Many years ago, I was able to play The Legend Zelda Skyward Sword on the Wii, my reaction when I finished it was that I liked it, but I felt that it could be a better game. The planets aligned and not long ago the remaster for the Nintendo Switch was released, I gave it another chance thanks to the remaster and played it until I finished it, this time I liked it more than the other time I played it when I was a teenager, this time being able to see some of its virtues.
The 1080p resolution is the most noticeable thing when playing this remaster, if the game on Wii looked nice in 480p thanks to its cel shading design, on Switch it looks even better, it's not a dynamic resolution, the resolution is stable at 1080p and doesn't go down from there, in handled mode it goes to 720p which is totally understandable, it still manages to look fantastic, the game doesn't make any sacrifices playing it in handled mode at all.
Besides the resolution, the 60 fps of this port are amazing, it´s something remarkable, since the Wii only moves the game at 30 fps, understandable considering it´s a Wii game. Skyward Sword at 60fps is really smooth, not suffering a single issue, considering its 1080p resolution plus the slight texture enhancement and other visual effects, it's more than fine. I know this might sound silly, but actually playing Skyward Sword with these technical improvements makes the experience more enjoyable. I´d like to emphasize that runs at 60 fps in handled mode as well.
A few improvements were added too, which doesn´t add too much to the experience, but they make everything more enjoyable. For example, the description of the objects is not repeated over and over again, this was noticeable in the Wii version, every time the console was turned off, the game showed you again the description of each object, this happened even with rupees, it's not something I hated, but I have to admit, this improvement doesn´t make the whole panorama of replaying this game so tedious.
One of the improvements is about Fi. She seems to me, by far, the worst assistant of any 3D Zelda game, it's not that I hate her or anything like that, but the truth is that she can get annoying. In the Wii game, almost all of her appearances were mandatory, in many situations you had to force yourself to read what she is telling you, literally, the game forced you, I know it sounds silly but it was really annoying and ruined the moment a lot of times to me, to be honest, this isn't even Fi fault, it's more because of the design of the game, fortunately, in this remaster her mandatory interventions were highly reduced, so most of the time, it´s up to you whenever you want to read her advices, not something the game is forcing you to do 24/7.
Now, it´s clear that Skyward Sword is a game from the Wii era, it was a time when Nintendo appealed more to a casual audience, treating all players in general as people who had never played a game in their lives, this is crearly noticeable since the first moment you see the game is full of long and boring tutorials, the game takes too long to start because it takes so much time to teach you the mechanics of the video game itself.
The exploration of this game is limited, it´s boring to explore, it is not an endless linear corridor like in Final Fantasy XIII, still the areas that you can explore are really small, there is really nothing to do, a video game too linear for the The Legend of Zelda standars. Exploring the sky in Neburia is pretty boring too, it's everything so empty and with a few points to fly, it feels like they took Wind Waker's exploration and made it worse.
It´s a really easy videogame for Zelda standards, it´s not that I am expecting a Dark Souls when playing a Zelda game, but that doesn´t take away its low difficulty, the fact that Link has six lives instead of three at the begining of the game,speaks for itself, the game's puzzles are way easy too, excepting like two puzzles. After finishing this remaster, I found Skyward Sword to be the worst 3D Zelda game to me, but to be fair, I said that I was able to appreciate its virtues more than ever, Skyward Sword has very good things by its own.
First, I loved the dungeons design in this Zelda game, I think no dungeon was boring and obviously there are some better than others, but in general they seemed peak design to me, as usual in this franchise.
I loved the fact that the soundtrack is orchestrated, I think it's the first video game in the franchise to use a fully orchestrated soundtrack, this has been achieved since the Wii and I consider it an achievement to be remarked. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the first Zelda game which you can improve your items in a store, if you collect the necessary materials you can improve your existing items, this applies to the shields, it seems to me that there wasn´t so much customization for a 3D Zelda.
The side quests in Skyward Sword are to me one of the best things about the game, they have a lot of personality and allow you to appreciate a hidden facet of the inhabitants of Neburia, as well as being varied and fun to do on their own.
I played SS entirely on a pro controller, I have to say it felt a bit weird at first as the camera is moved manually by pressing L while moving the second stick, plus sword attacks are done with the second stick, but you really get used to it quickly, it's not uncomfortable at all. .