Zelda: Skyward Sword HD Will Have “Various Quality-Of-Life Enhancements”, Nintendo Says – Nintendo Life

Aight, time for some positivity.

Personally, I had no problem with the motion controls, but I know some people did. The compromise they came up with is honestly the best they probably could have made on any console with a “standard button” layout. Messing around with shoulder buttons for angular strikes like some elsewhere have suggested would be a bit fiddly. Not incorporating the fully directional swordplay would have been a bit of a design headache for certain sections and items, and honestly would lose some of the charm this game has.

I think this change is honestly more significant than most people give it credit for. A lot of people have said that they hated Skyward Sword because they had immense frustration with the controls, which is a fair criticism, and it’s why I love that ninty are giving people a choice to go back to buttons. The joy-con motion controls seem fairly solid enough, and I have faith that they’ll be as responsive as I found the motionplus to be.

Locking the “instant return to the sky” feature behind the amiibo is a bit frustrating, but honestly, it’s not as big of a deal as some are making it out to be. There’s only one or two sections where you’re both a significant distance from a Loftwing Statue, and would desperately need to get back into the Sky for one reason or another. It is a nice QoL change if you buy the Amiibo, but it doesn’t ultimately change much.

Assuming they’ve toned down Fi’s handholding a bit, and changed the “item description displays after every restart” issue a la the TP remake, that’ll alleviate most of the actual problems I would expect them to fix with a HD version. They weren’t exactly going to restructure the entire game to make it non-linear (which I would argue would lose the essence of the game anyway), and whilst it might have been nice to get a Loftwing speed upgrade, like WWHD’s swift sail, it’s not that high on the priority list that I’m too miffed about not getting it.

Yes, SS is linear, and very much a product of its time, but it’s an interesting partner to Breath of the Wild on switch, as the two represent two very different takes on what a Zelda game can be. Skyward Sword is a run romp, with lots of charm that deserves another chance in the sunlight. And if it’s not your cup of tea, it’s only another year till BotW2 (probably), so you can just wait for that one.