When I decided to buy Breath of the Wild, I seriously considered buying a Wii U instead of a Switch for two reasons. I assumed the Wii U would be cheaper since it was an older system. I was wrong about that. In fact, it was as expensive and often times more expensive than the newer Switch. The second reason was because of the Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD releases on the Wii U. As previously mentioned on this blog, Twilight Princess is one of my favorite Zelda games. I've never played Wind Waker, so the opportunity to play it for the first time was appealing. The Switch was newer and cheaper, so I went that route to play Breath of the Wild, which was the correct choice considering how awesome the Switch turned out to be. Most of the big name Wii U games have been released on the Switch, which is a bonus as well.
I bring all of this up because of the recent announcement of Skyward Sword HD for the Switch at this week's Nintendo Direct. This year is the 35th anniversary for the Legend of Zelda series, and rumors have been rampant around what Nintendo was going to do to celebrate the anniversary. There was a big part of me that wanted a re-release of Twilight Princess HD for the Switch. With that being said, I am not surprised or disappointed by the announcement of Skyward Sword HD. It is the second most recent game in the series (for a major console) behind Breath of the Wild, and it has not been remade yet, so it makes sense for Nintendo to release this game in HD on the Switch.
Reading my original post on the game from 2012 was interesting. I had a lot of positive things to say about the game, but a few negative aspects stuck out at the time and to this day, the negatives are what I remember. The game was applauded by critics and I think generally speaking by fans, but it wasn't without any criticism. The biggest complaints had to do with the excessive hand-holding that occurred with Fi and the motion controls. Zelda games commonly have a lot of hand-holding, which is frustrating when trying to play through the game a second time or if you are a veteran. Fi was over the top, however. She's even worse than Navi. After playing the game for the first time, I was a fan of the motion controls and thought they added to the gameplay. However, the motion controls and the lack of HD graphics are the biggest reasons why I haven't played the game again, and this is despite the fact that I have a Wii currently hooked up to one of my TVs. The HD Switch version solves both of these issues for me.
Another debatable issue is the graphics. On the one hand, the game is beautiful. On the other hand, the enemies are quite cartoonish and subsequently do not look intimidating. It's kind of funny because in my original post, I said I wish the game was in HD and had more of an open world to explore, which is exactly what Breath of the Wild offered. I am looking forward to see how the game looks in HD and not on a CRT monitor.
The aspect of the game that sticks out in my mind the most is the revisiting of the various locations for pointless and time consuming retrieval of objects. Despite all of the positives the game had to offer, this is what I remember the most, and why this game doesn't make my Zelda podium.
Because of the reasons listed above, I would never replay this game if it weren't being remade in HD on a modern console. I look forward to playing it again to see if my opinion of the game changes. Some games over time continue to be as good as remembered (A Link To The Past), while others are not (Grand Theft Auto: Vice City). Being the game released prior to Breath of the Wild, apparently a lot of gameplay elements for BotW were adopted from Skyward Sword (like the sailcloth), and so I look forward to examining this aspect of the game as well. In fact, I'm so excited to replay this title that I've already pre-purchased it. I'll let you know how it goes after I'm finished. In the meantime, I'm still holding my breath for Twilight Princess HD on the Switch.
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