Ep. 004: The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword
The Zelda's Zelda Game
The argument Alex and Luke land on for Skyward Sword HD is genuinely interesting: this is the game that proves Nintendo knew exactly what they were doing the entire time, even when it felt like they didn't. A love letter to a formula that was about to be blown up by Breath of the Wild, it plays like a farewell and a foundation all at once. Alex beat it. Luke finished what the Wii version took from him years ago. Both of them would fight the Toe Monster in their nightmares.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was originally published by Nintendo for the Wii in 2011 and received an HD port to the Nintendo Switch on July 16, 2021 — the version primarily under discussion here, though Luke also has some time logged on the original. It's the canonical first chapter of the Zelda timeline, setting up the curse that drives every installment that follows. Metacritic has the HD version in the low 80s. HowLongToBeat clocks a main story completion around 31 hours, though both hosts felt the game's bloat in the back half and Alex admits he tapped into a FAQ just to navigate the final dungeon's tile puzzle. Alex played exclusively on Switch via handheld and Pro Controller, steering clear of the motion controls entirely. Luke did the same, having suffered enough with the Wii's Nunchuk setup the first time around.
What they dig into first is what HD actually fixed — and what that reveals about the original's rougher edges. The notorious companion Fi, who interrupted gameplay constantly to state the obvious, has been significantly toned down. You can now skip previously read text. The control adaptation from motion to joystick is mostly clean, with one persistent wrinkle: sword direction is inverted from what your brain wants, which makes the three required fights against recurring antagonist Ghirahim — a delightfully unhinged, angsty fish-man energy villain — feel more frustrating than they should, especially during his mechanic that requires feinting your swing to trick him into exposing himself. Luke notes the motion controls on the Wii actually made this easier in theory, which is cold comfort on a joystick.
The high points are real and worth naming. The dungeons are, by broad consensus, some of the best in the series. The Ancient Cistern — themed after a Buddhist folk tale, mechanically brilliant, boss included — is one both hosts mentioned unprompted. The pirate ship and its sand sea get a lot of love despite Alex shelving the game mid-dungeon and losing the thread when he came back, which produces one of the episode's more useful pieces of advice: never start a Zelda dungeon unless you have the full hour or more to see it through. The art style, which Alex admits he always dismissed from the outside as weird, clicks once you're inside the game — anime-inflected and impressionistic, warm and charming in a way that fits the story. The music in the sky is lovely, if a bit aggressively loud. Groose, the game's resident oversized boner of an antagonist-turned-reluctant-ally, earns real affection from Luke and skeptical tolerance from Alex. His catapult is helpful. His hair remains indefensible.
The grievances are also real, led by the Imprisoned — their name for the game's most notorious boss, a slow-climbing giant whose marshmallow toes you must sword-pop while running laps around a spiral pit. You fight him three times to progress. Luke did the boss rush and fought him three more times. Neither experience improved his standing. Beyond the Toe Monster, both hosts land on roughly the same critique: the game asks you to revisit its three biomes too many times, tacking on fetch quests and "go talk to each dragon again" errands that pad a tighter game into something noticeably bloated. Luke estimates ten hours of unnecessary content. Alex says that if his backlog weren't calling, he might not have noticed — and that's probably true. The lore payoff at the end, Demise laying down the curse that locks Link, Zelda, and Ganon into their eternal cycle, is genuinely excellent and worth the journey. Alex also notes that Skyward Sword's fingerprints are all over Breath of the Wild: the stamina meter, the bug-catching and material upgrading, the spiritual bond with your mount. Playing them in this order makes both richer.
Side Quests this episode included Luke going straight from Skyward Sword into a full Breath of the Wild replay (results: immediate obsession, the expected outcome) before relapsing into Madden 2022 with full self-awareness about what he was doing. His media pick was Star Wars Visions on Disney+ — an anthology series farming the IP out to Japanese anime studios and letting them cook, including a black-and-white samurai short and an episode about a punk pop band performing for Jabba the Hutt. Alex bid on a mystery lot of 130-plus Sega Genesis cartridges, survived the wait, and set them up on a newly acquired Analog Mega SG — an FPGA device that runs original cartridges directly rather than emulating them, which matters deeply to him and to nobody who isn't also a collector. Sonic & Knuckles was in the lot. Comix Zone was in the lot. Skitchin’ was in the lot and initially refused to boot until he blew in it, at which point it worked immediately, proving that the internet is wrong about blowing in cartridges.
This episode is unofficially brought to you in part by smashin’ Miller Lites and ChicKings.
Skyward Sword HD is available on Nintendo Switch. If you haven't played it, the HD version is the right call — quality of life improvements are real, motion controls remain optional, and the Imprisoned will humble you on a joystick just as effectively as it did on a Nunchuk. Full episode wherever you listen to podcasts. Come argue about Groose in the Low Five Discord.
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