The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD is a fantastic Zelda adventure that's aged like wine, even if Wii-era motion controls still aren't great.

Link's divisive Wii adventure returns on Switch with some welcome quality-of-life improvements.

A fascinating second look at one of the oddest Zeldas out there.

Skyward Sword wanted to keep Zelda fresh and exciting, but it did this by making the things you already did as part of its formula feel good instead of finding new ways to do them. But for a series about exploring at your own pace, simplifying dungeons to make them more fun to complete wasn't going to cut it for much longer. The focus on action, on pulling off simple-but-cool things, only works on a platform built around how fun its controller is to use, and it only works once. After this game, Nintendo had to do something different.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD is an adventure worth taking, a chance to reevaluate one of the largest and most experimental games in the series' history.

Skyward Sword has some of the best dungeon design in the series, but the sections between each dungeon are a slog

This remastered game from the Wii-era remains a wildly imaginative and magical experience created by Nintendo's brainiest puzzle architects

Just over a half-decade later, I played “Breath of the Wild,” which, for me and many others, became the gold standard Zelda game. It is hard — even a bit unfair — to compare the two titles. Their design intentions are different. The mechanics and technological specifications both were built around are incomparable. Even still, it cannot be denied that “Skyward Sword HD” exists in “Breath of the Wild’s” shadow, in the lull before the arrival of the latter game’s sequel. The freedom of style, movement and choice that defines the newer game cannot be forgotten or wished away. It dates “Skyward Sword HD” more than the motion controls — a throwback to the Wii — ever could.

Skyward Sword HD is a superb remaster of the decade-old Wii game that not only gives it a much-needed visual upgrade but also throws in so many quality of life improvements (not least of all a free camera) that it immediately makes the original version obsolete.

Zelda: Skyward Sword was a weird game to assess in 2011, much less today. It had a lot of great ideas undercut by some questionable design choices, but to some, it was the best Zelda ever made. I understand that $60 for a remaster of a 2011 game is a big ask, but this is the definitive version of a flawed yet fun adventure that should be part of any Zelda rotation.