A slight improvement over the original that mostly comes down to the fact that motion controls is now optional. And thank the gods for that! Motion controls were a fun idea but have, in my opinion, never been implemented well in any game. So the option to play the game with a normal controller is a more than welcome change. Although using the analog stick to swing your sword, instead of your arm, is a bit awkward.
The rest of the game is more or less the same as the original, warts and all. The game starts out fine and has a nice pace throughout the games three main areas with some interesting mechanics and dungeons here and there. The main problem with the game is the repetitive nature of it's overarching gameplay loop. The three main areas in the game are interesting and fun the first time around, but then you have to backtrack through all the areas again and again. Each time you return to an area the objectives become less fun and more arbitrary. It makes the experience frustrating and time consuming for the sake of a longer runtime. During the third act of the game I was honestly just powering through in order to finish the game already.
The idea behind the world design is really good in theory. Skyloft is one of the most beautiful and cozy hubworlds in all the Zelda games. And the idea of traveling through the cloud barrier to touch down on different areas on the surface is exhilarating. But the lack of interesting characters and side-quests, as well as the slow travel times (seriously, how did they manage to make the act of soaring through the sky so slow and boring?), make Skyloft a bore that you only really visit when it's necessary.
There is a lot of objectives (like fetch-quests) throughout the game that forces you to travel to the other areas of the game. Now the travel time between one area to the other is a frustrating slog. I don't understand why they didn't add a fast travel system to this version of the game. It would've at least made the arbitrary processes less annoying.
While the Switch version of Skyward Sword stands above it's original predecessor, it's not by a large margin. With the exclusion of motion controls Nintendo fixed one major issue but left all the other ones untouched. As a Zelda fan I enjoy large sections of the game and despise others. Overall it's a good game, although with some major flaws, and this version stands as the definitive edition of the game. It's a shame that the game itself is such an uneven experience.
The rest of the game is more or less the same as the original, warts and all. The game starts out fine and has a nice pace throughout the games three main areas with some interesting mechanics and dungeons here and there. The main problem with the game is the repetitive nature of it's overarching gameplay loop. The three main areas in the game are interesting and fun the first time around, but then you have to backtrack through all the areas again and again. Each time you return to an area the objectives become less fun and more arbitrary. It makes the experience frustrating and time consuming for the sake of a longer runtime. During the third act of the game I was honestly just powering through in order to finish the game already.
The idea behind the world design is really good in theory. Skyloft is one of the most beautiful and cozy hubworlds in all the Zelda games. And the idea of traveling through the cloud barrier to touch down on different areas on the surface is exhilarating. But the lack of interesting characters and side-quests, as well as the slow travel times (seriously, how did they manage to make the act of soaring through the sky so slow and boring?), make Skyloft a bore that you only really visit when it's necessary.
There is a lot of objectives (like fetch-quests) throughout the game that forces you to travel to the other areas of the game. Now the travel time between one area to the other is a frustrating slog. I don't understand why they didn't add a fast travel system to this version of the game. It would've at least made the arbitrary processes less annoying.
While the Switch version of Skyward Sword stands above it's original predecessor, it's not by a large margin. With the exclusion of motion controls Nintendo fixed one major issue but left all the other ones untouched. As a Zelda fan I enjoy large sections of the game and despise others. Overall it's a good game, although with some major flaws, and this version stands as the definitive edition of the game. It's a shame that the game itself is such an uneven experience.