Two weeks before launch, set for July 16, 2021, Nintendo published a trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD dedicated only to quality-of-life improvements. What stands out is that the video talks about neither graphics nor new content: it talks about the small frictions that bothered those who played the original 2011 Wii game, and how they were solved.
The list is good. Many of the tips from Fi, the sword spirit who accompanies Link, are now optional instead of interrupting the adventure all the time. You can advance dialogue boxes and skip cutscenes. Item descriptions no longer appear every time you pick up something you already know, except for Gratitude Crystals. The game gained autosave and now lets you save to any of the three files, with Hero Mode getting its own space.
A nice detail is in the controls. The original depended on Wii MotionPlus for sword strikes, and the remaster offers two schemes: one that imitates the Wii Remote and Nunchuk using the Joy-Con motion sensors, and a traditional one, where the right stick controls the sword. The remaster, made in partnership with Tantalus Media, runs in high definition at 60 frames per second, and a Zelda amiibo with her Loftwing allows fast travel between the sky and the surface.
You can see the care in listening to the community: the linearity, the excess of hints and the motion controls were among the most remembered criticisms of the Wii game.
What came next
Skyward Sword HD launched on the scheduled date, together with a Joy-Con pair themed after the Master Sword and the Hylian Shield. Pre-orders sold out on Amazon, the remaster scored 81 on Metacritic and sold almost 4 million units by March 2022.
Source: Nintendo.
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