Nintendo has been cranking out Legend of Zelda remake after remake for almost five years, and I’m honestly not complaining. I never had the chance to play the N64 titles so having them being on the 3DS is a nice boon to me. My favorite Zelda of all time is Wind Waker and I have no problem replaying that masterpiece, and just recently Twilight Princess was re-released, a title that I enjoyed in the final days of the GameCube. I’m thrilled to have all these titles in my library and I am currently playing several of them as I type this article. There is one Legend of Zelda that I never really got to sink my teeth into though, and that was the Wii’s Skyward Sword.
Now I did not miss this title; in fact I purchased it on day one and attempted to enjoy one of the earliest Zelda tales that Nintendo wanted to tell. Sadly, horrible timing never allowed me to finish past the first dungeon. I was getting the hang of the motion controls, beat the race on my first try and was happily moving along when carpel tunnel hit. No longer could I control Link in a proper fashion without causing severe pain in both of my wrists. It took about 6 months for my wrists to recover and at that time I was playing Kirby’s Epic Yarn, which I took out so that I could put Skyward Sword back in. When I hit the eject button on my Wii I heard a sickening sound and Kirby kind of plopped out of it, I was scared; never in my life has a gaming console failed on me completely. I attempted to insert Skyward Sword over and over, but the disc drive would not accept the disc. Thus this ended my adventure in Hyrule. This is why I would love to see Nintendo remake this for the Wii U, since Zelda U is most likely going to the NX.
I like to tout my support of this remake to my Nintendo-centric friends all the time and they are always such naysayers on this title. They complain that it takes a good five hours to get to the meat of the game, and that it is so slow, it won’t sell. Next they talk about the motion controls and how Nintendo won’t be able to move them over to the Wii U. And finally they say that that the matte painting feel won’t transfer over well to HD. I don’t believe any of these excuses, and I think that if Twilight Princess HD does better than Wind Waker HD, Nintendo will have a good reason to revisit the Wii’s last Zelda title. For the life of me, I thought that Ocarina of Time would be terrible in 3D, yet here I am going through that title on my 3DS over my GameCube release of the game, funny how things work sometimes.
The argument that the graphics won’t look great up-scaled to HD is a myth in my opinion. Nintendo is smart enough to take great pains to make their HD titles look amazing on the Wii U. I mean they wouldn’t want to upset a base that is chomping at the bit for a new Zelda game with a crappy HD port. To all my friends that believe the graphics issue is a huge one I always mention the game El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. If that game isn’t one HD painting I don’t know what is; I remember playing that a few years back and loving every minute of it. If Nintendo can get to 50 percent of how amazing El Shaddai looked then we are all in business.
Now I am definitely not a game developer nor do I know how the internal mechanics of certain control schemes work in games, so I could be completely wrong in my assumption here. What I am is filled with common sense and a dash of creativity, so this would be my plan to fix the control scheme and put it onto the Wii U GamePad. I remember flapping my arms like an idiot to win the Loftwing race, and winning handily my first time if I do say so myself. Instead of rampant arm flapping I would use the gyro controls in the GamePad and to keep Link in the air, I would have the gamer tilt the pad left and right and use most of the controls that Platinum Games developed for Star Fox U. I don’t see them rejecting an offer to tightening up the controls on an epic Zelda game.
The other part of the motion controls my friends are adamant cannot be ported over to the Wii U are the swordplay mechanics. I say bully to them; it can totally be done. The Wii U has a very precise touch screen on it. When you have to fight certain enemies that are susceptible to only certain attacks, that screen takes over and you must swipe your finger in the direction that it needs to go. It’s pretty simple; people were okay with moving and fighting link with the stylus in the first two DS Zeldas, so I’m thinking they can stomach swiping diagonally left and right on the GamePad. I think that these minor changes in the control scheme will actually give the game a more lasting appeal, and you won’t look like a moron playing it.
With those few words and ideas I think I’ve successfully plotted a path to Skyward Sword on the Wii U. I’m sure the brains at Nintendo would be able to work out the kinks that my plans may have, and I hope they get their hands on this article. I would love to be playing a copy of this game with a pack in Link on Loftwing Amiibo, it would be amazing. The game would also help bridge the time gap to Zelda U, which Eiji Aonuma recently stated was “progressing well.” I’m sure two years ago the game was progressing just as well, yet I still don’t have my copy, so let’s get some Skyloft on our Wii U GamePads while we continue to wait.