New Trailer Highlights Skyward Sword HD’s Quality-of-Life Improvements

Nintendo UK has released a new trailer covering the various quality-of-life improvements added to the upcoming Skyward Sword HD.

Veterans of the series will be pleased to know that it is now possible to disable Fi’s intrusive interruptions. She will now function similarly to Navi the Fairy from Ocarina of Time. When Link nears something of interest, his sword pommel will glow, accompanied by a brief dinging sound. While the sound effect may get annoying after a while, it is still leaps and bounds better than Fi constantly pausing the game to tell you what a Rupee is or similar nonsense.

A few other quality-of-life improvements have been added to the game, such as the ability to fast forward through dialogue. Since the original Skyward Sword is a very narratively focused game, there is certainly a lot of talking. While I personally don’t mind reading what the characters have to say, the ability to skim through the minutia will be useful for players who want to get on with the gameplay. In the same vein, players can now skip cutscenes.

I am pleased that Nintendo finally addressed a rather silly issue that the original game and Twilight Princess both possessed. In those games, each time Link picked up an item for the first time, a brief cutscene and description would appear. This is useful the first time to explain what it is that the player has picked up. The problem came in the fact that these cutscenes would reappear every time one quit and reloaded the game. I don’t know about you, but it felt excessive to be reminded twenty times how much a blue Rupee was worth. This issue has thankfully been removed from Skwyard Sword HD. The game will tell you once, and only once, what an item is once you pick it up, even if you close out of the game.

When the game was first announced, I was annoyed that the character models weren’t updated with more polygons to remove their rough edges. Thankfully, the remake will boast a much faster framerate that helps cut down on the jaggedness by making Link’s movements more fluid and smooth. This is very noticeable in the trailer and makes a pleasing compliment to Skyward Sword HD‘s watercolor aesthetic.

I still have the original Skyward Sword on my Wii, so I doubt that I’ll be picking up the Switch version, but what about you? Do these changes interest you in playing the game? Let us know in the comments.

Source: Nintendo UK