It’s almost profligate, the way that Skyward Sword introduces and discards ideas that other games would build entire campaigns on. Before even reaching any dungeons you’re surfing enemy carapaces across quicksand, manipulating pockets of time and flinging Link from lakes like Free Willy. Of course, if you are a fan of Zelda’s signature puzzle design, which constantly teases out new tricks from a bag of playful gadgets, this is heady stuff. These woods and volcanoes have more in common with Zelda’s dungeons than its traditional overworlds they are crammed with lateral thinking and playful gimmicks, but too composed and clockwork to ever come alive as a place. The former now feels like one of the 2017 Zelda instalment Breath of the Wild’s many villages stretched over several inconvenient islands, while the regions you skydive on to never convince as organic worlds to explore and unpick. This was always a more linear and partitioned Zelda than others in the series, splitting protagonist Link’s time between his home in the clouds and the undiscovered country below. The adventure itself is an acquired taste. It’s a shame that Nintendo has dialled back on motion controls just as the technology matured. It left me wistful for the Wii, the pluck of a bow string transporting me back to Wii Sports Resort a harp-strum dredging up memories of smiling politely through Wii Music recitals. Swinging one hand to cut and jabbing the other to parry with a shield is powerful play-acting, and nudging the control stick can’t help but feel timid by comparison. Slobbering plants can be sliced along horizontal and vertical jawlines, and the glowing seams on robotic totem poles beckon like the “tear here” line on a family bag of sweets. Motion control detractors may claim that Nintendo is conceding something here, but this is still a Hyrule built around the drama of a directional slash. The hand-swinging sword combat benefits from the Switch controllers’ tighter tracking, and new button controls accommodate players who are reluctant to shift from a horizontal couch position. But now that motion controls are widely accepted, or at least less pressed to argue their case, this HD remake seems more comfortable in its own skin.
I n 2011, when Nintendo reforged The Legend of Zelda around the waggling of a Wii remote in Skyward Sword, there was a sense that the developer had lost sight of the wood for the trees that in focusing so tightly on gyroscopic sword-waving, the game lost some of the series’ adventurous scope.
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