The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD

[Paulando]

July 16 2021.

 

Joy-con waggle, and button controls using the right-stick 

 

50 quid lol.

 

I never finished this so I am looking forward to playing a more conventional 3D Zelda after Breath of the Wild.

[Stanley]

Hopefully come release people will be more appreciative of it as it’s an excellent Zelda with some of the best dungeons and story telling (it’s an origin story for those that don’t know). It had its flaws but there are many, many sublime moments and if you give it time, the motion controls can add an awful lot (the speed at which you can access the radial dial menu for example). 
 

And yes £50 is an awful lot to ask for a stand-alone Wii port with, apparently, next to no additions or improvements, bar the button moves. 

[Laters]

Thankfully doesn't make me regret recently selling my switch

 

 

[scottcr]

SS is a great Zelda and the final dungeon is a puzzling work of art.  I'm a bit dissapointed they haven't added a filter to bring the blurry background painting style that you got when playing it back in the day.  Gave it an other worldy 'dream' like look which it's now lost.

[BruceBruce]

It's one of my favorite Zelda games, but then, so are all of them.. so I'll be getting it.

[davidcotton]

Just wait until the price drops a bit (yeah I know Nintendo lol).  
 

That or trade in your copy of BOTW to offset the difference:p

[Jarik]

Here's one tweak they could make that would improve the game greatly.

 

"Master, how much help should I give you?"

 

(Select from menu)

 

"Only when you ask? As you wish Master."

 

[Marlew]

Maybe my favourite story of any Zelda, some fantastic set pieces and one of the stealth sections is responsible for perhaps the greatest moment I've ever had playing games with my oldest mate from primary school, we were bouncing off the couch and laughing and hollering with the tension of it. Wonderful memories.

 

I'm well up for this and even better, it's made for a lot of filled nappies online. Great stuff. 

[KRP]

It's the worst 3D Zelda by some margin imo. At times, it feels more like a sub par Rare platformer than a Zelda game.

[teddymeow]

Bloody hell! £50!?

 

I might go and buy it for WiiU for £17.99 instead.

[Broker]

Oooh. I’m very tempted by that, it’s out not long before my birthday and I never played very far into it because I don’t want to use motion controls for anything ever. That control system sounds interesting, it looks nice and it’s a more traditional 3D Zelda I haven’t really played at all. Bit expensive though. And I really wish they’d decided to support people who don’t like waggle when they released Mario Galaxy. 

[Mr. Gerbik]

NO MORE WAGGLE

 

NO MORE WAGGLE

 

PRE-ORDERED!!!

 

Hooray! Makes me hopeful for Metroid Prime 3 if it ever turns up. Didn't get further in than 15 minutes on the Wii before being fed up with the waggle back in the day, and it's been so long since I played a new (for me) Prime

 

[Eighthours]

I wonder if the game will work well without waggle (mega-alliteration!), tbh. Whatever you may have thought of it, the gameplay was designed around it, so having more traditional button/stick controls might make the experience... blander.

[Jamie John]

I played this about five years ago for the first time on the Wii U and thought it was really good. I enjoyed the waggle stuff using the Wii Motion Plus a lot - it added to the experience and I imagine the button controls will lose something.

 

The bugbear for me, though, is the price tag. £50 for a higher-res port of a 10 year-old Wii game absolutely takes the piss. If it was a Wii U port, £50 would still be too much, but at least they'd have the excuse of saying no one bought it the first time around. This, however, was a headline release for one of the best-selling consoles of all time, even if it did come out fairly late in that console's life cycle - it's not like it's a hidden gem that the majority of people are suddenly going to experience for the first time.

 

Moreover, beyond the control changes, there's been no mention of QoL updates or anything else to bring it up to modern standards. It was never the most beautiful of Zelda games, but the footage in the Direct made it look very dated. Mass Effect 2 was another game released in 2011 - that's getting a fullly-updated release with gameplay adjustments and improvements alongside two other feature-length games which are receiving the same treatment, all for £5 more than Nintendo are charging for this game, and by the time this comes out, I imagine the Mass Effect collection will be sub-£40, if not cheaper.

 

But, of course, none of this matters because, as the recent Mario 3D collection proved, it will still sell millions of copies on release and Nintendo will have no reason whatsoever to change their business strategy, so I may as well be shouting into the wind.

[Ran]

I feel like they've got some brass with their pricing for what look like barely upgraded ports of late, but evidently so many people carry on throwing money at them when they do it who can blame them. Why put in more effort than is necessary.

Some of the sword battling in this was excellent but I did find the motion controls being flaky just enough now and then to irritate. I don't want to pay £50 to go through that tedious, tadnote bollocks or those repetitious 'smash his toes' boss fights again though so will hunt a second hand copy sometime in 2030 when it might be £20!

[Mr. Gerbik]

5 minutes ago, Eighthours said:

I wonder if the game will work well without waggle (mega-alliteration!), tbh. Whatever you may have thought of it, the gameplay was designed around it, so having more traditional button/stick controls might make the experience... blander.

Don't get me wrong, putting sword controls on the right stick sounds like it could be bad. But I'd rather have bad normal controls than good waggle.

 

[tnman]

No more waggle is a win, but I can't help but feel that changing it to the right joystick will make it just as divisive. It probably won't be a Kid Icarus hand killer, but trying to nudge the camera and instead fluffing an attack will take some getting used to.

 

Having to use the weeny joycons to play waggle sword would be a nightmare for me for longer sessions. My hands would cramp.

[Jamie John]

I really didn't have an issues with the waggle. Were those who didn't like it not using the Motion Plus Wiimote?

[OneDvBmbr]

Let’s be honest, it looks awful visually. Aged terribly and asking £50 for it is incredible. 
 

If it sells then all power to them I guess. 

[Marlew]

It will sell like a mother fucker.

 

Edit: toned down the swearing. 

[MattyP]

7 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

I really didn't have an issues with the waggle. Were those who didn't like it not using the Motion Plus Wiimote?

 

It needed the Motion Plus Wiimote to actually run. Remember having to source a plug in module for it.

 

Loved the game back in the day but found the motion controls on the flying bits hugely frustrating - especially with one of the bosses...   As mentioned £50 is a bit of an ask for this. However I guess if you've never played this before still a good game. Especially if they've updated the accuracy of the motion controls.

 

I never completed this game it felt a bit like a slog at the end - like it was padded out unnecessarily. As much as I enjoyed most of it back in the day would never want to go back and play this again. Spent around 50 or so hours on this and it just kept going on and on and on....  

[Stanley]

14 minutes ago, tnman said:

No more waggle is a win, but I can't help but feel that changing it to the right joystick will make it just as divisive. It probably won't be a Kid Icarus hand killer, but trying to nudge the camera and instead fluffing an attack will take some getting used to.

 

Having to use the weeny joycons to play waggle sword would be a nightmare for me for longer sessions. My hands would cramp.

Why? I find them just as comfortable as the Wii Remote & nunchuck, even better there’s no annoying wire tethering them either. 

[tnman]

2 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Why? I find them just as comfortable as the Wii Remote & nunchuck, even better there’s no annoying wire tethering them either. 

 

Why? I don't know, my hands don't find waggle controls comfortable. Why do you find it comfortable?

 

My hands ache. It's annoying. The joycons are small so they add the new sensation of balling your fist into the mix. The pro controller is the only way forward.

[McCoy]

1 hour ago, Paulando said:

July 16 2021.

 

Joy-con waggle, and button controls using the right-stick 

 

50 quid lol.

 

I never finished this so I am looking forward to playing a more conventional 3D Zelda after Breath of the Wild.

 

Maybe it is the art styles but there are aspects of that which I honestly don't believe look much better than OOT on the 3DS. 

 

 

 

And the Wind Waker HD port blows it completely out of the water. 

 

 

[Majora]

16 minutes ago, Marlew said:

It will sell like a mother fucker.

 

 

I'm not so sure about this. Skyward Sword got a mixed reception even at the time and its sales were mediocre. It was the worst selling 3D Zelda game of all time on the best-selling Nintendo home console of all time. The reception it got was so lacklustre, and it was so comprehensively overshadowed at the time by Skyrim's release, that it basically caused Nintendo to completely overhaul the series.

 

It will sell ok because it's Zelda and the Switch is doing really well but I don't expect anything particularly great sales-wise. There really isn't that much nostalgia for this entry and it looks very dated visually too.

[Marlew]

@Majora You could well be right but it came out at the arse end of the coffin dodging Wii and you needed an extra peripheral to play it.

 

It will sell because the Switch is looking pretty barren in terms of genuine big name stuff.

 

Link's Awakening Remake has sold 4.5m.

 

I would bet £500 that this sells 5m. 

[Broker]

36 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

I really didn't have an issues with the waggle. Were those who didn't like it not using the Motion Plus Wiimote?

 

You needed the motion plus, but the controls were still dodgy and awkward. I don't think I've ever played a motion control game that worked seamlessly and wasn't awkward or janky to some degree. And even if they weren't, I don't want to wave my hands around.

[Fatsam]

Cool, I was hoping for this to be 60 fps. Played a bit on Dolphin last year, but you can't do 60, so held back in anticipation of this for yet another play though. Slightly enhanced waggle should be good. Hopefully the lack of automatic sensor bar recalibration won't send the sword wonky. Be nice if they upped the text speed a touch, but other than that, I wouldn't want them to change a thing.

 

Magical as fuck this game.

[Jamie John]

3 minutes ago, Broker said:

 

You needed the motion plus, but the controls were still dodgy and awkward. I don't think I've ever played a motion control game that worked seamlessly and wasn't awkward or janky to some degree. And even if they weren't, I don't want to wave my hands around.

 

I didn't realise that re. having to have the Motion Plus - I thought it was just what was recommended.

 

And it might be my rose-tinted memories speaking, but I can't recall experiencing any jank with the waggle, and it was more a flick of the wrist than a wave.

 

But it sounds like I'm in the minority here, so I'll keep quiet.

[Broker]

2 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

 

I didn't realise that re. having to have the Motion Plus - I thought it was just what was recommended.

 

And it might be my rose-tinted memories speaking, but I can't recall experiencing any jank with the waggle, and it was more a flick of the wrist than a wave.

 

But it sounds like I'm in the minority here, so I'll keep quiet.

 

Nah that's totally fair, if you enjoy it you enjoy it and I'm happy for you

 

There's been plenty of times when I've been not enjoying a Zelda game or wishing I could play the new half-life that I've wished that I liked motion controls more. It might be something to do with the way I hold them or how far away my TV is or who knows what else, there's a lot of variables there. 

 

Ultimately though, I think I'm just lazy and I don't like them for the same reasons I don't like dance mats and plastic instrument controllers. I've spend my whole life playing games with a controller or mouse and keyboard and I like them and am used to them. I don't really feel like anything is missing and they've facilitated all my favourite games of all time so I'm not really looking for an alternative.

 

At least Nintendo have decided with this release to put in options that both types of player will enjoy