 Uh, can I get Zelda? Absolutely. Cool. This sword came out weeks ago at this point. I really need to get more organized. And I can't believe I need to say this, but no, it's not a brand new Zelda adventure. It's a HD port of a Wii game that was released in 2011. I only mention this because during my playthrough on Twitch, it's been blowing my mind how many people join the chat and ask if it's a new game or a remake. My god, what a question. Yeah, not bad. It's weird to see them do a game like this after Breath of the Wild. Interesting direction they decided to take, but overall I think it's a good sequel. Is this Switch? No, this is Xbox. How old are y'all? I guess it has been an entire decade since we first played Skyward Sword. And if that doesn't make you feel old, it's been 20 years since Super Smash Melee released. So maybe we should all just start buying our gravestones next to each other now since we're gonna be needing them pretty soon. Oh and uh, I paid $70 for this average cosplay off Amazon. So yeah, I'm gonna wear it for the video. I know I look dumb. And I lost the hat. Zelda forever. I have extremely fond and somewhat frustrating memories of playing Skyward Sword. I've always been a huge Zelda fan, so it's no surprise that 20 year old me was lined up outside of EB Games to grab this and the Gold Wiimote. Then rush home to start waggling my limbs around like I just don't care. Back then I was totally sold on the gimmick and I was willing to persevere with the odd Miss Time Swing or Link Zigging while I was trying to zag. It didn't always work perfect, but I remember finishing the game in just a few days and loving every second of it. A big part of it was characters in Zelda games back then didn't really have a ton of personality or emotiveness. We also had never really had a chance to spend some quality time with Zelda as she's always been the end game goal of trying to save her. Right here in Skyward we had these larger-than-life characters like Groose who so badly reminds me of a mix between Gronk from Emperor's New Groove and Biff from Back to the Future. A humorous bully character who hates Link and just wants to win Zelda's affection. Envious of the fact that Link and Zelda are childhood friends. They're just a couple of teenagers who are quite clearly crushing on each other big time. It's very cute and a refreshing change of pace. There's even an early mission where Zelda joins you for a little bit and just seeing her character run freely around you in the game was so exciting for me back then. Oh, and we can't forget Groose, giving us one of the most memorable cutscenes and character arcs in a Zelda game to date. Leaving the year that Rebecca Black's Friday was a questionable smash hit in fast-forwarding 10 iPhone generation and one Ice Bucket Challenge later, Skyward Sword re-released on the Nintendo Switch. For the first time in HD and some nice new tweets. Nothing groundbreaking, just some up-to-date quality of life stuff like save slots, the ability to fast-forward dialogue, see ya later feet, and an iffy amiibo that caused quite the upset and is impossible to find thank you Nintendo. By the way, I still don't understand that upset. If you scan the amiibo, it allows you to return to the sky on the spot which people essentially started to call paid DLC in a HD port that had barely any other changes and was still $60, but now, I mean the $60 thing aside, that's a whole separate issue, you're buying the amiibo. That figure isn't free. I mean I for one actually found it nice that for once an amiibo did something, not to mention you can just visit a bird statue in the game and do the exact same thing and there's a bird statue every 5 seconds. It would really take longer to get up off the toilet, pull your pants up, wash your hands and you should find the amiibo, scan it, just to do the same thing. But let's not forget the game's biggest change, button controls. And yes, I did find the Joy-Cons, I'm really happy about that, they look really cool. Button controls were a must as on the Wii, you only had motion. But now, on Switch, you also have to cater to handheld players since this is a portable console, would be kind of silly if you couldn't play on the go, then there'd be no way to get frustrated about having to get up mid-poop and find an amiibo. You want to hear the ironic thing though, I thought I was going to prefer the motion controls like I did back in the day and kind of hate the button controls. Uh, turns out, I got that completely backwards. Here's my sword, do you want to see it? I wrapped the, um, I wrapped a handle in like a leather, it's so stupid the way he runs around with it. The motion controls are somehow worse than they were back on the Wii. Alright, here we go, speedrun, someone time me, but I leave the circle and your time is ready. Okay. Reset the time is chat, reset the time is, here we go. Three, two, oh my God, here we go. My God, it's so hard. Three, two, two. Again, I've been playing through Twitch and I mean, no, no, no, no. No, come back. Come back. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Why am I going left? I don't want to go left. Stop going left? Stop going left! I'm like, I'm jaunted so far to the right. Man, uh, uh, no, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, right, right! Oh my God, left! Left, you dumb thing. Fuck! Okay, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down! Down! My God, dude, my actual God. I think I started making two bigger motions because it wasn't being responsive. I think I have to reel it in. Fuck! Right, please, right, please, for the love of God, right, please. Here we go. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, why would you go right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my God, that was not good. That was not fun. Here's why, in my opinion, on the Wii, you had that sensor bar that sat on top of the TV. keeping somewhat track of where the Wiimote was pointed. These little guys don't. And often while playing, you know, you find weird and different resting positions and the inbuilt gyro gets more confused than a chameleon and a bag of skittles. I've had them get so off course that when I end up in combat, full swings weren't registered and instead links there just jerking its sword at the ground like he's dowsing for water. Meanwhile, I'm throwing my back out like this. I'm shaking it. Like I'm literally shaking the right Joy-Con. Essentially, the Joy-Cons need to be pointed at the screen and recalibrated by pressing a button every time you wanna use motion controls. And I mean every single time. And this game uses motion controls a lot. I never noticed how often Skyward Sword relies on motion for the most basic gameplay elements, but more on that soon. Once I did switch to button controls, I never went back. Initially, it was frustrating as the right stick has two responsibilities, camera and sword swinging. By default, it swings the sword, but if you hold down L on the left Joy-Con, then it controls the camera. I wish I could switch it around. You basically hold L all the time while walking. I know that's why I'm saying shouldn't it be the other way around? It felt really clunky at first. I'm getting carpal tunnel in my left wrist just holding L all the time. Eventually, I gave up on the camera altogether and started using the left back trigger to just snap the camera forward every time I moved. So I pretty much discovered that it's way easier to just use the ZL targeting to look forward every couple of seconds rather than having to hold down L and get carpal tunnel while playing. It's the old school way of doing it, like back on the N64 when you only had one stick. And I fell back into that pretty quickly. I think this is how Nintendo intended you to play with this button layout. I don't think they ever thought anyone would hold down L all the time. I only really ever used the L camera when I had to solve a puzzle and look around the room or stare at the weird, smushy textures this game has. Yeah! Why would you even call that art style? It's definitely a choice. I mean, it's not bad, but the Wii was so blurry. I guess I never noticed that it all looks like one big watercolor painting. Just beat the devil out of it. I feel like we got off track. Let's talk about the game. It's still fun. In my opinion, Skyward Sword always got a bad rap. Even the worst Zelda game is still one of the best games. And this is by far one of the worst Zelda games. Looking at you, Phantom Hourglass. And yes, I know what I'm saying. That said, I never noticed how shoehorned in the motion controlled gimmicks were in Skyward Sword. And I guess in many ways, I do see why Zelda fans didn't enjoy this one as much as others in the franchise. Because much of this game's key gameplay mechanics will lie on motion controls in some shape or form. I'm not even talking about all the combat or the Vietnam flashback inducing flying segments. But like, you wanna get over to that platform? Better slowly walk on a tightrope while balancing the joy cons. Wanna get to that boss fight? Wow, you got to twist a weird shape around in like five minutes and see where it fits in the hole. That has to be it. No? Oh no, I'm dumb. There we go. No, that's just happening here. They made this one a bit tricky, didn't they? Oh, this is getting embarrassing. It's just taking an embarrassing amount of time now. Whoa, why did that take so long? Oh no, I'm dumb. Switches that need you to fumble around, resetting the gyro so that you can aim at them. Even doors with eyes that you need to make dizzy. Well, actually I really like that one. You see, to me, Zelda is about a lot of things, but puzzles is one of the best parts. The dungeons and temples are always filled with brain teasing challenges that might stump you here or there, but it's the joy of cracking the code and figuring it out that makes Zelda so rewarding. But when many of the puzzles are boiled down to just, how well can your motion control this bug around a corner or something similar, it becomes a little less gratifying to me and more just something I'm supposed to do. I immediately know what I have to do. I have to use the motion controls to get from A to B. But where's the challenge other than being good at motion controls? Which I don't really take pride in that. Again, that's not saying I don't like the idea of motion controls. I have always been open to them as a concept, but there are ways to use them so that it can still be a fun challenge. That's why I liked the eye on the door. There was no clear way of how to get the door to open other than some cryptic clues, so you experiment. Do I shoot the eye? No. Do I attack the eye? No, it takes a second, but as you're trying all these different ideas, you notice the eyes keep following the tip of your sword. So you play with that a little. It's fun and silly, but then the answer hits you. Oh my God. All right, well, that's still pretty good because I didn't remember that. It's a unique way of adapting motion controls into a game known for its brain-teasing puzzle. I just wish they had leaned more into concepts like this rather than this. So then I have to do a drive-by bombing, I guess. Oh God, not on myself. Can I speed it up? Move so slow. To be clear, I still love the game, and I recommend anyone giving it a shot. It's a 10-year-old game that has its flaws and it's harder for me now to be less critical on it, but it's still very interesting how many concepts Nintendo explored in Skyward Sword that would end up being expanded in Breath of the Wild just a few years later. The stamina bar, the sale clock, collecting items to upgrade your gear, these were all radical changes for the franchise, but Skyward Sword as a whole is still very familiar feeling to older Zelda games and one of the last true traditional Zelda's. Back before the series explored a new open world format. It might be extremely linear with little to no deviating pads, but it's a fun, tailored adventure filled with puzzles, dungeons, boss fights, and quirky characters. It's also where it all began. Chronologically, it's the first Zelda in the timeline. This is the first iteration of Link and Zelda we have met, which is even more interesting when you consider part of the story talks about a land long gone beneath the clouds where people no longer live. So there was a time before the setting of Skyward Sword? Was there a previous story we've never been told? We aren't led to believe that Breath of the Wild takes place at the end of the Zelda timeline, but in the new sequel, we see Hyrule being lifted up into the sky, very reminiscent of Skyward Sword. So is Breath of the Wild actually at the end of the timeline? Or is it at the very start and a story of those that lived before we meet the Link and Zelda of Skyward Sword? Or is it that the history of the Zelda universe is repeating itself all these years later, returning to the sky before everything resets once again? Speaking of things I love, I love you guys, and I love when you guys like and comment, but most of all, when you have flip on that subscribe button, I'm gonna get out of this now. Bye. The 35 years of serving the princess, 35 years of making new friendships, from many years all the way to the switch, a hundred million souls out of ain't no niche. It's up to us, the fans to celebrate, the courage to show why Zelda's great, so from players all across the land.