Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD

No games have. The point was just that if one HD remastered Wii game is worth $60, based on the amount of work that went into it (which is what Emily Rogers was saying), then 3 games of a similar quality must surely be worth 3 times that price. Or at least 2 times that because Mario 64 was a bit more basic.

To be fair, we don't really know what else they've changed or updated besides the resolution, frame rate, and controls.

@Eel

Yeah, I'm assuming that if there was any other big change, they would've shown it in the first trailer.

Obviously that might turn out not to be true though.

It’s still several months away, so there’s time for them to make “hype” trailers for new stuff/changes/features. I suppose.

Maybe like the halo Mcc we will be able to toggle the graphics from new 2021 to old wii days with the touch of a button. Wouldn’t that be a cool feature to see how different it looks.

@Eel

Yeah, but if it was a particularly big change, you kinda feel like they would've made that one of the first announcements. Like with the new control scheme.

As they say... Don't put all the baskets in one egg. I think it went like that, yes, of course.

They have time, and don't really need to give all the information in a single go.

Why would they made enough progress to show us four minutes of gameplay, including one shot from the end of the game, but release it in July, five months from now? I sure hope there's more to this remaster than just optimisation.

@Eel

I can totally believe that they'll add some minor novelty to the game like a single new island in the sky, where you fight waves of enemies. Something like that, as they did with Twilight Princess HD.

But I don't think it will be anything big. If it was anything big, they would've mentioned it in that first trailer.

@TheJGG

It's probably already finished. They just like to spread things out across the year so there's always some big game coming every 3 months or so, and also so they don't cannibalize each others sales.

@JustMe

Well that is the main thing the game needed in my opinion. It presented itself as being quite open, but then ended up being really linear.

Just add like 3 or 4 big new islands into the sky, that have a range of mini games and side-quests associated with them. As well as a bit of exploration. That's all I need really. That would improve the game for me.

They can make several adjustments to various quests. Like speeding up the whole gratitude crystals thing, and the annoying missions in the silent realm a bit, for example.

Adding locations in the sky, new side quests, maybe a new mini game could be possible, make these give the rarer materials, and maybe new rewards to make the whole upgrading system less grindy. They could also make travel faster among other convenient things.

And how about a boss rush mode.

New things could also be added outside of the main game, to capitalize on the anniversary. An art collection, a music player, a video gallery for the events in the game... Things like these.

Or you know, higher quality textures. Something that a group of online modders have already managed to do by themselves in Dolphin. And which looks incredible. Yet Nintendo can't be bothered:

There’s no fun in speculating about things we already know. We know the game looks basically identical.

The textures are most definitely upgraded though... By how much, I don’t know, but they seem to be higher resolution, and smoother. It’s particularly noticeable on character closeups.

@Eel

That's just improved texture filtering. Not different textures.

I dunno. We won’t really know for sure until the game is leaked a week before launch.

I think closer to release, Nintendo ends up announcing a Loftwing amiibo and that adds some exclusive content similar to the Wolf Link amiibo's usage in Twilight Princess HD. Maybe also you get to use one in BotW 2 like how using Wolf Link amiibo in BotW summons him.

@Grumblevolcano I can't see them doing that, Ninty seems to have grown out of hiding content behind an Amiibo now compared to the Wii U days.

@Eel

Wow, you won't believe this but you're actually right. I decided to do some homegrown investigative journalism. They HAVE improved the textures.

I assumed the apparent difference between the trailers was just the much better texture filtering on the Switch. Then I realized there's a very easy way to check. I got hold of the original art assets that were ripped from the Wii game disc and compared them on PC to the new HD footage.

The image on the top is the original Zelda model from the Wii, loaded on my PC with a modern graphics card (i.e even better texture filtering than the Switch). The one on the bottom is from the new trailer. Look specifically at the yellow pattern around the neckline. That's not texture filtering. That is undeniably a higher resolution texture.

There are some similar details on Link that are higher res. But this is certainly good news, because it might mean that they plan on improving the rest of the textures between now and July. That has slightly increased my optimism for it!

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they were holding back extra info from that direct. This is the same direct that they flashed us a 2-second card outlining Age of Calamity's DLC. That said, I'm not holding my breath,

To be honest, I'm perfectly fine if all they give us is QoL features. An extra dungeon would be quite nice. I remember the sky being pretty dull, so unless they add something pretty substantial to it, I'm not really interested in any new content there. Something like OoT's Master Quest would be cool, but I'm not sure how feasible that would be with SS's dungeon design (especially the backtracking). Maybe a mirror mode to mix things up a bit, as well as add some accessibility for the motion controls for lefties?

@Eel Doesn't Skyward Sword already have a boss rush mode? I remember spending quite a bit of time on it...the Skyward Sword bosses are fantastic!

@Dezzy Good investigation, that's changed my view on this whole remaster.