 Well folks, we're a day away. Can you believe it? One day away from Skyward Sword HD being in our hands. Now, I am looking at a few things here to consider when it comes to this game because we have two stories to talk about. One, we're gonna be talking about the developer of this game, who it is, their previous work, and maybe why you could argue that the changes to this game are not maybe what you want them to be. And if you were hoping, obviously, for more changes than what was talked about already by Nintendo, we now can actually talk about that because the reviews are in. And well, the game is actually scoring well, but not even close to as well as it did back in the day. And we're gonna talk about why that might be the case. But before we do, hey, this is the last day to enter for two copies of Skyward Sword HD. Head into the description to enter and I wish all of you guys luck. Let's first get into who is making this game or who what was the developer behind this game and maybe some additional information we have about this. So it turns out that the people who made the Wind Waker HD are not the ones behind this game. That was Nintendo themselves. That was the main Zelda team. I remember when they were working on the Wind Waker HD, the whole concept behind even doing that game was that the Zelda team was practicing HD development before they went full go on making what became Breath of the Wild. So what studio made it? Was it Grezzo? After all, Grezzo has done a number of Zelda remakes more recently than Awakening. Actually no, it was the people who did Twilight Princess HD. In the credits of the game, it is stated that Tantalus is the company that made Skyward Sword HD. Tantalus is also the company that did Twilight Princess HD. And if you remember comparing the Wind Waker HD to Twilight Princess HD back in the day on Wii U, it was very clear that Twilight Princess HD had less effort put into it than the Wind Waker HD. It did have a texture overhaul. It did have the double damage. It did have a few extra things, a few quality of life improvements. But for the most part, it wasn't nearly as impressive of a job as that happened with Wind Waker HD. But then again when we found out it wasn't Nintendo that made that one, it was kind of like okay well Nintendo didn't do it. Nintendo's efforts are obviously going to be a bit more high quality in comparison to them. And then they did the ones with Skyward Sword HD. And what we have discovered now after the reviews have come out is that none, but pretty much everything we have heard about the quality of life changes to the game is it. There's not any additional cuts. There's nothing else that's made simpler or easier. There pretty much everything we have been told for the quality of life changes up to this point for the game. That's it. That is everything that they did. Now what we learned about this game also after it coming out and this isn't necessarily a bad thing but this does fit into something I have been contemplating or really feeling about this game since it was announced. Back when it was announced at 1080p and 60fps, I noted that I felt like this might just be an emulated game and all that. And in some aspects it turns out it is. Now it does run natively on Switch. At least the code base is running natively on Switch. But earnestly that's not necessarily true. Nintendo has chosen to, or I should say Tantalus in this case, has chosen to take the GPU aspects of the game. So a lot of the graphical output of the game and run that through an emulator. We aren't 100% sure which emulator this is, but this was discovered by a well-known Switch hacker OatmealDome that this game is using a form of emulation to run the graphics of the game. And this is very interesting to consider because they actually did something similar to this. Nintendo did themselves for Mario Galaxy. So Mario Galaxy running in 18 Super Mario All-Stars. Its code base runs natively on Switch, but the graphics of the game runs through an emulator. And this isn't necessarily a bad way to do this to bring a game over. But it also is kind of a hey, if they're using that, it does also explain the lack of major changes to the game just in terms of adding new content or other tweaks because it's really a bunch of changes and tweaks that you could do in emulation as a fan. You could add button controls through emulation as a fan. You could run the game at 1080p and 60fps as a fan. You could do a lot of these. You could edit the text. Someone noted that some of the red text has now been changed to green text, which is actually easier to read, especially for colorblind people. So a lot of these changes you could be done. The one change that obviously did have to take at least some effort is the fundamental way that Fififo foam works. How she is now set to a button press for the most part, but also contains additional information. That was obviously something that had to have some level of effort put into making that work. But besides that, a lot of the other changes are just things that really wouldn't have been that difficult to do. So yeah, that's just kind of just out there for you guys in case you're wondering on that front. Now the reviews are obviously in as well. And right now it's sitting at an 82 on Metacritic. Now the original game did review at a 93 on Metacritic. So that is an 11 point drop, but this game came out 10 years ago. And obviously there's going to be some things about it that aren't going to feel a little bit dated. As an example, there is a lot more polygonal angles. You could see that just in the footage of the game itself. Things aren't as rounded or there's more direct edging on things like that. Obviously there is some aspect more to the textures like when you're climbing vines are literally just flat textures against the wall doesn't you know that doesn't really feel new. That's just from a visual perspective, but it's interesting because for the most part almost all the reviews are pretty happy with this game. But it's more or less the reviews that aren't happy are kind of ones that felt like it's not Breath of the Wild or just they feel like the controls are kind of cumbersome. So let's look at some of the top critical reviews out there. You have places like GamesRadar who gave it an 80 saying Skyward Sword HD is one of the most misunderstood Zelda games for getting a second chance. It's an underappreciated gem, closer to a gem, but they only gave it an 80. So that's interesting there. One that finds the space to really breathe with a more reliable and relaxing method of control embedded within. Skyward Sword has its fair share of problems, but it makes up for many of them in moments of true brilliance and defiance against established series conventions. Say what you will about Skyward Sword, but it's good to be out on an authored adventure with like again saving Hyrule at one inventive dungeon and Challenge Boss at a time. And then you have another you know on the opposite end a more negative review not entirely negative, but one that gave it a 67 from Player 2 says the controls irk it is full of breadcrum breezy work and almost everything done better in Breath of the Wild. But for all its faults it still offers some satisfying environmental traversal unique gadgets and complex puzzles. So it's like the game is being judged more harshly because of Breath of the Wild, which I guess we really shouldn't be shocked. I think Breath of the Wild kind of set the new standard bearer for the series and you know it's a bit rough around the edges for some but I would argue overall it's getting fairly positive reception. You know I feel like at Nintendo Life and I'll let that we use a lot just for sourcing on certain articles and all that. On Nintendo Life's review it gave it a 90 and it said the Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword HD introduces a raft of technical improvements and quality of life updates that reinvigorate and revitalize this 10 year old game. With motion controls and being more precise than ever before, an alternate button control scheme that totally works, crisp HD graphics, smooth 60fps gameplay and a bothersome sidekick who's been streamlined into something altogether more useful. This really does feel like Skyward Sword as it was meant to be experienced. Yes the locking off of instant travel behind the official amiibo is a misstep but beyond this one issue what's here is a sublime experience, a technical triumph and an absolute must play for Switch owners and Zelda fans. So yeah I'd say overall the game is clearly being received fairly well. As I said at 82 overall on Metacritic I think it has 83 overall on. OpenCritic will link to that Metacritic score down in the description if you'd like to check out some other outlets and some of your other outlets favorite reviews. Obviously I don't have any thoughts on the game yet beyond hey as an outsider looking in I'm liking some of the changes I think they're gonna add up to a better experience but I gotta play it firsthand. We will be live streaming this game tomorrow I'll probably even stream myself picking up a copy of the game maybe we'll see it could be a bit rough streaming inside retail outlets but we'll see we'll see how that works I'm gonna I'm probably you know I don't have it pre-ordered so I'll probably try to go to Walmart and get it for the 50 bucks because you can get $10 off so why wouldn't I but we'll see that could be sold out that does happen sometimes at Walmart so then I'll just hop over to GameStop they usually don't sell out quite as quickly as Walmart they also have a few more copies than Walmart does usually but yeah I'm pretty excited to play this game again I haven't played this game in almost a decade I did play it about what I played it for my second time about nine years ago the first time obviously being 10 years ago so it's been a long time since I played Skyward Sword I don't currently own it I don't have any platform to play it on I don't own a Wii I don't own a Wii U and I don't own a copy of the game so I haven't played it in a long time so for me I'm a bit of a shill for Zelda so 60 bucks I get it it's more expensive than the original release does it include the gold you know Joycons for that price or anything obviously there is or the Skyward Sword Joycons at this point but there was a gold gold remote back in the day you could get it again I understand all the criticisms on the pricing scheme but hey if you have never played Skyward Sword then this is the time this is the definitive version of the game and yeah just don't expect it to be Breath of the Wild okay I thought it was a mistake when Nintendo started comparing this to Breath of the Wild when they first did that in the marketing thankfully they backed off on that Breath of the Wild marketing so kudos to Nintendo for recognizing what I recognize is that they were comparing too much to Breath of the Wild and that's not going to go over well for this game and maybe that even impacted the score is the one negative review I read well semi negative review I guess I should say noted that hey you know it's not as good as Breath of the Wild like well no shit but Skyward Sword is she is the antithesis of Breath of the Wild Breath of the Wild is massive open world explorative game this game is more linear heavy story focused but massive on the dungeons so if you miss dungeons and you never played Skyward Sword now's the time to get back into it so I am within a RoboJets from Nintendo Prime remember to enter our giveaway down in the description leave a like and comment if you want I greatly appreciate all of that support more the sorrow than anything else you guys are awesome and I'll catch you in the next video