Author's Saving Throw: The HD Switch remaster includes multiple quality of life improvements which address complaints players had with the Wii original, highlighted by a special trailer detailing the improvements. These include:
The option for stick and button controls so players can use the Switch Pro Controller or play the game in handheld mode, and also making the motion controls much smoother for people who still wish to play the game like the 2011 original.
Fi's interruptions and handholding during gameplay have been greatly reduced.
NPCs are less likely to force you into conversations; if an NPC has a quest to give or a potentially useful bit of information, they will have a speech bubble icon above them, letting you know that you might want to talk to them without forcing you to.
Item descriptions only appear once per save file, even if the player saves the game and loads back into said file later.
Dialogue can be fast forwarded like other games in the series.
The ability to skip cutscenes has been added. Originally, it was only possible in Hero Mode, but now even the base game has the feature.
The game now has a separate file slot for autosaves, so players no longer have to visit statues to just save.
The game now runs at 60 frames per second, making actions feel smoother than they were in the original, especially for players who prefer motion controls.
Executive Meddling: A case where the meddling in question forced the team to return to their original plan. Due to major difficulties developing with the MotionPlus accessory, Eiji Aonuma once decided to abandon it for the game, intending to restart development with the plain Wii Remote and Nunchuck. However, other producers pressured him to return to the MotionPlus as was originally intended.
God Never Said That: Aonuma never said that the Parella tribe evolved into the Zoras. What he actually said was that the Parella's original design was changed because it was too similar to the Zora.
He Also Did: Many developers who assisted the game's production may sound familiar, such as MonolithSoft.
Milestone Celebration: The game was released to commemorate 25 years of The Legend of Zelda. The HD remaster was also released as part of the franchise's 35th anniversary, and in commemoration of the original game's 10th anniversary.
Yu Shimamura replaces Jun Mizusawa as the voice of Zelda.
Reality Subtext: The Knight Academy is celebrating its 25th anniversary. The game was released to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Zelda series.
Troubled Production: The development of Skyward Sword was rather turbulent, with Eiji Aonuma admitting that the mood got "very nasty" at one point. Pre-development started soon after Twilight Princess was finished, but at this point there was some dissent over whether continuing the Zelda franchise was necessary due to a lack of ideas. Development began in earnest when Hidemaro Fujibayashi, fresh off directing Phantom Hourglass, proposed his plan to use the MotionPlus accessory, earning him the director's chair from Aonuma. However, the game's initial two years were caught up in experimentation in trying to utilize the MotionPlus for swordplay, as the team found the accessory "unruly" and could not get it to work. At one point, Aonuma considered abandoning the MotionPlus and simply using the vanilla Wii Remote and Nunchuck; it was only after the release of Wii Sports Resort and pressure from other producers that the MotionPlus was ultimately retained. Further disagreements arose regarding the art style, the design of items, and the design of the world, resulting in many planned elements being cut. This left only the last year-and-a-half of development as smooth sailing, but this was comparatively little time left to design and test the game, likely a factor in the game's heavy Backtracking among other things.
Original artwork shown at E3 2009 implied that this game would follow the same dark graphical style of Twilight Princess, if not even darker. This is part of what caused the shock/backlash at the cel-shaded style that appeared at E3 2010. Shigeru Miyamoto stated that the change was made because the dark graphics made it difficult to tell how enemies were holding their weapons, which detracted from the integral swordplay.
As late as Summer/Fall 2010, the team did not have any plans to include orchestrated music. This changed when Miyamoto told E3 journalists that orchestrated music was a must.
The Beetle was originally a rocket-propelled hand, but it was quickly found to not fit in with the setting (considering how much Anachronism Stew the series has already, that's saying a lot).
The original explanation for Link's Crimson Loftwing being so special was that it was the only kind of Loftwing that could travel between the sky and the surface. In the final version of the game, beacons of light enable access to the surface, and the Crimson Loftwing doesn't take Link directly there — he just drops Link to skydive into it.
The artbook Hyrule Historia, as well as one part of "The Making of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild", revealed that the sub-sections of the Surface were originally supposed to be connected with each other, but technical limitations made this a no-go, as they were pushing the single-layer disc limit already. A similar thing happened with Skyloft, which was much larger and multilayered in concept art.
Miyamoto says the original Skyward Sword prototype that he played was more challenging than the final version. As he puts it, the developers were so used to the flow of the game that they made it harder for themselves, to the point that it would have been much harder for the average player. Thankfully for more experienced players, while the finished product was made to be easier, it was still more challenging than most Zelda games.
Miscellaneous Trivia
This is the first 3D Zelda game where Great Fairies are absent.
A major Game-Breaking Bug involving an endgame quest that makes the game Unwinnable was discovered shortly after release. The Wii wasn't capable of downloading standard patches, so Nintendo put out a special Wii Channel (the Save Data Update Channel) whose sole purpose was to modify the game's save data to resolve the issue.
detailing the improvements. These include: