

Your objective in the Silent Realm is to collect all of the sacred tears scattered around the area. These trials take you into the "Silent Realm," a dream-like rendition of the area you're currently in.īy clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's Upon your arrival, however, you're informed by Fi-the spirit that resides in the sword and your companion throughout much of the game-that you must first undertake trials to prove your worth.

Partway through the adventure, you return to the surface to track down the Sacred Flames with which to power up the Goddess Sword. The most egregious example is the game's Silent Realm tear hunts. Some mild Skyward Sword spoilers follow from here on. As nice as it is to have this option, however, the primary issue that dragged Skyward Sword down was not its controls, but rather its excessive padding. Rather than swinging the Joy-Con to slash with Link's sword, the button controls map sword slashes to the right stick.īy necessity, this scheme is considerably different from how previous Zelda games controlled, but it does at least allow you to experience the game without motion controls, which is especially helpful if you're playing on a Switch Lite or have a disability (or just vehemently oppose motion controls). It's difficult to gauge how well this scheme actually works without some hands-on time, but just from a glance, Nintendo's solution seems serviceable, if not what most fans probably envisioned. Skyward Sword HD still uses motion controls, unsurprisingly, but Nintendo has also implemented a new, button-only control method as an alternative. But I was also fortunate enough to experience the game in a setting where I had ample room to swing my controller (and no judging eyes around to see me pretend sword fight). I can only speak to my own experiences with the game, of course, but I personally felt the motion controls were implemented well in the multiple times I played through it, I rarely found myself struggling to execute any of Link's actions-with the exception of the rotating block puzzles that replaced boss keys, which can all go in the bin. Many aspects of the game were designed around gesturing with the Wii Remote and Nunchuck you had to physically swing the controller to slash with your sword, for instance, and firing arrows involved pulling back on the Nunchuk to draw your bow.Īlthough Skyward Sword generally reviewed well at the time of its release, its motion controls would prove divisive among many (to say nothing of the accessibility issues inherent to the control scheme). But while the original controls were a common point of contention, they were never the biggest issue plaguing the game.Īs the first full-fledged Zelda adventure designed specifically for the Wii, Skyward Sword made extensive use of the Wii Remote, eschewing the series' traditional control scheme in favor of motion controls. Considering that Skyward Sword itself is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, it seems like a fitting time for Nintendo to dust the game off and give it some modern touch-ups, including a new control method. Although Nintendo made no mention of the Legend of Zelda's 35th anniversary during the February 2021 Direct, it did have two Zelda announcements to share during the presentation: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is getting DLC, and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is coming to Switch in July.
