History YMMV / TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword

** Right-handed Link is a major one for long-time fans and lefties, being that he's the only well-known left-handed game character that even non-gamers know of.

* SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound: The "PWAAANNNNG!" sound of a successful ShieldBash, especially in the [[spoiler:[[ThatOneBoss final boss fight.]]]]

** The snippet during Scaldera and Tentalus' boss fights that plays when their weaknesses are exposed just screams "[[Franchise/MortalKombat FINISH HIM!]]"

* HilariousInHindsight: The ''Skyward Sword'' manga, bundled with Hyrule Historia, was released on December 2011. It depicts the [[OriginsEpisode Origin Story]] of Goddess Hylia and the first Link in their battle against the Demon King, and the beginning of the reincarnation cycle. This seems almost prophetic to ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'''s two-parter ''[[Recap/TheLegendOfKorraS2E7BeginningsPartOne Begin]][[Recap/TheLegendOfKorraS2E8BeginningsPartTwo nings]]'' in October 2013, which features the first Avatar and a femmine GodOfGood in their first battle against a masculine GodOfEvil, and why the Avatar reincarnates in the first place.

*** Of course given the amount of ShipTeasing between Link and Zelda accepting Peatrice’s confession is arguably even more cruel as Link would just be leading her on despite not actually loving her.

** [[AxCrazy Demon Lord Ghirahim]] is the sadistic soul of Demise's weapon. [[TheHeavy Seeking to free his master]], Ghirahim kidnaps Zelda, willing to agonizingly feed her soul to unleash Demise. Attempting to awaken multiple monsters to kill Link and eventually desiring to torture Link to death himself, Ghirahim [[WeHaveReserves summons an army of monsters to buy time]], saying [[BadBoss they can die by Link's blade or his own]], [[spoiler:even [[DieLaughing gleefully giving his own life]] to awaken Demise and see the entire world ravaged with all living beings annihilated by Demise's monstrosity]].

* HilariousInHindsight: The ''Skyward Sword'' manga, bundled with Hyrule Historia, was released on December 2011. It depicts the OriginStory of Goddess Hylia and the first Link in their battle against the Demon King, and the beginning of the reincarnation cycle. This seems almost prophetic to ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'''s two-parter ''[[Recap/TheLegendOfKorraS2E7BeginningsPartOne Begin]][[Recap/TheLegendOfKorraS2E8BeginningsPartTwo nings]]'' in October 2013, which features the first Avatar and a femmine GodOfGood in their first battle against a masculine GodOfEvil, and why the Avatar reincarnates in the first place.

** Link and Zelda being introduced as childhood friends, instead of meeting each others for the first time, is sometimes brought as an original twist on the pairing but they already had a similar relationship in both ''Four Swords'' and ''Minish Cap''.

** While good in theory, the [[SprintMeter stamina system]] is this for many players. It does give players a limitation that allows for some clever puzzles, but most of the time, they're holding down the sprint button just to get around faster. The problem is, the stamina meter drains quickly when you're running, which can defeat the purpose of using it to get around faster if you completely exhaust it, causing Link to uselessly walk around slowly until it is refilled. What's more, certain areas have Stamina Fruits peppered about as an {{Anti Frustration Feature|s}}, but many feel that this measure only serves to make the main path more obvious while making the idea of carefully managing stamina pointless. ''Breath of the Wild'' is largely considered to [[ImprovedSecondAttempt execute it far better]], as while sprinting still drains it very quickly, the meter can be permanently upgraded while leaving stamina restoration to cooked elixirs in the inventory, making it into a gameplay loop of preparation and necessity.

* UnintentionalUncannyValley: Faron, a water dragon, has a face that is oddly humanoid, contrasting with her reptilian body. Creepier than it sounds.

** For some, the stamina meter. It does give players a limitation that allows for some clever puzzles, but most of the time, they're holding down the sprint button just to get around faster. The problem is, the stamina meter drains quickly when you're running, which can defeat the purpose of using it to get around faster if you completely exhaust it, causing Link to be drained.

** If you were annoyed by the redundant dialogue boxes you'd get for picking up Rupees in ''Twilight Princess'', ''Skyward Sword'' makes things even worse. Every time you pick up a bug or treasure that you haven't yet collected during your current play session, not only does the game take the time to explain to you what it is, but also pauses and opens up your inventory so that it can show you your total count being updated before letting you resume play. And while you can at least bypass this by collecting these items with the Beetle, doing so is hardly convenient enough to be a worthy or useful alternative. During [[Funny/ChuggaaconroyTheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Chuggaaconroy's Let's Play of this game]] he got so annoyed by the redundant item explanations he actually started a counter to keep track of how many he got during his playthrough. The final count was ''over 200 times''. This mechanic was so infamous that one of the trailers Nintendo released for the HD Switch remaster specifically points out that it was removed.

** Gratitude Crystals are generated by ''one'' person feeling happy about what you did for them, and there are several sidequests for which this is at the expense of someone else. The strongest punch comes from cleaning Pipit's house of dust. It seems like you did a good deed for his mother, and Link even got some money out of it, [[spoiler:except the money that Link earned from this was supplied by Pipit to his mother in order to buy food, and Pipit can barely pay for his schooling while his mother blows the money that Pipit worked multiple night shifts for on frivolities such as a ''personal cleaner''. You can still clean her house for money afterwards, but after hearing Pipit scolding his mother over this, you most likely won't want to.]]

* PopularityPolynomial: ''Skyward Sword'', like any new Zelda game, was massively hyped at launch, but as the dust settled, it developed a more mixed reception, not only for its controversial motion controls and excessive hand-holding, but also because many felt its more traditional design didn't [[ItsTheSameNowItSucks change enough compared to prior Zelda games]] and felt dated next to more advanced WideOpenSandbox games that were skyrocketing in popularity during TheNewTens. However, when the HD remaster released in 2021, the game's reputation increased dramatically, for numerous reasons. The first and most obvious was the numerous quality-of-life upgrades and AntiFrustrationFeatures the remaster introduced over the original game. The other main reason was that, due to ''Zelda'' fans having already received the [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild open-world Zelda game]] they'd been clamoring for since before ''Skyward Sword'''s release, as well as the open-world genre experiencing backlash due to over-saturation in the broader game industry (itself partly due to ''Zelda'' itself making a smash hit in the genre and [[FollowTheLeader sparking imitators]]), the game's more traditional action-adventure design was much more appreciated. While it still retains some criticisms of the original, it was recognized as the refinement of the traditional ''Zelda'' formula that it was meant to be.

* AlasPoorScrappy: Fi, while not universally hated, is still something of a BaseBreakingCharacter due to her [[AnnoyingVideoGameHelper frequently interrupting gameplay]] with often [[CaptainObvious obvious]] advice. Even if you hate her, her going to sleep inside the Master Sword for centuries at the end of the game, which she prefaces by admitting feelings of happiness that her journey with Link inspired that she was incapable of admitting until the end due to her programming, is still a tear-jerker.

* PopularityPolynomial: ''Skyward Sword'', like any new Zelda game, was massively hyped at launch, but as the dust settled, it developed a more mixed reception, not only for its controversial motion controls and excessive hand-holding, but also because many felt its more traditional design didn't [[ItsTheSameNowItSucks change enough compared to prior Zelda games]] and felt dated next to more advanced WideOpenSandbox games that were skyrocketing in popularity during TheNewTens. However, when the HD remaster released in 2021, the game's reputation increased dramatically, for numerous reasons. The first and most obvious was the numerous quality-of-life upgrades and AntiFrustrationFeatures the remaster introduced over the original game. The other main reason was that, due to ''Zelda'' fans having already received the [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild open-world Zelda game]] they'd been clamoring for since before ''Skyward Sword'''s release, as well as the open-world genre experiencing backlash due to over-saturation in the broader game industry (itself partly due to ''Zelda'' itself making a smash hit in the genre and [[FollowTheLeader sparking imitators]]), the game's more traditional action-adventure design was much more appreciated. While it still retains some criticisms of the original, it was recognized as the refinement of the traditional ''Zelda'' formula that it was meant to be.

* PopularityPolynomial: ''Skyward Sword'', like any new Zelda game, was massively hyped at launch, but as the dust settled, it developed a more mixed reception, not only for its controversial motion controls and excessive hand-holding, but also because many felt its more traditional design didn't [[ItsTheSameNowItSucks change enough compared to prior Zelda games]] and felt dated next to more advanced WideOpenSandbox games that were skyrocketing in popularity during TheNewTens. However, when the HD remaster released in 2021, the game's reputation increased dramatically, for numerous reasons. The first and most obvious was the numerous quality-of-life upgrades and AntiFrustrationFeatures the remaster introduced over the original game. The other main reason was that, due to ''Zelda'' fans having already received the [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild open-world Zelda game]] they'd been clamoring for since before ''Skyward Sword'''s release, as well as the open-world genre experiencing backlash due to over-saturation in the broader game industry (itself partly due to ''Zelda'' itself making a smash hit in the genre and [[FollowTheLeader sparking imitators]]), the game's more traditional action-adventure design was much more appreciated. While it still retains some criticisms of the original, it was recognized as the refinement of the traditional ''Zelda'' formula that it was meant to be.

* PresumedFlop: This game was assumed to be not selling pretty well because of its BrokenBase among Zelda fans. However the game actually sold at a modest 3.41 million units a month after its original release, it is just being unfortunate for being released in [[UsefulNotes/{{Wii}} a console that soon to be]] [[UsefulNotes/WiiU replaced]], as well as released too close with the highly anticipated''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' and the out-of-beta-version of ''Videogame/{{Minecraft}}''. To compare, it had outsold the SacredCow ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask]]''.

** [[spoiler:Demise's curse]] is a major source of alternative interpretations, particularly due to differences in wording between the Japanese original and the English translation. [[spoiler:The first interpretation sees him making a statement of AsLongAsThereIsEvil, saying that the curse is actually on the Demon Tribe as a whole and that the curse is their hatred for the gods that causes them to be reborn again and again. The other interpretation sees him directly commanding his hatred to be reborn in a new form, following how Hylia reincarnated into Zelda. The Japanese original leans towards the former interpretation, while the English translation leans towards the latter]].

* {{Speedrun}}: Originally, the game's more linear nature was thought to have limited its speedrunning potential, until a glitch called Back In Time[[note]]Which allows the game to be played on the title screen. Due to all 3 games sharing the same engine, this glitch is also present in ''Wind Waker'' and ''Twlight Princess'' and has speedrunning applications in those games, but Skyward Sword took these up to eleven[[/note]] was discovered and allowed fairly arbitrary manipulation of various progression flags in the game, allowing all sorts of SequenceBreaking all across the game. An excellent single-segment speedrun done by Paraxade can be found [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7N6wqDetZc here.]]