Spoiler Theory: Each Province Has Its Own Overarching Gimmick.

[GearHim]

This is QUITE wild speculation, but bear with me here

We've seen the rainbow scattering around in the desert
We've seen the Silent Realm in the forest

However, so far we've seen these things ONLY in those areas. What if the Silent Realm is only a forest thing? What if the rainbow is only in the desert? I think it would be pretty cool and plays into the idea that this game is gonna keep going at a breakneck pace and keep throwing new ideas at us.

 

[Crash]

I don't think it's wild at all friend. It makes sense if they were to keep things area specific and it would indeed fit with the idea that they are going to make this game be different and innovative yet attention grabbing and exciting. So it's not so wild in my eyes.

 

[GearHim]

Personally, I'd hate to see the Silent Realm in every area. Seems like it would pad out the length of the game too much. However, if the Forest was designed in such a way to take advantage of the silent realm and dashing up cliffs... then yeah, it would be cool.

 

[Crash]

I don't think collecting the tears will be quite as blatant and tedious as it was in TP. It'll probably make you really think things through before just rushing in to kill some bugs. After all, if you're discovered you have no defenses... All you can do is run and even then you only have til you run out of stamina. It should definitely be innovative and new enough to really entertain you and keep you pulled in.

 

[GearHim]

Collecting tears in TP was not tedious, because you did it in your first time going through the area. I loved exploring the third wolf section in particular, great way to familiarize yourself with that area and a satisfying enough boss battle in Lake Hylia. With Skyward Sword, we're gonna collect things AFTER the first time.. so it has the potential to be pretty boring unless Faron Woods is designed very expertly around the idea of stealth and escaping, in order to make the area FEEL new again.

 

[Crash]

It appears that's what their going for since the slightest view of you will set everything off on you.

 

[ArgoX]

I dunno, the "rainbow" is a gimmick of technology of the robot race, who lives in the desert. It looks like it's actually time travel. Link hits a crystal and then a time bubble spreads out and covers an area. The area inside the bubble reverts to a new state; the desert reverts to grassy hills, a broken down minecart repairs, a broken bridge fixes itself, machinery begins working again, worn out paint jobs become vibrant again.

 

[Cyg]

Collecting tears in TP was not tedious, because you did it in your first time going through the area. I loved exploring the third wolf section in particular, great way to familiarize yourself with that area and a satisfying enough boss battle in Lake Hylia. With Skyward Sword, we're gonna collect things AFTER the first time.. so it has the potential to be pretty boring unless Faron Woods is designed very expertly around the idea of stealth and escaping, in order to make the area FEEL new again.

Oh my gosh, I never connected that! Hmm, it seems Nintendo did use the tears of light to get you familiar to the area

 

[Night Owl]

Looks Like the silent realm will test your familiarity of an area, so that you aren't running around blind from the guardians. You'll have an idea of where the tears are if you spend enough time exploring beforehand.

Looks like the Time travel gimmick will be in other areas as well. Like flooding the forest for example.

 

[Aero_Dynamic]

Honestly, with a new "gimmick" in every different major area, it's not so bad, as a matter in fact, its great. Comparing with TP's "gimmick" of the Twili Realm thing, it's way better than having to do that (in my opinion) boring, "non-actiony" collection of lights, which was in every major realm. I think this is a fresh and a great way to loosen up the gameplay and give a large variety in the content of the different regions.

 

[blubb]

Is there a source for the claim that we get to play through Faron Woods normally first and only then through its Silent version? I'd prefer it the other way around, so you have to "free" and vitalize the area first before it becomes the "normal" Faron Woods, similar to how you bring back life to that canyon area which is quite dead first and then becomes vitalized by hitting switches, it makes more sense to me like that. And yeah, I like the idea that you have to do three different things in the provinces in order to bring each one back to life, two of which we've already seen. I think they learned from TP and this time we won't have to do the same thing 3 times (48 bugs was indeed a bit too much).

 

[GearHim]

Huh... well, I guess there's no concrete evidence Silent Realm comes second. I thought I read it somewhere, though.

 

[J-Biz]

*SPOILERS CONCERNING SILENT REALM*

From the GamePro review recently posted on ZD, it seems we will use the Harp to activate the Silent Realm after the midpoint twist in the game. When we complete the Silent Realm segments we will be granted access to other areas of Faron Woods, Eldin Volcano and Lanayru Desert. Such as Lake Floria, and Volcano Summit.

 

[GearHim]

That review does not state their is a Silent Realm for each province

 

[blubb]

Finally, the official German site went online, even though it only shows Skyloft and the Faron province for now. But from what I can read >here<, I'm now almost sure that we will have different alterations in each province and that the Silent realm is maybe a Faron thing only. Here's the text:

Welt der Veränderung

Selbst wenn Sie einen Ort erkunden, den Sie schon kennen, kann sich das Land im Laufe Ihres Abenteuers vielleicht noch von einer anderen Seite zeigen.

Die veränderliche Form des Landes kann in manchen Fällen auch Einfluss darauf haben, wie Sie spielen. Den Weg durch die Sairen-Welten muss man zum Beispiel ohne Objekte beschreiten, mit denen man die Gegner angreifen kann...

and

World of Change

Even if you explore an area which you already know, the land can maybe still show itself from another perspective during your adventure.

In some cases, the alternative form of an area can have influence on your gameplay. For example, the way through the Siren Worlds must be mastered without items with which you can attack enemies...

You may have noticed that they talk of the Siren Worlds in the plural, but that doesn't have to mean anything because they apparently translated directly from Japanese (like there, the Kikwi are called Kyu, Faron is Phirone...) and since the Japanese language has no plural and figuring it out is mainly guesswork, it could still be a "single" Siren World.
What I'm sure about is is that there will be different area variations besides the Siren World, because it's only called "one example" here.

Oh, and as I'm typing this, I found similar info on the American website:

The Changing World

The land beneath the clouds is a living, breathtaking world. As Link progresses on his adventure, areas change in a number of ways. Upon returning to previously visited areas, Link may find all new challenges awaiting him.

So this pretty much confirms that there is more than the Siren World. But both also confirm that these places are explored after visiting the areas in their "normal" forms (I would've liked it the other way around, but whatever).
Ha, only now I even realized that this whole two-worlds-concept is a continuation (not storywise!) of LttP's Light World/Dark World, OoT's child/adult parts and TP's twilight/normal areas...