Motion controls are now about as popular as a Tory in a pandaskin suit. Not only did the novelty wear off a decade ago, but modern VR tech has rendered them completely obsolete. Waggling a controller at a TV to kinda sorta pretend to play tennis? Nice try Nintendo Switch Sports, but we ain’t buying it anymore.
All of which makes The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword something of a dead end for the series; the logical culmination of the motion control in Wii Twilight Princess and the various gimmicks baked into Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks.
With Skyward Sword Nintendo went the whole hog, with swordplay, gadgets, traversal, and pretty much anything else you can think of contingent on you being willing to waggle a Wiimote. These controls being so intrinsic to the design theoretically makes this a difficult candidate for a HD Remaster – can the Switch JoyCons really emulate a WiiMote Plus / can this game be crowbarred onto a traditional controller?
I remember reading very confident message board posts saying that Skyward Sword on Switch was essentially a technological impossibility. But, within about ten minutes of starting up the HD release, it quickly becomes apparent that the game works absolutely fine.
Sure the JoyCons need to be recalibrated a lot, but it’s just a press of a button without interrupting gameplay to recenter them. And just mapping the sword onto the right analog stick makes the swordplay arguably more accurate than the initial release.
But if they’re innovating with the motion controls, the design of the game is very much Nintendo playing the hits. This is the most rigidly designed Zelda to date, offering you a world that’s basically a Matryoshka doll of dungeons. Each area (forest, desert, volcano) presents environmental puzzles that unlock a dungeon. Inside you tackle element-themed puzzles, nab a gadget, then defeat a boss using it.
By 2011 these designers could knock out a decent dungeon in their sleep. But technical mastery isn’t something to sniff at – I went to see Guns n’ Roses recently and while Slash isn’t pushing the boundaries of what can be done with a guitar it’s still incredible watching him shred (the time-shifting mechanics here are the game design equivalent of a blistering ten-minute solo).
Despite the quality there’s a sense that this incarnation of Zelda has plateaued, as demonstrated by the Ancient Cistern dungeon. This retells the Buddhist parable of The Spider’s Thread through its design, with the full explanation on ZeldaDungeon.net definitely worth a read.
It’s a beautiful level that feels like someone’s passion project, but perhaps proves that Skyward Sword finds the design team gilding the lily (uh, literally in this level’s case). After this it was clearly time for something new, with Skyward Sword as the final expression of what they began to learn when developing Ocarina of Time.
Six years later Breath of the Wild would radically shake up the Zelda formula, and knowing that Skyward Sword is the end of an era makes it a lot more palatable in 2022. If Nintendo had continued cranking these Zelda games out the series would soon have become a heritage act, but as it is it’s a polished, beautiful, and personable game that absolutely deserves a reappraisal.
And yeah, even the motion controls are still kinda fun.
Next up: A Link Between Worlds.
Pixel Hunted 