Before we get to today's video, the script and commentary were
both written and recorded on February 12th and February 13th respectively,
a few days before Nintendo's Direct Announcement of Skyward Sword HD on February 17th. Due to the
winter storm occurring in Texas during the week of February 15th through February 19th, I was
unable to produce the video before the direct launched, so the end of the video talks about
Skyward Sword as if Nintendo had not announced Skyward Sword HD yet. Thank you for understanding.
In my last retrospective of Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal, I made a remark about 2021 being
the 25th year Pokemon has been around. 2021 will also mark the 35th year that the Legend of Zelda
franchise has been around. From all the way to the NES to the Switch, Zelda has left quite a mark
on the video game industry, with several of its titles considered to be the greatest of all time.
There is one title in particular that shook things up in terms of storytelling and gameplay,
that also went on to influence another popular Zelda title that followed after that,
and I am of course talking about Skyward Sword. Let's take a look back on the game,
some of its innovations, how it has great storytelling & character development, and more.
Skyward Sword is the earliest point of the timeline in the Zelda Universe, and people live
in the sky on a piece of land known as Skyloft, as long ago, the earth cracked and evil forces rushed
out of the fissure, attacking the people that lived on the land and also destroying the land in
the process. As the evil forces were doing this to look for the Triforce, Hylia, goddess of the land,
gathered the Triforce and the survivors and put them all on a piece of land that shot skyward
and ended up becoming Skyloft. Hylia then came back down to help the land dwellers seal the
forces of evil away, restoring peace to the Surface. Fast forward to present day and we
are introduced to this game's Link and Zelda. Link is a trainee at the Knight Academy, and
has been friends with Zelda since childhood. Link has run-ins with bully and fellow student Groose,
but this is usually defused with the help of Zelda. Link plans to participate in the annual
Wing Ceremony, but his Loftwing goes missing and has to find it before the ceremony starts,
however it is revealed that Groose was the one responsible for hiding the Loftwing.
After finding his Loftwing with the help of Zelda, Link competes in the Wing Ceremony,
wins, and goes on to complete the ceremony with Zelda at the Goddess Statue, where she gives him
the Sailcloth to jump off with and complete the ceremony. After the ceremony, they celebrate by
flying around in the sky, but suddenly a black tornado appears and knocks Zelda off her Loftwing,
causing her to fall down to the Surface. Link tries to save her but is knocked out as well.
Luckily, he is saved by his Loftwing and is taken back to Skyloft. When he comes to after having a
nightmare similar to one he had at the beginning of the game, but this time involving Zelda,
Link tells Zelda's father, Headmaster Gaepora, everything that happened. Gaepora tells him to
rest, but Link hears the voice of a spirit and follows it to the Goddess Statue, where the
spirit appears from the sword and introduces herself as Fi. She tells him that Link is the
chosen hero of the Goddess, and that he needs to take up the sword to embark on his journey,
also letting him know that Zelda is still alive. Link's first major stop is the Sealed Grounds
and Sealed Temple, which introduces him to a mysterious old woman (who is later revealed to be
Impa), and she advises him to find Zelda in the nearby Faron Woods. After progressing through the
Skyview Temple, he runs into recurring antagonist Ghirahim who challenges him to a fight to prevent
him from reaching Zelda. Link defeats him and also fights him a few more times later on in the game,
but does not find Zelda after this first fight. Link then travels to the Eldin Volcano
and explores the Earth Temple, finds Zelda but is prevented from reuniting with her by Impa.
Frustrated, Link heads to Lanayru Desert and explores the Lanayru Mining Facility,
eventually finding the ancient Temple of Time and also the Gate of Time.
Ghirahim interferes once again but Link intervenes, allowing Impa and Zelda to escape.
On his way back to the Sealed Grounds, Groose collides with Link and they fall to the Surface.
The old woman and Link explain what's going on, while Link also has to fight off the Imprisoned
and seal it back into the pit. In order to activate the second Gate of time, Link must
power his blade with three Sacred Flames of the Golden Goddesses. Link is able to gather one
flame from the Ancient Cistern, another from the Sandship, and the final from the Fire Sanctuary.
After making his way to the past, he finds Zelda, who reveals she is the reincarnation of Hylia,
and must remain in a deep sleep to keep Demise, the Demon King, imprisoned within his seal.
She seals herself inside a crystal and tells Link to seek out the Triforce to destroy Demise,
also blessing his sword now into the True Master Sword. After getting rid of the parasitic Bilocyte
on Levias, Link seeks out the three dragons, Faron, Eldin, and Lanayru, to learn their
parts of Song of the Hero, which leads the way to the Triforce. Link uses the song to open the
gate to the final Silent Realm, and gathers the Triforce to wish for the destruction of Demise,
and is finally reunited with Zelda. Ghirahim appears and abducts Zelda into the past, where
it is revealed he is Demise's Sword and fights Link one last time. However, Ghirhiam started the
ritual before the fight and the Imprisoned takes Zelda's soul to take on his true form of Demise.
Link and Demise have a final showdown, and before Demise is absorbed into the Sword, warns that this
cycle will not be over anytime soon as his hatred will go on to live inside Ganondorf.
Let's talk about what made Skyward Sword innovative at the time of its release. The first
would definitely be its new game engine, revamped as a spiritual successor of Twilight Princess,
which in turn was based off of an advanced Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask engine. Eiji
Aonuma and Shigeru Miyamoto were quoted in saying that Skyward Sword's new map system “would cut
down on the amount of time you spend lost. We want to alter the traditional flow of Zelda games...
and take elements of a dungeon and actually move it out of those small connected rooms, into an
area that is considered a field.” Although the game itself is still quite linear, there is some
amount of freedom with the new Loftwing flight system, as you can explore the sky above the earth
and visit other islands, such as Bamboo Island, The Lumpy Pumpkin, Isle of Songs, and more.
You are also able to jump off of the Loftwing mid-flight to drop down on these said islands,
or to explore to a certain part of the Surface, and this is somewhat of a parallel of Wind Waker
where the majority of the world is covered in water, with certain islands above the ocean. This
is also the 2nd Zelda game that requires either an accessory or external piece of hardware to play,
the first being Majora's Mask requiring the expansion pak to play it on the original N64 copy,
and for Skyward Sword, you need both the Wii Motion Plus and Nunchuk to it. While people have
criticized the use of motion controls for the sword play in the game, in my personal opinion
I adapted to the controls rather quickly and had no issues playing the game as such. I will
say though that in Nintendo's more modern era, I typically use Pro Controllers instead of Joycon,
so I understand that it was probably a smart move to move future Zelda games to embrace non-motion
controls. The Wii was very big on motion controls for other games, such as Wii Sports,
Wii Sports Resorts, and Wii Play, and it was Wii Sports Resorts' success with the Wii Motion Plus
that went on to have Skyward Sword utilize it. In an interesting scenario, Skyward Sword was the
first game to not have day and night alternate on their own, which started in Ocarina of Time.
Outside of one part of a sequence later on in the game, you typically complete your Surface
adventures in the day time and you can't freely fly at night on your Loftwing. I think it would've
been cool to visit other parts of the games as far as the Surface dungeons at night, but who knows?
Skyward Sword was also the first Zelda game and 3D Zelda title to have a run feature without needing
an item such as the Pegasus Boots. Skyward Sword is also the first game to have the names Din,
Farore, and Nayru also mentioned in the same game as Faron, Eldin and Lanayru. This game
was also the longest Zelda game in development, as it had been worked on for around five years.
While there were elements of stealth in previous Zelda games, such as sneaking past the Moblins in
the Sacred Forest Meadow in Ocarina of Time, the stealth mode used in both recovering your items
from Bobkoblins, and the stealth you must employ in the Silent Realm, were a nice but challenging
touch to this game. And while Link is still the silent protagonist for the most part,
there are certain dialogue choices you are given at certain points of the game that allow you to
connect with Link's character even more, such as the dialogue choice when Zelda has to seal herself
inside a crystal. Needless to say, the mechanics such as free travel and changing the system from
linear to non-linear went on to be major features in the next core Zelda game, Breath of the Wild.
Now let's talk about some of my favorite parts of this game. We cannot go on without mentioning the
music – the fact that soundtrack was fully orchestrated gave the game that much more
of an epic feel; especially with tracks such as fighting the bosses, the Loftwing flying theme,
and Zelda's Lullaby. This game has a variety of unforgettable tracks, such as Bamboo Island,
Skyloft Theme, The Sand Sea, the Song of the Hero and more. In fact, Bamboo Island is in one of my
playlists of peaceful music to this very day, and that goes to tell you how much this game's
soundtrack has had an impact on me. Skyward Sword also just has a certain bit of magic when it comes
to the way the cutscenes are presented along with the music and the character's dialogue – maybe
it's just me, but I have always got a Kingdom Hearts feel at times in some of these cutscenes.
The way this game tells a story cannot go unappreciated as well, with characters such as
Groose for example – although he is quite clearly a bully and obviously jealous of the friendship
Link has with Zelda, he goes on to reform his ways when he lands on the Surface and stays with Impa,
most notably his invention the Groosenator that helps you fight the Imprisoned.
Even when Ghirahim attacks the group, he stands up to Ghirahim to defend his friends, especially ones
that he formerly bullied. Another nice example in my opinion is the relationship that Zelda and Link
have in this game. As mentioned above they have been friends since childhood. In other games,
for example, Twilight Princess, Ocarina of Time, and Link to the Past, they do not have much of
a connection aside from being the chosen ones from legend, and they also have little-to-zero
relationship as far as friends or romance. Not that they have to have a romance in every game,
but just the fact alone that they were friends since childhood was a really nice touch,
and this is also expanded upon in moments such as Link crying when Zelda has to seal herself inside
a crystal while Link goes on to destroy Demise. Subtle moments like these are always a nice touch,
and to this day this particular moment makes me shed a tear. Another interesting set of characters
to me are Fi and Ghirahim. Fi is almost a like a mentor to Link, as she is a humanoid spirit
that guides Link throughout his journey. It is not until much later in the game that,
Ghirahim, a reoccurring antagonist who is a very unique character in his own right,
is the evil counterpart to Fi, as he is the spirit of Demise's sword. The duality is strong, as both
Fi and Ghirahim oppose each other, much like Link and Demise (or rather Ganon) go on to oppose each
other for all eternity. Some of the other minor characters have a unique and quirky charm as well,
there is of course Beedle, the merchant who reappears from past Zelda games such as Wind
Waker, Minish Cap, and goes on to appear also in Breath of the Wild, the friendly
but misunderstood demon Batreaux who wishes to be human, the kind but cowardly Fledge, Peater,
former knight and famous swordsman, the Kikwi, and last but not least, the 3 Dragons of the Surface.
Whether you love it or hate it, we cannot deny that Skyward Sword's impact was responsible for
future games such as Breath of the Wild, and people still have a fond love for this game
to this day. It would be awesome if Nintendo was able to remake or port this to the Switch,
and have the option to play without joycons and play on a standard motion controller/GameCube
controller layout, such as they did for Twilight Princess HD, but only time will
tell if they bring Skyward Sword to the current generation or leave it in the past. Either way,
Skyward Sword will always be immortalized for making a big splash in the Zelda franchise.
As I mentioned in the disclaimer in the beginning, here is an update as of February 17th,
2021 - Skyward Sword IS getting ported to the Switch as Skyward Sword HD
with a release date of July 16th. Great news to end this video on!
Let me know what you guys think of Skyward Sword in the comments below – what was your
experience like with the game? If you enjoyed the video, please consider subscribing,
sharing it with your friends, leaving a like, and commenting, as these all help my channel grow.
Thanks for watching, stay beautiful, stay awesome, and we'll catch you around next time.