A few days ago, we captured a Skyward Sword screenshot of Link falling into Eldin. (See photo at right.) It reminded us of a similar view from the latest BOTW2 trailer, from E3 2021, in which Link appears to be skydiving. And that wasn’t the only similarity to SSHD we remembered from the trailer; we recalled a section in which Zelda appears to be falling, falling, falling, just as she did in the early scenes of Skyward Sword.
Curious, we took a gander at the BOTW2 trailer from 2019 and found yet another connection: a tornado, like the one that accompanied Zelda’s fall to the surface in Skyward Sword.
We’re not the first to note these similarities, we own. (We honor our tradition of being perpetually behind the times.) There’s a fair amount of chatter on the Internet.
It all begs the question: Why now the remake of Skyward Sword for Switch?
Remakes may be done for any number of reasons. The more cynical might postulate it has something to do with profit. Nintendo’s defenders would counter that remakes enable new players to discover past favorites and previous players to engage in nostalgia. (Link’s Awakening would be a good example of the latter…and, for all we know, of the former.)
Finally, there’s a considerable contingent who argue that the Switch remaster of Skyward Sword is an attempt to rehabilitate one of the less popular Zelda games – a lack of popularity that stemmed in no small part from frustration over the Wii controls rather than the game’s story or design. By most accounts, the dungeons in Skyward Sword are well regarded. Er…you know what we mean. Crafted well. (Nobody loves a dungeon, right?)
We didn’t finish Skyward Sword when it came out on Wii, not because of the controls, although we remember being frustrated, but rather because of our professional time constraints that year. Thus, we were excited to give the game another go on the Switch, as apparently we are less professional these days, if not less easily frustrated.
Now, however, after pondering the comparable scenes in Skyward Sword and the BOTW trailers, we’re wondering if there’s more to this remaster, something related to BOTW2, and that makes us eager to play onward to see if we discover more parallels.
Perhaps we’ll return to Skyloft in the 2022 game. Maybe Ghirahim or Groose or some other blast from the past will darken Link’s door yet again. In short, perhaps SSHD is the set-up to BOTW2. . .which by the way, we realize is not its actual name. Ever-coy Nintendo refers to the game as the sequel to Breath of the Wild. But hey, given all these SSHD similarities….could BOTW2 be both the sequel to the 2017 game (i.e., duh, its release follows the other’s) and, at the same time, a prequel to the BOTW storyline? After all, Zelda’s timelines have a way of zigging this way and zagging that. Time travel is not unheard of, and come to think of it, there’s that Gate of Time in Skyward Sword….
What say you, readers? Who doesn’t love a little Zelda speculation? For the moment (hello, 2022), it’s all we’ve got. Email us your thoughts: editor@zeldaforelders.com