Before anything, I have to say that I can't believe I've gotten here. I started playing the 3D "The Legend of Zelda" games back in December (and the original "The Legend of Zelda," for that matter), and I knew from the jump that it was gonna be massive. Even after dropping some of the 2D games (sorry, "A Link to the Past"), I wondered if I'd make it through...but now I can finally say that I did. It's always a good feeling when I get through a series, but it's an even greater feeling when it's a series I've been on for about half a year. And now that I've finished it, I've gotta go lay down...oh right, I have to write this review first. Well, I got to end off my journey with perhaps the most polarizing 3D "Zelda" game, "The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword," specifically the Nintendo Switch re-release. I've heard wildly mixed opinions on this for a while, but I hardly had much experience with it when it first came out so I couldn't really judge it until I gave it a chance. I would've been willing to play the original Wii version, but after my brother got a deal on "Skyward Sword HD," I decided to try it in its newest form. And honestly, for all the polarizing opinions I've heard...this is one of my favorites in the series, and I'm glad I got to end the marathon with it.
"The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword" feels like one of those games where its biggest criticisms are precisely the things I enjoy so much about it. Before we get into those, though, I'll try to start by talking about some of the commonly liked things about the game. Of course, this game is visually incredible. It felt like Nintendo had struck that perfect middle ground between the colorful, childlike art style of "The Wind Waker," and the more adult style of "Twilight Princess," and the overall visual design has the essence of having been dropped into a painting. The story often felt very emotional, the soundtrack is as stunning as anything else in the series, and I thought the gameplay was consistently compelling. Combat felt smooth, dungeons were interestingly designed, and I thought the boss fights were fantastic. "Skyward Sword HD" makes all of this even better by running at 60 FPS, making for an even smoother experience. I'll be honest, I also really loved flying around on the Loftwing: for some reason, it felt so epic and I constantly found myself wanting to fly to different islands to find treasure chests. Now for the fun part: talking about the things people didn't like about the game. As far as the motion controls, I can't really speak on those because I played "Skyward Sword HD" with a Switch Pro Controller, though given that I'm not as anti-motion-controls as some others, I think I would've been fine with them. Other than that, some of the biggest criticisms I heard about the game related to it being a lot more linear, a lot easier, and a lot more traditional than other games. In a weird twist, though, those criticisms were precisely what I liked about the game; I don't mind a more linear title, because I think there are so many open-world games nowadays that I respect it when a game doesn't feel like it needs to force such a thing in. In this case, I think the linear approach is handled very well because the worlds themselves feel very interesting to explore (I'm probably not bummed about it being linear because we got our open-world "Zelda" game eventually). In terms of its difficulty...look, maybe I really do suck at video games (I never claimed to be good at them, I just like them), but as someone who can often see "Zelda" as being a huge "guide game," it was kinda nice to not have to rely on that that hard here, and to not feel as pressured during boss fights. As for the more "traditional" approach...to be honest, I've kinda seen every 3D "Zelda" between "Ocarina of Time" and "Breath of the Wild" as just being "Ocarina of Time, But With a Gimmick!" And more often than not, those gimmicks were the one thing that held the game back just a bit. So for me, I didn't mind having a more "back to basics" kind of "Zelda" game, without some kind of gimmick wearing it down.
If there's anything I can criticize, I guess there are a few late-game quests that can get a bit repetitive? Namely some of the tear quests? Otherwise, though, I can't complain heavily because even those feel very gratifying once you get past them.
Overall, "The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword" is one of my personal favorite entries in the "Zelda" series. As much as it's sure to polarize, I think its "flawed" elements were some of my favorite things about it, and those helped it to really stick out and leave an impression on me. Even with the polarizing opinions, I have been seeing it get some retrospective praise thanks to "Skyward Sword HD," and I'm glad it got the re-release treatment because the game is genuinely great. If you haven't played it yet, give this beauty a go. And with the Switch re-release, I think it's absolutely worth a second chance if it left you sour before.
Final rating: 10 out of 10 "Fantastic"