Nintendo adapted what is perhaps the most controversial game in the series, but also one of the most important.
John brodersen
07/25/2021 7:20 AM
Clarín.com
Technology
Updated 07/25/2021 7:20 AM
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
is one of the most important video games in the saga that began on the NES back in 1986, since it tells the
beginning of the timeline
, from which more than 20 games are followed. However, it carries a heavy memory: released in 2011 on the Nintendo Wii, all its mechanics revolve around the physical movement of the controller. And because of this, she was overlooked by many or abandoned midway through:
controlling Link can be very tedious.
The game not only tells how the universe was formed in which,
35 years later
, millions of players around the world continue to spend time.
It has a
worked narrative
,
one of the best level designs in
the series and, although a bit tedious, the motion control mechanics are at times
very intelligent and innovative.
For this reason, last week's relaunch on Nintendo Switch is a
second chance
that confirms the idea of the Japanese company to revive deliveries of the past with some improvements and adaptations to current standards that, in this case, include a control scheme without movements and more traditional.
The problem is that this Nintendo job was a bit halfway there, as the changes to the controls
are counterintuitive
to current third-person adventure schemes and every time the game is resumed it is almost impossible to feel natural.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD.
Photo Capture Nintendo Switch
Skyward Sword also
shows his years: with a decade on his shoulders, the graphic section is very polygonal, the facial features look a bit strange and the distance of the drawing makes the objects appear suddenly, dirtying the experience of
browsing the heavens.
On the side of the belt, you have scaled textures resolution
Full HD
(1080p and 720p dockeado) and runs aa
60 frames per second
: one of the
Zelda
more fluid that can be played natively. And Nintendo fixed some very annoying issues, like the constant interruptions that the original version had.
However, the contribution of
Skyward Sword
is its
history, accompanied by an orchestral soundtrack
: criticized for being very
linear
, it is a narrative that helps to understand what happened before classics like
Ocarina Of Time
(Nintendo 64, 1998), in a gameplay that, if you accept the rules of the game, has to offer
one of the best dungeons and puzzles in the entire series.
In the beginning was heaven (no spoilers)
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD.
Capture Nintendo Switch
The timeline of the saga is complex.
Since
Shigeru Miyamoto -
Nintendo's historic creative, father of
Mario, Zelda,
and other company hits - released
The Legend of Zelda
on the NES 35 years ago until today, a total of 23 games have come out.
And with this, comes a substrate of stories, characters and events that make up a universe with specific weight (
lore
).
The story of
Skyward Sword
is the starting point for everything: any installment we play today presupposes the creation of heaven and earth in a time when
Link and Zelda lived as friends
(with their inevitable romantic tension).
The first minutes tell what is going on and, above all, why the game has a large part of its dynamics anchored in the
sky
.
Din, Nayru and Farore, three goddesses, gave birth to the world for the goddess Hylia to take care of the
triforce
, a piece that structures almost the entire narrative of The Legend of Zelda.
To protect this powerful artifact and the creatures of this world, Hilya sent her citizens to heaven: that is the "
Skyloft
", the place we will return to again and again as the hub where we can interact with the rest of the characters.
From there
we
"
go down
" to the world to progress through dungeons (dungeons),
in one of the most linear and structured Zelda
of the entire saga.
The interesting thing is that there we will see the more earthly version of Zelda, far from the royal endowments that it will later have in the rest of the saga.
And that the Skyloft is one of the most nurtured, interesting and cared for areas within the Zelda games, perhaps until the arrival of the
Great Plateau
from
Breath of the Wild
(Switch, 2017)
.
The controls: a real challenge
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD.
Photo Capture Nintendo Switch
Almost all Zelda have a
gimmick
, that is, a particularity that structures the story: in
Ocarina of Time
, Link travels through time, in
Majora's Mask
, he transforms into different races with masks, in
A Link to The Past
there is a transfer to "outworld", and thus the difference to one game from another.
In 2011, the cycle of Nintendo Wii, the sixth best-selling console in history, was coming to an end.
Launched in 2006, the seventh generation of Nintendo had had about 5 years of success and many of its games had revolutionized the market, to the point that Playstation and Microsoft
imitated the system with
Move
and
Kinetic
on their PS3 and Xbox 360.
And Shigeru Miyamoto didn't want to fire the Wii without a
Zelda
that revolved
100% around movement mechanics.
Everything was structured around this idea: swinging your back, swinging between platforms, solving puzzles and other mechanics were entirely dependent on the
Wii Mote's
movement
.
This was
very annoying
for many players, accustomed to a traditional control and divided waters, but it was surely very original: a third-person adventure game where interacting with the character demanded much more from the player, to the point of
generating exhaustion physical
from moving your arms so much.
And it undoubtedly brought out, already at the end of its life cycle, what Nintendo Wii represented not only for the Japanese company, but for the video game industry in general.
The Nintendo Switch version: improvements and annoyances
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD.
Photo Capture Nintendo Switch
The Nintendo Switch version not only updates textures, resolution, image quality and framerate (it is the first Zelda to run at 60 frames per second natively), but also allows, 10 years later, to use
(almost) traditional controls
.
Both experiences, motion control and "normal", have their pros and cons.
But neither of the two finishes convincing.
The motion control this time demands to constantly calibrate the right joy-con, which points to the screen, since the Nintendo Switch does not have a receiving camera that would record the movement like the Wii had.
However, on Switch this has a huge problem: the so-called “joy-con drift”.
This is a problem that almost all Nintendo consoles have
and it responds to the fact that, after a while, some of the control sticks begin to fail and
the character moves by itself.
This is very annoying and, in our case, it happened, completely messing up the motion control experience and causing us to abandon it to use the Pro Controller under
a traditional scheme.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD.
Photo Capture Nintendo Switch
Under the "normal" controls, Nintendo had to adapt the use of the items to the right stick, instead of the classic buttons.
This is understood by the aforementioned:
certain puzzles and level designs make sense with movement dynamics
, and the second stick can emulate that function, although it feels like a rudimentary adaptation of a schematic that looks more like an emulation than an original.
Where's the Switch version upgrade then?
In that it is a more fluid game, the improvement in the performance of the frames per second is very noticeable, the colors look vivid and vibrant and, despite the fact that the graphics are 10 years old and it shows that they have already
passed three generations of consoles above.
The autosave and fewer interruptions that the Wii version had put the annoyance of controls, after a few hours, take a back seat.
But without a doubt, control is still the weakest part of the whole experience:
we never get used to it.
History, the engine of Skyward Sword
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD.
Photo Hyrule Story
Skyward Sword is a fundamental piece in the enormous puzzle that is The Legend of Zelda saga.
With the improvements and amenities that the HD version brings, the relaunch of Nintendo will surely be
the definitive version.
Although this is an old game that shows its years, it is worth giving it a second chance if the Wii original was overlooked.
The level design very intelligently raises one of the central gears of The Legend of Zelda:
the dungeons and their
puzzles
.
Despite some tedious parts (like Eldin Volcano), Skyward Sword is packed with content.
Skyloft, the place we return to again and again in our adventure, has endearing characters that will remain in the memory of many.
The game contains, yes, a
paradox
: it takes place in the sky and, nevertheless, it feels at times
closed and claustrophobic.
Its story and gameplay are very linear, leaving little room for the player's freedom.
However, this paradox seems deliberate: it needs to be a linear game, because everything that happens there is the starting point of
The Legend of Zelda
.
And that's where the writers shine for the story they tell:
Skyward Sword
has a sense of the inevitable.
So, with some tweaks and tweaks, fans of the saga who ignored (with fundamentals) Skyward Sword in 2011 can now know its story in 2021, but they will have to adapt to the idea of a
very tedious
controls scheme
.
A story that, after all, is the
Genesis
book
of one of the most iconic sagas in the history of video games.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD.
Photo Nintendo Switch
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD costs 5,460 plus taxes in the Nintendo Argentina online store.
SL
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