The web site of radellama

2025

Continuing on my quest to play more things outside of my regular, and new things within areas I know I enjoy, I made an effort to chip away at stuff I’ve had on the backlog for a while. I also played some new stuff, and replayed old favourites just to keep it fun for me.
Despite some troubles this year- like my PS4 hard drive corrupting mid Sekiro -there haven’t been nearly as many disasters or health issues preventing me from playing games compared to the past two years. I’ve had shit going on, like a grade three tendon snap in my ankle, but that didn’t affect my ability to play.
Other than not being able to sit comfortably with my cats on me, haha.

I feel like I didn’t get around to playing as much this year, but looking back, I think I got a good amount of gaming done – despite how busy I’ve been when I’m not gaming.
I also finally managed to save and get a really good laptop for my studies, which opens up like 80% of my Steam library! I didn't play too much on my laptop this year, but next year I am very keen to try out some stuff that has been Windows only that I couldn't access on my iMac.
While it didn’t feel like I’d played as much, I think that’s more due to how big some of the games I’ve played were. Pair that with moving house, which made it feel like two distinct eras between this house and the last - that made the games I played before moving feel like they were from last year, haha.

Once again, there are some games I won’t be covering this year in my write-ups. Either I didn’t play them long enough to break them down in good faith, or I was replaying farm games to de-stress and don’t really have much to say that’d warrant a re-review.

I’ve also been working on a restrospective video throughout last year and this year, and would love to make more videos in future. Some of my personal favourite reviews written here would be really fun to turn into videos, so who knows – maybe you’ll see some familiar stuff revisited in future!
Because I’d like to split my focus between doing these write ups and covering games and other stuff in video form, I’ll probably change how I write about games from this point forward. This year marks my fifth year in a row writing about the games I played in the year, which is awesome!
I really love this long-form but structured look-back at what I’ve played, so I don’t want to stop writing; but I probably won’t write as much for this site in order to save things for video scripts. Who knows, I’ll have to play by ear.

Anyway, enough personal preamble, lets get to the good stuff!

Skyward Sword HD, Switch

Source:

I love this game.
It’s not a secret, it’s not something I’m quiet about, and it doesn’t take much to prompt me into declaring how underrated I think this game is.

Skyward Sword is awesome.

I consider myself to be quite a big Zelda fan, and when asked to pick a favourite, instead of spending forever umm-ing and ahh-ing over it, I often default to saying Skyward Sword. Saying that is enough to get some funny looks, though, and I’ve never truly understood why.

I already did a gag review on this game, that was more to just jot down some contemporary talking points I needed to get off my chest and have it documented in some way. Glad I did, cause it makes me laugh and I still agree with pretty much everything I said.

So, let’s elaborate!

Skyward Sword is yet another tale in the Zelda series about a Link who goes on an adventure to save his Zelda, overcoming many trials and tribulations along the way. Like every Zelda game- it’s familiar, yet has new stuff to bring to the table.

In story, this new take is shown by the overall setting and the relationship Link has with Zelda. They’re obviously close childhood friends, and there’s a more overt romance in the air compared to previous games. In gameplay, this new take is largely centred around the motion controls for the sword, and what that means in regards to combat and puzzle solving.

Originally, when this game was released for the Wii, you’d swing your Wii-mote around like a sword and it’d reflect similar motions in the game. It was quite fun, and an attempt at recreating that with the Switch’s gyro based motion controls has been made. I already bitched about this in the previous entry, but I found the motion controls to be ASS and favoured the new control scheme exclusive to the HD remake: dual stick controls.

I reckon these stick controls are The Way to be playing this game - otherwise, stick to the Wii if you want the motion controls. There is a bit of a learning curve, as it’s not as intuitive to pick up and do well right away like motion controls. I’d argue that the learning curve of passably playing to mastery is about the same as learning motion; as the swordplay is quite complex in this game- but I’m getting ahead of myself. The biggest complaint I hear about the dual stick setup is the loss of camera control - at least, not as easily as it is for motion controls on Switch.
See, on the Wii, you couldn’t control the camera at all. You just had to deal with it, and could only really look around when dowsing or using an item that is used from first person- like the bow and arrow. A quality of life feature for this HD remake is that, when using motion controls, you can use the left stick to walk around and the right to move the camera, as is standard for these types of modern third person games. That’s awesome!
Where people start complaining about the superior control scheme is that, when using dual sticks, you still use the left to walk around, but the right stick is now your sword. Flicking it in any direction will prompt Link to swing his sword the same way, but you’ve lost your camera controls to this! The easy work around is one extra button press; by holding L while you move the right joystick, you can move the camera however you want. It’s so simple! I’ll agree that it feels odd at first, but it became just as second nature as Z targeting. You just have to stick with it~

I’ve brought up the controls way earlier than I usually do because the swordplay is such an intrinsic part of the experience, and, in it’s own way, a part of the story. It’s also such a divisive aspect of the game that is reason enough for a lot of people to drop it early. I’ve always thought that was unfair and a bit dumb- learning any new game with controls unfamiliar to you will take a while to adjust to, so why was this one so much worse than all the rest?

As it should be clear, not only do I love this game, but I grew up playing the original across my preteen and teen years. I have completed the original game at least five times, but it has been years since I’ve replayed. While I knew the overall plot points and remembered most stuff pretty well, I didn’t remember the moment-to-moment gameplay in perfect clarity. It was really fun to replay and see how the game design worked and how well it taught me to play while having the foresight of knowing where it’s headed and what the game wanted me to do.

So, lets circle back to the story on Skyloft. As most incarnations of Link tend to be, he’s a bit of a sleepy head and has slept in. We start the game with Link having some kind of premonition, getting visions of antagonists to come, when he’s woken up by a loftwing. It isn’t any old loftwing, either. It’s Zelda’s, and it has a letter for him. Today is the day of the wing ceremony, and Zelda is fretting over Link and his carefree attitude. She wanted to meet him early before the ceremony started, so, after waking up and wandering around a bit, you find her practising her harp as she sings the ballad of the Goddess. She is very excited to perform her role in the ceremony, and has worked hard to prepare everything. While the two of you are chatting, her father, the headmaster of the academy, approaches and helps to ease Zelda’s worries a bit.
I really enjoy this scene (ever since I was a kid, all the way up till now), as it showed just how much Link and Zelda care about each other, and that her father also looks out for them both. It’s also nice to see a more grass-roots twist on their usual dynamic – Zelda still has a bit of oomph behind her name due to her father being the headmaster, but it’s not nearly as much of a social gap between her and Link as there typically is when she’s royalty.

Zelda still wants Link to get some practice in before the ceremony, and drags him to the nearest platform to jump off of and call their loftwings. But, Link feels off... He doesn’t sense his loftwing nearby and doesn’t want to jump. Zelda assumes it’s just nerves talking, and pushes him off the platform - but when his loftwing doesn’t arrive as it should, she calls her own and dives down to catch him. She acts so fast that she even strained her own loftwing just to make sure she caught him!
While she’s checking over her bird, she insists that her father postpone the start of the ceremony so Link can go find his loftwing, and off you go into the tutorial. You’ll explore the isle of Skyloft, asking the other students and villagers if they know where your loftwing went, eventually finding out that Groose and his two cronies have something to do with it. They bully Link a bit, annoyed at the delay and special treatment Link is getting. Groose’s tone immediately shifts as soon as Zelda arrives, as she steps in to tell him off and defend Link. It’s clear that Groose has a massive crush on Zelda, but he’s not going to reveal what they did to Link’s loftwing. So, now that Link knows Groose had something to do with it, and heard some rumours about where they might’ve hid his loftwing, Link picks up a sword and heads through the caves to find his bird.
When he emerges, Zelda meets him, having flown her loftwing around Skyloft to help him look. Together, they find Link’s loftwing caged up and freaking out. Luckily, it doesn’t seem hurt in any way, just a bit frightened.
Zelda seems a bit distracted, and as they watch Link’s loftwing flying happily, she asks if he’s ever wondered what’s beneath the clouds… She says she’s been reading some of her father’s old texts, and there’s some that reference a surface below- though most people don’t think there’s anything down there at all. No one’s been below the clouds before, and the clouds are such a thick barrier below their islands that their loftwings won’t fly through them. Zelda says that, one day, she’d like to see what’s below… But quickly remembers the ceremony, and hurries Link to get going!

When it’s finally time for the ceremony, Link and his classmates are sent off to collect a totem attached to a loftwing, and the first to grab it graduates. After dodging some cheating and dirty tactics from the others, Link wins, and gets to take a celebratory flight with Zelda to the Goddess statue. She acts in the role of the Goddess, going through the ceremony and giving Link a sailcloth that she hand-made herself. She worked really hard to finish it in time, and she’s really glad that she got to give it to Link. They complete the ritual and decide to ride their loftwings together, enjoying a moment alone.
While they’re having fun, a sudden whirlwind appears and knocks Zelda off her loftwing. Link dives after her, but is blown away and knocked unconscious. When he comes to, Zelda’s father is watching over him, and asks what happened. As Link explains that she fell, and he tried to save her but couldn’t- her father understands, and is just glad he’s alright. He urges Link to rest, as he’s all too eager to jump right into looking for her, and the headmaster leaves him for the night.

When link is alone, he hears a voice calling out to him, and sees a mysterious figure leading him to the base of the Goddess statue. Inside, there is a sword, and the mysterious figure reveals herself to be Fi, the spirit of the sword. The headmaster catches them in the base of the statue, and voices that he’d had his suspicions, but it seems that Link is the hero of the prophetic legends passed down to him. He warns Link of the dangers ahead, but he is determined to do everything he can to save Zelda.
Fi produces a tablet for Link that will result in the impenetrable cloud barrier being pierced by a beacon of light, allowing for Link to fly down to the surface. Everything is opening up for our hero, and once the headmaster gives him his knights uniform- the classic green tunic and coned hat we know him by -he’s off!

The general gist of the game from this point onward is to travel to the surface’s three main regions; exploring them to unlock new areas, grab new tools and items, and improve yourself as you get closer to finding Zelda. You’ll start in the grassy and nature-filled region of Faron, then the volcanic mountain region of Eldin, and finally the desert mining facilities of Lanayru. You’ll be returning to these areas quite often, too, as you’ll be zipping around in the sky and going from Skyloft to the surface between each major story beat. You’ll start with having to find the other tablets to unlock the Eldin and Lanayru areas, then you’ll need to reforge your sword with each region’s sacred flame, so on and so forth until the final battle. There’s a lot to do here, and I think it feels the most like a Zelda game in dungeons and swordplay.

The level design in the dungeons for this game are fantastic, and what I’d point to as some of the best dungeon progression for the series. This feels like what all the previous 3D Zelda’s were leading up to- you feel clever while making your way through the dungeons, you get fantastic use out of your special items, and the fights with enemies and bosses are super fun.
Even just outside of the dungeons and looking at enemies in the various areas you encounter them outside of dungeons, they’re genuinely engaging to fight and I often ended my play sessions with sore cheeks cause I didn’t realise how hard I was smiling. There are definitely some issues (which I’ll get into later, don’t you worry), but overall, I had such a blast playing this at the start of the year. I LOVE THIS GAME!

To start, let’s talk swordplay. As I’ve mentioned, the sword moves the way you do, whether you’re playing with motion or stick controls. If you flick to the left with your controller or joystick, Link will slash his sword to the left as well. You can slash in all directions, along with using a thrust to simply jab forward by doing that motion or pressing R3. For fancier moves, you can do the classic circle spin in both a horizontal and vertical manner. With motion, you simply swing both the left and right joycon sideways or vertically at the same time, and if you’re using the stick, you do a rapid left-right-left or down-up-down movement and Link will perform the spin. If you want to defend yourself and you have a shield, simply push your left joycon forward or press L3. Sometimes you’ll knock an enemy down and be given a chance to do a fatal blow, where they are on the floor and you have a few seconds to lock on to them. Either move your joycons up and down, or flick the stick up and down to leap onto them and finish them off.
And- the big special move exclusive to this game is a skyward strike, where you hold your joycon or stick up to charge your sword. Once charged, you have a beam of light that will follow the direction of where you strike, effectively lengthening the range of your sword. This is a great move to pull, so if you think you can manage the couple of seconds it takes to charge without being hit, it will help you heaps during combat.
It sounds a little silly just writing them down, but doing these moves- and being able to pull them off well -is really fun and feels super immersive! The fun comes from the enemies actually being designed around this control scheme, and the immersion from taking advantage of the directional slashes and the timing of when you hit them.

As an example, my favourite enemies to fight in Zelda games are often the lizalfos. They’re cheeky and move quick, forcing you to use most of your sword skills in order to defeat them. You need to know how to best use your attacks and defence, and they exemplify their game’s style of fighting.
I remember playing Ocarina of Time as a kid and coming up to some lizalfos, and focusing on the requirement to time my hits and defend well, otherwise I’d be toast. For the first 3D Zelda, they nailed the vibe of the combat. They’re a great example of the chanbara style of theatre fighting that was used as inspiration- where you can lock onto an enemy and focus on them, fighting your way through multiple enemies and still coming out on top. I even remember my dad watching me fight two lizalfos in OoT and commenting on how strategic you had to be to fight them. You can’t get by on luck or spamming!
That exact philosophy has remained in the combat of Skyward Sword. It’s the same fun combat and strategy, just pushed further! You have to watch the telegraphed poses of the lizalfos if you want to hit them- as they have one armoured arm they can use like a shield and block your attacks, a spiked tail they’ll whip around to hit you with, and sometimes they’ll hit you with some fire breath. You’ll have to do some actual swordplay to beat them, by slashing through their open sides and avoiding their defence. You can sometimes bait them into putting up their defence on a particular side if you just hold your sword in a direction instead of slashing, as they’ll move to match where they think you’ll be attacking from. I even noticed that if you throw a bomb at them, they’ll actually jump away from it and shield themselves. If you fumble or take too long to hit them, the lizalfos will even make fun of you - that’s a fucking clever mini-boss/regular late-game enemy!

All the enemies have some sort of pattern to them like this, and it’s up to you to notice where their weak spots and openings are, and act on it.
Deku baba in the way? Their exterior is tough enough that it wont take any damage, so you’ll have to slash whichever way their mouth is opening.
Skulltula blocking the path forward? Their weak spot is on their underside, so you’ll have to either spin them around or flip them off their webs and onto their backs to deliver a final blow.
There’s so many different ways you’ll need to fight enemies, so even though there’s a lot of familiar faces to fight, I didn’t really find myself bored, and this is one of the longer Zelda games!

This also meant that the boss fights are all this and a step above. Usually.
There’s a variety of bosses here, some great and some just ok, which is to be expected of any Zelda game if I’m honest. The stuff that’s alright or kinda bad can get tedious to fight, but there’s still a really active element of swordplay inherent to the motion/stick controls, so it’s not like you’re fighting on auto-pilot. But for the fights that are really good? Oh my god, they’re so good!

One of the main antagonists…

Ghirahim, is so fucking fun to fight. You’ll need to use all your skills, baiting him and taking openings as soon as you see them. He has attacks that require precise directional slashes as well, and my favourite part was that if you fumble your attacks and he grabs onto your sword with his hand, he’ll actually yank it out of your grip and throw it across the room! The Ghirahim fights are an absolute highlight for me, and exemplify everything to love about this combat system.

That brings me to the other part that makes a good Zelda game: it’s dungeons. For me, there are two main aspects that I care about in a Zelda dungeon, and that’s how good it is to traverse, and what kind of items make that possible.
I want an area that has interesting puzzles and floorplans that get me thinking, and I want to use the unique items belonging to that dungeon in clever ways. Both of these boxes get a big tick here, and I think even if you’re one of the people who don’t particularly like this game- you could agree that the best dungeons from this game are pretty damn good.

The dungeons here are a great example of good linear level design- there’s an intended route you need to go through these dungeons in, and the design is curated in such a way that it encourages you to look around and explore for yourself.
The first dungeon you go through in the Faron Woods is rather simple, but it teaches you to think about the space in all three dimensions. To assist with that, you get to make use of two items; your slingshot and the beetle. The slingshot is a classic Zelda item, it’s used here to briefly stun enemies and activate switches that are out of reach. The beetle is a cool new item, you can use it to fly up into narrow areas that Link would never be able to get to on his own. This is a great primer on how the game wants you to think, giving puzzles that force you to understand how you can use your items and how to navigate the space.
I really enjoyed just playing through the dungeons, figuring out the puzzles and collecting new items. There were times where I got a bit lost and didn’t know where to go, so I had to really look at my surroundings and notice all the details and see what I’m missing. There were times where I knew what I wanted to do, just not how to do it. Simple things like checking the map or experimenting with your items can give you new ideas on what to try next!

Apart from the puzzle solving and progression in dungeons, one of the other things that makes it a Zelda dungeon are the special items you’ll pick up along the way! I already mentioned that you get a slingshot and a flying beetle- but there are plenty of classic items to collect, like the bow and arrow or the bag of bombs, and items unique to this game like the digging mitts to burrow underground.
There are a total of eight items to collect across your play through, and one thing I’ve always appreciated about this game is that these items get a lot of use. It’s very common in Zelda games for an item to be found in a dungeon, and only really used within that particular dungeon, with little to use it for outside of it. While there are some items here that will be quickly forgotten about when you obtain a better version- like the slingshot getting tossed aside for the bow and arrow -most items here get frequent use all across the game.

There’s even one particular moment where you come to appreciate all your items in the late-game…

where you’ll find yourself captured by some enemies and robbed of all your items. It’s a really fun section, forcing you to stealth around and try to get your belongings back one by one. Seeing the slingshot again is great, even if you haven’t used it since you first got it!
I actually quite enjoy sections like these, where you’re forced to regain all your stuff and work around not having anything until you do (when they’re done well). The sequence in this game is one of the best examples I’ve experienced as well; you’re fairly deep into the game and using all your items should be muscle memory by that point, so to suddenly be stripped of that makes it hit hard. I’ve played a few games where they do this kind of level far too early, before you have all your weapons or before you get so used to them that the shock of losing them doesn’t really feel impactful. Again, the linear design of this game works in it’s favour!

You can even upgrade your items at the Skyloft bazaar, where a mechanic at the scrap shop can make your items better at doing what they do. You can upgrade your beetle so that it can fly faster or hold stuff in it’s pincers, enhance the power of your bow and arrow, and upgrade your shields as a few examples. There’s also an item shop where you can buy new shields and refill your slingshot and bow and arrow ammo, and a potion shop where you buy potions to refill your hearts and stamina, and even potions that let you breathe underwater and strengthen your shield! And, just like how you can strengthen and upgrade your tools at the scrap shop, you can infuse your potions with items you’ve collected across your play through to make them stronger.

Item farming for said collectables isn’t too bad, either. You’ll be coming across various bugs and trinkets across the world as you explore, and quickly build your collection. When you find yourself in need of certain items, once you know where to look you can simply pick them up, leave that screen and re-enter, and it’ll have respawned!
I made use of this a lot in the Lanayru Desert when I was trying to get lots of tumbleweeds and ancient flowers with minimal effort. I have no idea if this was just as easy on the Wii, and I don’t think I ever tried to farm like this there anyway.

Something I did try to do many times on the Wii, and always seemed to fail, was the mini game where you play a concert with Kina at the Lumpy Pumpkin. At a certain point mid-game, you’ll gain access to the harp as the musical instrument of this game, and can pull it out to play whenever you’d like. The main uses for this are to strum along in certain story moments, and to play in certain areas to reveal goodies. You also get to play it in a cute little pub called the Lumpy Pumpkin, where the daughter of the owner will sing on stage for everyone if you provide some music. I was so determined to do my best, strumming along to the rhythm was always so much trickier than it looked, and I would always be a few notes short of a good performance on the Wii. On the Switch, though? First time.
The precision you get with the sticks is unbeatable…

There are multiple mini games and side quests to come across as you go on your journey, both in the sky and on the ground. The Lumpy Pumpkin houses more than one mini game, and multiple side quests start here too. It’s a nice destination to fly to, as is the bamboo island where you can hone your sword skills and see how many times you can slash a single stalk of bamboo before it falls to the ground.

Flying around the many little islands dotted about the sky and coming across these fun activities can be really exciting, but it is also the source of one of my major gripes with this game.

The sky is so sparse!

Everything feels so far away and a lot of time is just spent flying in a big beige haze of clouds, with the occasional rock of an island that has one treasure chest or something on it to unlock. That’s not really enough to justify how long you spend flying, and just makes the sky feel empty. I really think the amount of negative space in the sky should’ve been shrunk down at least 30% and the feeling of how fast you fly should be increased a little bit. I understand that the goal was probably along the lines of having a beautiful, vast and open sky to glide through - but it’s as tedious as sailing with nothing to do in Wind Waker and wandering around in Breath of the Wild with the occasional korok strewn about to give the illusion of there being more to do than there actually is. I think you could still achieve the feeling of a nice flight between islands and other points of interest without it being spaced so far apart, and pushing everything a little closer together would help keep that isolated and small town feeling to juxtapose how sprawling everything down on the surface feels.
The various areas on the surface can also feel a bit sparse at times, but due to how you travel through them, it is a little less egregious than flying through an empty sky. Plus, if you know where to look, you can play minesweeper!
The nature of returning to each main region and unlocking new areas means that there’s going to be new and interesting places to explore, making it feel inherently more interesting than seeing the same thick blanket of clouds every time you need to zip down to the pub for some pumpkin soup. It’s such a shame that the actual flying feels like a bit of a letdown when Skyloft itself is such a cosy hometown for Link, and the various other notable islands in the sky have their own unique vibes. The NPCs are all so cute, with all the friends in the sky that you get to know through side quests, and new friends on the surface as you explore each area. Have I mentioned that one side quest is to essentially power wash someone’s house free of dirt with your gust bellows? I don’t care if her son is annoyed that she’s spending her money on cleaning that she could do herself, I’ll clean your house and blow a gentle breeze her way any day!
Well… Ok, maybe I do care when you walk past her house at night and hear the argument, she has with her son, but I’ll live.

There’s so many cute details throughout the game that I’m finding it hard to write in a comprehensible manner and not just list everything off in an info dump of a write-up. It’s something I really like about the game, that there’s a lot put into the main story and side quests. Like, very occasionally you’ll come across these little stools to sit on that will recover your hearts for free if you sit long enough. When you sit for a long time, you’ll see Link start to nod off, which is pretty cute – but did you know that if you sit on one of these stools and there’s an NPC nearby, you’ll be able to have a little chat? Little stuff like this is really enjoyable to come across!

Let’s move onto visuals before this becomes a 10k word gush of all the details I like!

The visuals are gorgeous in this game! This is genuinely one of the most beautiful Zelda games to me, I love the style and aesthetic here, and each area of the game has it’s own vibe that feels distinct to it which is fun. There is a painterly quality to a lot of the textures and the way areas are lit in this game that gives it an impressionist-inspired semi-realism look. Everything is bright and colourful, the models for Link and Zelda and all the other characters and enemies are detailed and nicely animated, and it’s just nice to see each area.

However, there is one thing I’m a bit upset about, and that’s how the HD part of this re-release was handled.

See, on the Wii, this painterly style looked amazing and I was very much looking forward to seeing it in high definition on the Switch. Unfortunately, a lot of what made the visuals look so good on the Wii have been lost on the Switch. I wondered at first if I was just misremembering due to nostalgia, so I went to lookup gameplay and cutscenes of the Wii version to make sure, and. Yeah.
Something’s off here.
While the colours here are very bright, it often felt a little too bright for me. This was the first thing I noticed, as I’d often end my sessions feeling bleary-eyed and wondered if my astigmatism is just getting that bad lmao. But no, the way the light is rendered relies a lot on the bloom in the highlights, and the brightness from that bloom washed out some of the saturation and contrast that were more present on the Wii.
The depth of field effects seem to have been lost as well- which, to me, was a key part in making the painterly style shine. It was so nice to get up on a high up ledge of some sort and look over the landscape, seeing the stuff that was further away blending into a more impressionistic style. That’s simply not here anymore, at least not to the same degree. I also felt that the depth perception kinda sucked, and it made a few of the platforming and spacialy-aware requirements annoying. I’m not sure if this is also a problem on the Wii, or it’s simply a me-issue, but I found the depth perception issue to be at it’s worst while flying in the sky. This kinda amplifies the sluggish and drawn out feeling of flying in the sky that I mentioned earlier.
It was great to see some parts of this game in a higher definition, particularly the character models that looked great - but when so much of the world felt a lacking, it was a bit disappointing to see that it looked better to me in the standard definition of the Wii…

The music of this game barely needs an introduction, as it’s one of the best Zelda soundtracks ever! I still have the orchestral CD that came with the Wii version, and have listened to this soundtrack many times through the years when I’m in the mood for it. Nothing much has really changed with the Switch version to my understanding, but it didn’t really need any changes - it’s perfect as is!
Compared to previous Zelda’s, this game took advantage of the Wii being on a disc and had a full orchestral soundtrack. Even after all these years, hearing the bombastic themes with the strings and percussion give me chills, and the more subdued and melancholic tracks with primarily piano or choir-like vocals are still gorgeous. For a series who’s music is so important to it’s legacy- not just as a soundtrack, but within it’s story -moving to an orchestral sound was a stroke of genius. It’s part of what makes the scaled back and ambient direction for BotW so disappointing, but that’s a rant for another time.
There’s a dynamic feel to the soundtrack here, where certain instruments change depending on where you are in areas like Skyloft or Lanayru was amazing.
Also, during the part of the game where you’re in the sand sea ship, the music often reminded me of Jamiroquai with it’s synth noises that added to the eerie and displaced feeling. So much of the soundtrack is memorable, and gets stuck in my head in the most pleasant ways- there’s not really anything to say other than I LOVE IT!!!

But, this brings me to the part where I really get into the nitty gritty of my criticisms towards this game. Of which I have a lot. You can love something so much while also being frustrated with it, which is what is going on here.

The biggest thing is the game’s obsession with thirds. I guess it’s the main motif of the game, but it is pervasive in so many aspects beyond just the story that it gets tiring and leads to the latter half of the game starting to feel bloated just for the sake of it.
There are three chunks of the world you can go down to, and you’ll be revisiting them each three times. This aspect isn’t too bad on it’s own, as you at least get to explore new areas or have some new twist on each region when you come back down. Through this, you do get to really explore and get familiar with each region, but it does unfortunately get same-y... especially if you’re not enjoying yourself as much as I was.
Three times watching Fi dance around when you find the shrines in each region, three times going back to the Isle of Songs to watch her dance around some more, three flame reforging sequences that look identical.

Three three three!!!

This causes so many pacing issues where it’s dragged down by this self-imposed obligation to repeat and reiterate the same stuff in thirds, which is a HUGE shame. The story is a really nice one in the grand scheme of things, but it gets muddied by unclear stakes and vague story progression due to the constant zipping back and forth to repeat yourself.
There’s so much heart and sincerity here; through the main story of Link braving the journey to a whole new land in search of his Zelda, to the various ways you get to befriend and see the growth of NPCs through side quests – this story is genuinely one of the best the franchise has to offer, and so many people quit on it due to the clunky way it’s presented. It makes me sad!!!

Even outside of the rounds of threes, there are some blatant reuses of bosses that don’t really fit contextually to see the second time around. In one area, there’s a giant scorpion in a sandpit to fight, and that’s pretty fun. In another area, there’s a skeletal pirate king who traps you on a long and narrow section of the boat where you have to fight with your sword and push him back before he pushes you into an untimely end. These are both cool bosses that had a clear build up and satisfaction to beating them, that were both reused in random areas after that didn’t have the same environmental curation to make them actually fun to fight. Stuff like this makes me wonder if there was a budget issue or they didn’t have enough time to refine certain areas or make better choices about where reused bosses should go...

However, one of the worst parts of the game, that most people harp on about, is your companion, Fi. I wanna preface this by saying that I do like Fi, but mainly in concept. She is the spirit of your sword left by Hylia to help guide her chosen hero in his journey ahead, and she had a kind of pseudo-android thing going on where she’s very precise and robotic about statistical probabilities and such. She also has verses of legend and knowledge of how to do things like reforge the master sword, and one of her most useful abilities is that of dowsing. Through it, you can pick something to focus on, such as traces of Zelda, or an item you’re looking to collect more of, and point your sword in a first person point of view to look for it.
So far, that doesn’t sound too bad, right?
Where they absolutely fumbled this cool concept for a companion is with her incessant need to repeat redundancies and interrupt your gameplay to do so.
You’ll often be in the scenario of an NPC giving you some vital information that will help you on your journey, and then Fi pops out of the sword to repeat it in a more annoying way and not let you think about anything yourself. I don’t need her to stop me in my tracks and tell me whatever I’ve literally just seen or heard!

I felt this was the most egregious in the silent realms-

a late-game challenge where you have to journey through eerie versions of certain areas and collect sacred tears to prove his spiritual growth. Part of the fun with these sections are that they’re tense; you don’t have any of your equipment to lean on, and there are these creepy overseers that will chase you down and ‘kill’ you if you run out of time, forcing you to restart from the beginning if you get caught. Fi isn’t supposed to be able to join you, she tells us that due to it being a trial of Link’s spirit, she can’t come into the spiritual realm to assist. You don’t really need her input here anyway, as you’ll be far enough into the game to understand how everything works, and the level design of the first spirit realm is good at showing you what to look out for and how to succeed.
You’ll start in the middle of a circular pattern on the floor, and find that as soon as you step out of it, you’re in danger, as you’ve woken the overseers who immediately begin chasing you. You’ll either get hit by one, and shown that you have to restart the trial, or you’ll run to pick up a sacred tear, and see that it acts as a safety countdown, putting the overseers back to sleep until you either run out of time or wake them by touching the water strewn about the place, or an enemy spots you and alerts the overseers. It’s a nice stealth type of mission, and most people who have played have something to say about how they freaked out as soon as the overseers started chasing them.
The thing is, this is all stuff you can figure out on your own - but despite saying that she can’t join you in this spirit realm, Fi finds a way to over-explain anyway. She literally calls out to us when we come across water for the first time. To tell us that the water is evil here. Like… c’mon Fi. Let us figure it out!
In the first spirit realm we can see there is a sacred tear right next to the water, so you can touch it and quickly reset the countdown to figure everything out, but she just has to tell us stuff we could figure out through the level design.

The way Fi juts in so often is so at odds with the game itself- there are so many wonderfully designed levels and dungeons that prompt clever thinking and experimentation, but you’re not allowed to think for yourself- Fi has to do that for you. It’s annoying as fuck when you’re not allowed to try solve the problem in front of you, because Fi cuts in to tell you what you were about to think. Or, as was often the case, stuff I was already thinking cause I’m not dumb as bricks. There are some genuinely clever moments required of you, but you’re not able to feel clever on your own because of the way Fi is written.
And, believe it or not, she’s been toned down significantly in this remake compared to the original Wii. When I think back on my teenhood playing Skyward Sword and all the fond memories I have of it, I also think of all the times Fi wouldn’t fucking shut up and kept beeping at me to tell me the batteries are low. Fuck off, I know.
While there’s thankfully none of that, and a lot of the hints she’d give are now behind an optional prompt for you to call, the annoying hand-holdy nature is just baked into her. I genuinely don’t understand why they made her like this, there’s no trust in the player to be able to just play the game. She feels like the self insert of a director that is trying so hard to backseat-drive your playthrough and point out all the stuff they want you to notice. The very philosophy of WHY she’s here as a character is grating, and it’s honestly made worse by the cold and detached android personality she has. As much as I enjoy her when she’s good, there just aren’t that many good moments written for her- which makes the final scenes of the game with her fall flat.

The other worst part that people often complain about are the fights with the imprisoned. I hate this stupid ass fucker with his dumbass booby toes and butt hole throat! It’s just not an interesting fight and doesn’t really require anything that pushes your understanding and skill of the game- it’s just a giant thing you have to run around and trip over before it stomps on you, and then seal it back into the ground before it breaks it’s way back out again. Having to seal it unsuccessfully so many times just brings into question how effective that seal is… Why keep doing it if it’s not keeping him sealed for very long? And, each of the three times you fight him aren’t all that distinct- bar one element in the later fights. The first time, you have to cut his booby toes to make him fall over and strike the seal back into his forehead. When he comes out for the second time, he has arms and can climb the arena much faster, and by the third he has this weird demonic halo that allows him to fly up. When he is flying, you have help getting catapulted on top of the imprisoned to stab that seal back into his head, but… anything cool about that has been lost through the sheer amount of times you have to replay this. I don’t mind a battle here to demonstrate the sense of urgency there is towards progressing in the game and making sure the enemy doesn’t get a hold of Zelda; what I have a problem with is this insistence on thirds ruining the experience. You could honestly scale back a lot of these fights and condense them into one larger one with a few phases, and really make it a stand out experience instead. You can still have your motif of thirds with only one fight, as the climax of the game has a much better fight with a reoccurring antagonist in the same arena, and the final fight is started here as well.
Also, I didn’t put this to the test here, but I distinctly remember watching my sister replaying once when we were younger, and she waited around too long to reseal the imprisoned at the end of a fight. To do so, you’re given a symbol to ‘carve’ with your sword and it’s supposed to seal him in, and each round has a more complicated symbol to carve. Well, there’s always a sense of urgency in this moment, and I guess my sister just wanted to put that to the test. I can confirm that you will have to do the entire fight all over again if you wait around instead of carving the seal. On the Wii, at least- though I doubt the devs took this out when doing the HD remake, and it is kinda funny that they did that.

Some other nitpickings I have to get off my chest are much smaller in comparison, but still worth bringing up. In the aforementioned silent realms, I somehow got stuck on a wooden beam that I needed to go on to get a sacred tear, and it wouldn’t let me move or get off at all. I was genuinely soft locked, and had to just wait until I got killed and restart the entire trial, despite that being my last sacred tear to collect before exiting.
There’s also something with the dialogue options you get to choose from that just irk me a bit. At various points within the game, you’ll be given a choice between two to three options of dialogue for Link to ‘say,’ but these options don’t really do anything other than make you select one of them before reading the rest of that dialogue or cutscene. And, look. I get it. I’ve written much smaller scope dialogue branches for visual novels, and done a similar thing of having the dialogue barely change at all based on your choice... but it’s not my favourite thing to do, and I’d rather commit to proper branches if I’m putting them in there. This basic flavour text, if there is any, feels like a crap illusion of choice- I’d rather them not have this in there at all if I’m honest. They clearly have a story they want to tell, and if they don’t want to commit to bigger dialogue branches and whatever, they don’t have to. If a yes/no option feels too crap and repetitive to continually put in the dialogue, the same goes for fake dialogue choices!
I noticed that certain side quests had the relevant NPCs get little speech bubble icons above their head when they have something new to say within their quest, which is pretty neat and a good way to keep track of who needs talking to. However, this often felt broken, as I’d do more of the main quest and come back to check on certain NPCs, seeing that they had the speech bubble, but only repeating the same thing they said to me last time. That was weird, and I don’t know if this was also a thing on the Wii, but whadda hell??
The camera controls are also a bit weird. Everything I said at the beginning still holds, and it’s not so much the literal taking control of the camera, but more how far the camera lets itself be controlled. See, in the Wii, you couldn’t control the camera at all. It’d just kind of snake behind you and could be quickly re-centred with Z targeting if you wanted to reorient yourself. It fights you significantly less than what I found in Mario Odyssey, but due to the camera being originally built under the presumption that you wouldn’t be controlling it manually, sometimes the manual movement feels off and the camera insists on doing it’s own thing, regardless of what control scheme you were using. Despite that, I did enjoy the ability to just wander around and have a look at the environments without needing to use the first person mode.
And finally, because I need to cut it off somewhere, one of the more frustrating parts of using the stick controls was when you were when you were diving off your loftwing or using the beetle to fly around. To fly it, you can move left and right like normal, but the up and down are inverted, and you can’t change it. This felt more intuitive when holding an actual Wii-mote, where these gestures make a bit more sense. You do have the option in the menu to swap if you want up and down to be inverted, but not left and right, which is frustrating because I’d personally like the option to have everything inverted and not be limited to half inverted. And, when diving off your loftwing, if you are up high enough in the sky above either the Lumpy Pumpkin or Bamboo Isle, you can maneveur around as you fall and collect these weird little mask things. If you collect all of them before you land, you’ll get some rupees, which is a fun little thing to do! The trouble with it on joystick controls is that, if you press up, you’ll go into a dive that speeds up your descent instead of just tilting forward to get that last pesky mask. There’s also a mini game you can play where you try to dive through rings and multiply your score after being flung into the air – this was so much more fun to play on the Wii. In every other aspect, the stick controls are fantastic, but the diving and flying controls are a bit wonky.

Overall, I still fucking love this game. There’s genuinely so much to love about it, and I’ve had to ruthlessly cut a bunch of notes I wanted to use in this write-up in favour of making this actually fun and informative to read.
The dungeons are some of the best in the series, the music and visuals are amazing, I like the story despite it being a little long winded, and I think the addition of the stick controls were great. There’s a lot of fun things to do on your journey, and the swordplay is an absolute highlight for me- from normal encounters to bosses, everything trains you for the final big boss, which is a grand battle that strips this swordplay to it’s most refined and challenging.
Plus, one area has a big ass minecart roller coaster to ride, MINECART FUN!!

I love Skyward Sword, and often feel such a sad longing for the universe where it wasn’t misunderstood and maligned. If you haven’t given this game a go, or had a bad time playing on the Wii, I really urge you to give it a second go and enjoy all the awesome things it had to bring to the table.
And calibrate your Wii-mote correctly or use the sticks on the Switch. Trust me.

Bamboo Isle
Skyloft
Ghirahim Third Battle

Fantasy Life, 3DS

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girugameshhhhh

Skyward Sword HD, Switch

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Skyward Sword is awesome.

The sky is so sparse!

Three three three!!!

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Fantasy Life, 3DS

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My Cosy Room, Switch

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Unpacking, PC

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Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, PS4

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A Little to the Left, PC

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Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, PS4

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Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, PS4

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House Flipper, PC

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Crash Bandicoot, PS4

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