Skyward Sword In HD

January 17th, 2012 by Jesse

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has received high praise from the majority of critics online, but the game does have some limitations. Many of these limitations aren’t with the game itself, but rather, with the hardware that it runs on. The Nintendo Wii simply does not have the capabilities of running a game in high definition and because of this some people think the game just falls short in the graphical department.

The Wii U is still months away and even when it does release, it won’t solve the problem of current Nintendo Wii games running in 480p. Fear not though as a solution has came out and what a perfect, beautiful solution it is!

While playing Skyward Sword, I was just amazed at how beautiful the game looked and the how the bright colors and catchy music matched perfectly with everyone’s personality on Skyloft. However, the one huge graphical problem was the occasional ugly jaggy edges all over the place. Things like a sword or pillar that were supposed to go straight up in the air looked like it bent three or four times before it came to an end. After several hours I was finally able to look passed the jagged edges and see how beautiful the game really was.

Many of us are aware of video game emulators and the one available for the Nintendo Wii is known as Dolphin. I personally never tried it with Skyward Sword, because I didn’t think an emulator could work with my Wii Motion Plus. Little did I know a newer revision has been released to fully incorporate Wii Motion Plus. That’s right, if your computer can handle it, you can play Skyward Sword in beautiful HD on an emulator. A new feature that I haven’t noticed on Dolphin before is that not only can you render GameCube and Wii games in 1080p, but you can render the inscreen graphics to over 2,000p. Even if your screen can’t go that high you can definitely tell the difference within the game. With virtually no jagged edges, you can play Skyward Sword and it looks almost like a prerendered cutscene. Check out the video below for an example.

Let us know what you think of playing Zelda in HD and how you feel about dolphin in general.

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Category: Skyward Sword
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Anonymous

I like SS as it is, because it reminds me N64 Zeldas.
The HD emulation takes away the game’s original art style IMO.
Anonymous

Wait, so this is done without changing the actual graphics of the game at all? It’s re-rendering the same visuals? o_0

This sorta kills the argument that SS’s graphics are actually bad. Although I think I heard that this removes some of the awesome blurriness of the Impressionist artstyle… but I don’t know if the thing I’m thinking of is different or not. Either way, Skyward Sword’s graphics never bothered me in the slightest. I don’t think you can knock visuals that still look good and do the game justice, but that’s just me.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_VWKDYGJOF23MM4G7XRXP6DRJEQ David .

”It’s the same concept as what changes were made between OoT and OoT 3d.
OoT 3d isn’t just OoT upscaled to a higher resolution… OoT 3d was a
change in the graphics from the ground up because the dev team of OoT 3d
re-did the models to be higher quality.”

Re-rendering isn’t the same as remaking/changing the models.
There
is no reason why the WiiU cannot utilize similar methods for rendering
as Dolphin does, as Dolphin reads the game directly from the game
disc/ISO image, original models and all. (You can rip an original,
unaltered model from the game disc and render it in blender with
anti-aliasing and it will appear to be ‘HD’.) Nintendo simply chooses
not to. Similarly, if someone gave the XBox 360 the ability to play Wii
games, they could write in the same methods that Dolphin uses to upscale
and apply anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering.

Adz164

I’m gonna have to disagree with everyone who says that there is no difference because there obviously is, especially if you change the settings of the video in the bottom right corner to 720p or 1080p.
With that being said I’m also going to say I loved the actual intended art style of Skyward Sword, and never once did its lack of HD ever effect my love for the game. I personally found its art style more alive than most modern games with its unique artistic view and bright colorful world. It just pulled you in.

I love the Zelda series, HD or not. Yes HD graphics will make the games’ graphics look better, so I’ll happily take them in as they will be just another awesome aspect of the game. But I will never disregard a Zelda game just because its not HD because with or without them, Zelda will always be awesome.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=598901105 Jesse McCarty

actually changing the video from 720p to 1080p isn’t really that different. The video is prerendered. So If you watch 1080p gameplay in 480p it still won’t look like how the actual game is supposed to be. Also Youtube has a horrible effect on videos. Even 1080p on youtube looks blocky. =/

Orngeblu

Cool!
Anonymous

thats epic
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Rewston

I can not see why Nintendo would punish himself by not using better hardware in their consoles, this looks fantastic, and I hope that they will use better hardware for the Wii U so that we can finally use 1080p. Wii is a fantastic console, just a shame that Nintendo did not seem to think the hardware is equally important.

http://profile.yahoo.com/6KTIUG4N7VI66E72KED45XPTKM kristin

If the wii was HD, it would not be in so many homes. The conversion of the masses to HD quality i would say hit its stride in 2008, the same time of the recession. Not saying they are related, but that comment i make adds to my point. In 2006, to make a system for $250, it could not have HD graphics or they sell it at a loss. Nintendo does not have the same throw away money setup as playstation and Xbox since sony makes electronics (though they are sadly dying out, I really wish they stuck with making things like walkmans instead of losing that ground to apple) and Microsoft must have a money machine somewhere as they have not cared about making a profit in their endeavors since 2007. (they do make buttloads of money, making a point blah lala) Both competitors with Nintendo in 2006 are not made or broken due to how their consoles/videogames do. This is all that Nintendo does, and they have to be smarter than us commentors before making any decision. If anything, it was extremely smart, slightly short sighted decision to not make the wii HD. I guarentee it would have sold 20 million less, if not more, especially between 2006-2008 if it was HD. Just like the Wii u, we may seem to know what is best for Nintendo, which is why we don’t work for Nintendo and people like Miyamoto do. Because someone like Miyamoto knows what he is doing, and I or you (the universal you) do not know any better than Nintendo on what is takes to be successful in the console making business.

http://twitter.com/Chrisrox1122 Christopher Sharpe

I think the graphics look fine on the wii personally i dont care i only care about the storyline and controls
Anonymous

is it weird that i do not really see a difference?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=6403809 Rob Bulmahn

Yes. If you saw them side-by-side, though, you’d certainly be able to spot the improvements. Otherwise, things are just subtly smoother and cripser, but it’s not like they upgraded to higher-detail character models or high-resolution textures.

Rando Roots

I just think it’s a waste of time and effort. In my opinion, HD is all hype. I really just don’t care. That may make my opinion invalid (i guess), but I don’t see the point of modifying such a recent game. I really enjoy playing video games and for a long time now, I’ve been perfectly satisfied with how they look. I feel like if I were to take the time to make something better, it would not be a video game… I just don’t think it matters this much.
Mauricio

Well, it´s not a matter of resolution (partially), I guess the problem is the antialiasing and textures, and that´s more of a hardware capability problem that the reolution itself
Zora the Explorer

That looks great, but the fact that Wii isn’t HD has never bothered me. I love the Wii for what it is, and if you think about it, Nintendo waited til EVERYONE owned an HD tv before they got on board.
Pingback: Skyward Sword In HD | Zelda 3DS
http://twitter.com/g_nobre Guilherme Nobre

Sorry for the noob question, but how is it possible to connect a WiiMote to my PC? And is there a version of this emulator for Macs?

Hylian17

just get a wireless Sensor bar and put it above/below your computer screen, and it’ll work

http://profiles.google.com/derp250 Tyler Clancy

and you also have to connect the wiimote… *facepalm*

http://www.youtube.com/LiquidOmega LiquidOmega

I honestly couldn’t care less about graphics. I care more about visuals being stylized and original, as opposed to HD.
Poefred

Personally, like the non-HD graphics better. The HD graphics get rid of the impressionist art style they were going for.
Teh xbox

he he hoi
Croxyndorf

hd or not the game looks and plays fantastically.
Walter Bomba

That pretty much looks the same to me lol, and I think emulators for current systems is horrible, support the companies, especially Nintendo and right now they need support now more then ever, and as for the older games, emulate away, it drops the price down because less demand for them which makes video game collectors like me happier aha.
TeamRocketAgent

I’d try this if it wasn’t so much work. Getting the file onto your computer, getting a bluetooth device, AND getting the right hardware for a computer is way, way too much work when compared to just popping the disc into my wii.
Hasanwn

where do you get a wind waker iso zip
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_VWKDYGJOF23MM4G7XRXP6DRJEQ David .

“It’s the same concept as what changes were made between OoT and OoT 3d.
OoT 3d isn’t just OoT upscaled to a higher resolution… OoT 3d was a
change in the graphics from the ground up because the dev team of OoT 3d
re-did the models to be higher quality.”

Re-rendering isn’t the same as remaking/changing the models.
There is no reason why the WiiU cannot utilize similar methods for rendering as Dolphin does, as Dolphin reads the game directly from the game disc/ISO image, original models and all. (You can rip an original, unaltered model from the game disc and render it in blender with anti-aliasing and it will appear to be ‘HD’.) Nintendo simply chooses not to. Similarly, if someone gave the XBox 360 the ability to play Wii games, they could write in the same methods that Dolphin uses to upscale and apply anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering.
Anabh4569

Hi i loved using dolphin with ss but when i got to sandship, I had one little problem. When I got to the part where you need to shoot the timestone from the basement, the place with the timestone was black and i couldn’t see anything in the tower even though I could see everything else just fine.