To Skwyard Sword or not to Skyward Sword?

I would say "not to Skyward Sword," unless you have an attachment to it. My son got this as a gift a while ago, but he never finished it. Since I just finished Ys IX and I don't have anything else to play, I thought I'd give it a whirl. Now, I really like this game when it came out on the Wii. A lot of people complained about the art style, yet I loved it. I like the motion control, because I thought they worked well. The problem for many people was that the gameplay was typical of old school 3D Zelda games, and many people were moving on from that in 2011. I understood their complaints, but I know this game was created for the old school fans. It came with the 25th anniversary orchestrated soundtrack. 3 art books were released at the same time. The game just checked all the right boxes for the old school fans, but it wasn't a hit with younger fans.

Fastforward to today, and I can see why people don't want the HD version of the game. The fidelity of the graphics have been changed. That's it for improvements. The story is still great, and the puzzles are fun as they always have been. But for $50, I can see why young teenagers like my son aren't all that hyped for the game. The new controls for controllers suck. I tried it a bit, and using the right stick for the sword swing was awkward at best. The motion controls were better on the Wii. Countless times I had to reset the calibration for the JoyCons. I just got used to doing it on the fly, because I expected them to be off. Shooting the bow and arrow (or using anything else really) on the fly was dreadful, especially in boss fights. Fighting the Tentalus is one of my favorite battles in the game (Koloktos is my favorite, BTW. That entire dungeon is fantastic.). However, that battle is excruciatingly painful, since you have to hit the tentacles with your sword and quickly switch to the bow and arrow mode. Of course the damn JoyCons were most likely to be uncalibrated, so you frequently are pointed off in the distance, so you have quite a difficult time hitting him in the eye. After that fight, I almost rage quit, but I kept going for some odd reason. At times, it gets better, but when you need to change from the whip to the hook shot and then to the bow and arrows as you need to near the end, you either get really good at recalibrating on the fly, or your blood pressure jumps to 150/100.

I would recommend this game to a fan of the original and it is on sale, just so you can get the experience of the game in HD. The puzzling dungeons and the quaint and simple life of Skyloft is great. I still love the music and the story. However, I would not recommend it to the majority of the recently made fans from the Breath of the Wild style games. Nothing much has been added. Where is the voice acting? Where are the improvements? Where are the extras? Why aren't there new story elements or side quests added in the game? I am so disappointed. I loved this game on the Wii. How can a Nintendo Wii game from 13 years ago be better than the HD version? If you have a Wii, and you don't mind the visual downgrade, then stick with the original in order to experience the game at a cheaper price.