal palate cleanser of BotW, I may have been a bit fatigued with the format but going back to SS has really made the dungeon crawling in this shine.

The Ancient Cistern is may favourite dungeon in the game. A real corker with a top weapon and boss. My personal opinion is that it's all downhill from there, but I know OR disagrees majorly with this.

OrangeRakoon wrote:

TP is the worst of the "fields" for me because it is so disjointed and never justifies being like that. The Bridge of Eldin is great, and I like the scripted events over the field like the wagon escort, but it's just not a field I particularly appreciate or even really remember that much of (because there was nothing in half of it anyway!)

The justification was obviously to cover loading pauses... but I think it actually plays a part in why I prefer it to OoT's Hyrule Field, because the narrow passages break it up into bits so you can't immediately see it all and sigh at how featureless it is (in this day and age). That and the more varied terrain. I'm not going to say I remember any bits of it apart from the bridges, but I'll take 'unmemorable in specifics with a great sense of adventure' over 'kinda dull' any day.

I like the discrete areas with transitions between them in Zelda, I think they help with the illusion of the size of the world and sense of place more than the game design being restricted by needing to have actual physical transitions, it's just I like them matching discrete changes in location - so fading to black as I go from Hyrule Field to say Zora's Domain is good, but having a transition between Hyrule Field and... Hyrule Field is a bit more odd. Maybe that explains myself a bit better?

I also think Ocarina's Hyrule Field has it's moments the same as Twilight Princess! The first opening onto Hyrule Field from Kokiri Forest, of course. The drawbridge into Castle Town closing at night (and the cutscene with Zelda fleeing!). Escaping from Lon Lon Ranch on Epona is maybe the best of the lot - and the way that getting Epona at that point of the game helps recontextualise the field completely (along with as a child it having the stalchilds but as an adult it having the Big Poes).

Does it have discrete transitions? Maybe I've forgotten those on purposes. I just remember the little corridors separating bits of it off.

OoT's field has its moments... They are for me drowned out by memories of The Vast Emptiness. The most memorable bit for me is the first trek from Kokiri Forest to Hyrule Castle Town, which you inevitably reach just as the bridge raises. I think TP's has a higher variation-to-metre-squared ratio.

I thought I was nearing the end of this, but my fears of a surprise third act were realised.

I'm a little fatigued by backtracking to each area at this stage now - a little bit more in the way of variety would have made these endgame quests a bit more palatable to me. It didn't help that they decided to squeeze in the always hated obligatory Zelda stealth section during this part of the game either.

Still, in happier news, I've shaken off those initial struggles with the controls and the combat and settled into a nice groove. Some of the electric enemies still catch me out, but that's to do with me being impatient as opposed to any struggles with the controls. Also, I really liked the first return trip to Lanayru Desert. Sailing across the sand sea and the subsequent dungeon was probably my favourite bit of this game to date. I really liked the dungeon - probably helped by the fact that it felt different to the others in the game, much like how Snowpeak Mansion filled that role in Twilight Princess.

Back to a more sour note, if I have to fight the bloody Imprisoned yet another time I will not be a happy man.

I've forgotten about the stealth section. Is that the Silent Realm? Because I thought all of those were pretty good.

Another Sandship stan.

Nah, it's the bit where you lose all your gear after the volcano erupts during a skydive into the Eldin region.

I'll bite - what's wrong with the Sandship? I found it to be the most inventive dungeon in the game with the core element of swapping time periods being a very fun mechanic. Being able to see the big Timestone from different areas of the ship and having that play into puzzles was great too. Plus, it's always neat having a dungeon that isn't some underground temple or sealed palace or what have you.

Ah. Yep I'd forgotten that entirely.

For me, it felt like a copy of the third dungeon with a duller item and a rubbish boss design. Re-use of a sandy theme, combined with not a single new enemy introduced, did that to me. Good mini-boss though.

I can see the similarities with the third dungeon and the Sandship, but I appreciate the Sandship more for taking the Timeshift stone mechanic and developing it further to really make the dungeon more interesting in my book.

Agree with the boss though - spectacle of fighting a giant Medusa kraken aside, what a dull fight it was.

Yep, that seems to be the consensus.  What really annoyed me was the way that there's only one non-set-piece enemy introduced after the fourth dungeon, including the much-loved Sandship.  Nobody else seems to care (they're all busy hating on the sublime motion controls), but to have Zelda's beloved cast of monsters just fizzle out midway through the game was absurd.  I didn't mind it so much in BotW, but a game that's almost entirely dungeons felt like it should have more enemy heft than SS had. Phantom Hourglass might have had a similar issue actually.

I do remember thinking the game was lacking something like a Darknut or Wolfos as a trickier enemy type in the latter half of the adventure.