Link early on during the game is established as a clumsy and cute knight-in-training, notably when he's with Zelda. Some of his available responses to Zelda's questions help add to this.
Professor Owlan acts endearingly geeky when Link gives him a Kikwi.
Alas, Poor Scrappy: Fi, while not universally hated, is still something of a Base-Breaking Character due to her frequently interrupting gameplay with often 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. Especially in the remake, which dials down her annoying behaviors, and in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, where she is left at the bottom of the ocean for eternity.
Hylia: all-seeing benevolent goddess who defeated the demons and saved Hyrule? Or Manipulative Bitch who laid her plans without any thought to the well-being of her reincarnation or her chosen hero?
The Reveal that Zelda wasn't in actual danger at the beginning, and Hylia only did it to invoke It's Personal and motivate Link raises some questions about Link. Would he have saved the world regardless, or was this truly necessary and the only thing motivating him, giving him disturbing shades of Always Save the Girl?
Thanks to the addition of conversation branches in some cutscenes, for the first time players can actually make their alternative interpretations canon. Link can be the traditional Determinator hero, but he can also be an Idiot Hero or a wry Deadpan Snarker.
Demise's curse is a major source of alternative interpretations, particularly due to differences in wording between the Japanese original and the English translation. The first interpretation sees him making a statement of As Long as There Is Evil, 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. Another interpretation looking at the Japanese original has argued that Demise's final words to Link are a warning rather than a curse, and reference Buddhist themes of karma; in this interpretation, Demise claims that the mutual hatred between the forces of evil and the forces of good that persists throughout the cycle of death and rebirth will always lead evil to rise again to balance out the world.
In the event that Link "professes" his love for Peatrice, in all future interactions with her, Fi claims to see the effect her presence has on Link and advises him not to mention these feelings to Zelda. Is this an indication that the player's choices actively shape Link's character and personality? Or is it just meant to be a Not So Stoic Fi cheekily teasing him for leading Peatrice along despite his lack of interest in her?
Aluminum Christmas Trees: At first glance, the large-beaked Loftwings might appear to look that way because of the stylized cartoonish aesthetic of the game. They actually look almost exactly like the real life Shoebill.
Annoying Video Game Helper: Quite a few players think Fi is incredibly annoying, finding her supposedly helpful behavior to be overbearing handholding that frequently breaks the game's pace and see her use of Robo Speak and If My Calculations Are Correct bland and irritating. Some even see her as worse than Navi. This was addressed in the HD remaster, where Fi's interruptions were reduced, making many of her messages optional.
The pirate Scervo is set up to be the Arc Villain of the Lanayru Sand Sea, as he's the one who hijacked the Sandship from Skipper so many years ago and has kept its cloaking technology active to keep from being found since then. But he serves only as the miniboss of the dungeon itself, is fought quite early on at that, and does himself a disservice by confronting Link on the ship's prow, where he can easily be knocked off to his death. The remainder of the dungeon has you performing a series of odd jobs to fully take back control, with the actual boss turning out to be a chance encounter with a random sea monster who has no bearing on the Lanyaru arc narrative.
While the final battle with Demise is by no means poorly done, it can come off as incredibly underwhelming given how the game plays him up as being the ultimate evil that you cannot let escape his seal under any circumstances. You spend the entire game seeking out the Triforce for the purpose of eradicating him without having to fight him directly, which ends up feeling like a complete waste of time once you see how slowly he moves and attacks, barely any better than the standard Bokoblin, and how easily he goes down—within just a couple minutes, if you play your cards right.
The Sacred Flames arc suffers from this. After the focus on trailing Zelda throughout the first third—ending with her and Impa traveling back through time—the Sacred Flames arc has no important story events up until Link opens the Gate of Time to meet up with Zelda. Rather, it's just a series of trips back through previously visited areas in search of the three MacGuffins that will enhance Link's sword.
When it comes to sub-arcs, the lead-up to the Fire Sanctuary really drags. First you have to search for the Silent Realm entry point, then complete the Silent Realm (which itself is just the main portion of the Eldin Province). Afterwards, you can travel to the Volcano Summit and find the entrance to the Fire Sanctuary, but you will likely have to backtrack to the water source to solve the Frog Switch puzzles. But the kicker comes at the Fire Sanctuary's doorway, at which point you have to travel all the way to Faron Woods to borrow Faron's giant water bucket and call Scrapper to carry it to the doorway. And then Scrapper rushes to the base of the mountain, necessitating that you slowly escort him all the way to the Volcano Summit while protecting him from any Blins along the way. In short, it takes you a really long time just to access the final dungeon of the Sacred Flames arc.
The Song of the Hero arc, while generally much shorter than earlier arcs, still suffers due to a lack of important story events other than the third breakout of the Imprisoned. There are also no new dungeons except the Sky Keep, which only comes at the very end of the arc. The Faron and Eldin portions in particular contain yet more Backtracking, and you still need to complete one more Silent Realm in order to enter the final dungeon.
Scervo, the dignified robot Stalfos pirate. Even Fi admits that she admires him. And if once wasn't enough, you get to fight another robot pirate in Sky Keep.
All the battles against Ghirahim, as he won't go down with the items you've acquired in his dungeons (Beetle in Skyview Temple, Mogma Mitts in Fire Sanctuary), or any dungeon. It's all about one-on-one sword dueling. His third and final battle (which takes place on Sealed Grounds in the past) is considered to be even better than that against the Final Boss.
Ghirahim is an absolute narcissist who goes on and on about how beautiful and powerful he is… and he more than proves it with his Bishōnen looks and challenging boss battles.
Groose, thanks to his bragging being completely hilarious and being able to back it up later in the game.
Anything with a Timeshift Stone, especially the Sandship, where you can seamlessly move different areas back and forth through time.
The Ancient Cistern is also favored among fans, which is very notable since water-based dungeons haven't been received well in previous installments.
The final battle in the Sealed Grounds, where Link facesa seemingly endless horde of Bokoblins, Moblins, and anything else that Ghirahim can summon to slow our hero down. And it is glorious.
The game's "true villain", Demise, mainly for his effect on the greater lore of the series thanks to the English translation. Some fans love him for recontextualizing series' Big Bad Ganondorf in a new way and giving an actual explanation to the Contrived Coincidence of there always being a Link and Zelda when there is a Ganon. Others despise his addition to the lore for removing Ganondorf's agency as a character and for explaning the reappearances of the characters in a clunky, poorly foreshadowed manner.
Likewise with Demise, Hylia is a divisive addition to the lore of the series. Some fans like her addition for providing a more sensical explanation for the origin of the power of the Hyrulean Royal Family and the evil-destroying power of the Master Sword. Others dislike her addition for being a Spotlight-Stealing Squad and displacing the Golden Goddesses in the series' mythology. Her more restrained presence in Breath of the Wild warmed some detractors to her, but others still debate if the lore is better or worse with her presence.
Broken Base: Although the game launched to near-unanimous praise from both critics and fans, many points of debate popped up shortly afterward. Things got worse in the long run, to the point that the game is now one of the most contentious entries in the franchise, and possibly the most contentious out of the 3D installments. If we go into specifics:
Probably the biggest one (or at least, loudest) were the motion controls in general with nearly everyone. Some thought they were revolutionary and added an extra layer of challenge to the formula, while others simply couldn't get around the fact that Nintendo was still using motion controls, and found the game difficult or even unplayable because of them. Some reviewers suggested that it would have sold better if the motion controls were optional or omitted entirely, while others said doing so would remove an integral part of the gameplay and make the game nearly unplayable, since it was designed specifically with motion controls in mind. Also, while the sword controls were considered good by those who didn't consider the motion controls to be horribly offensive, some say that they overrode things the developers should have focused on more, like a more connected overworld, deeper dungeons and more varied enemies.
The game's much more linear structure than several previous games is a major point of contention due to the lessened focus on exploration. Supporters of this direction said that the game was able to focus more on combat and puzzles, cutting out the aimless wandering and playing up its strengths. Detractors argued that exploration is one of Zelda's major pillars and that the classic Zelda formula was therefore not meant to be linear. Other detractors have argued that while its linearity wasn't inherently bad, the game squandered its linearity on excessive mandatory Backtracking and Fetch Quests. Nintendo, on their part, have listened primarily to the detractors for subsequent games, not only re-emphasizing exploration in A Link Between Worlds and Breath of the Wild but cutting down heavily on any perceived "filler" that has plagued this and certain other previous games.
Cliché Storm: While it's understandable given the 25-year milestone of this game's release for it to have turned out this way, the amount of tropes and cliches it borrows not just from other Zelda games can be a bit hard to overlook. In particular are the premise of Zelda and Link as school sweethearts with a rival for her affections, the use of simplified proper names like "The Sky" and "The Surface", and the game's strict adherence to a The Chosen One narrative. However, Tropes Are Tools is in play as it is still considered one of the best stories of the series.
Fi's name is supposed to be pronounced as in "Fye" or "Fai". Not only that pronounciation was made clear by Nintendo of America's representatives and the voice acting in Hyrule Warriors, but it's unambigously the pronounciation in Japanese, and in pretty much all other languages the game is localized to, for that matter. However, up until the release of Hyrule Warriors, a big chunk of the English speaking fandom insisted it was pronounced "Fee".
It's often thought that Demise is only referred to by Fi using non-gendered pronouns. In the actual game, she only uses them in the context of describing Demise as an abomination that takes different forms in each epoch, thereby using "it" to accentuate the fluidity of his true nature and appearance. For the rest of her analysis, however, she consistently uses male pronouns to address him as he appears before Link.
It's commonly believed that Demon King Demise is voiced by Takashi Nagasako, the voice of Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time and The Wind Waker, with various fan wiki sites, including this site, stating it as fact. But this cannot be the case as Takashi Nagasako, a prominent voice actor best known for voicing Ganondorf and Donkey Kong, was never credited in the voice section, even though Demise was not reusing any sound clips from older Zelda games. Sourcesin Japan list Tsuguo Mogami as the voice of Demise, and this makes sense since the credits list him just behind Kenji Takahashi, the voice of Groose, but after Rei Shimoda, the voice of Impa.
Demon King Demise is the vengeful ruler of monsters and the progenitor of all evil in the franchise. Long ago, Demise attempted to steal the Triforce and Take Over the World, exterminating most of humanity in the process before finally being sealed away by the Goddess Hylia as the Imprisoned. Freed by Ghirahim much later after consuming the soul of Zelda, Hylia's reincarnation, Demise repays his servant by forcibly converting him back into a sword. Amused by Link's courage, Demise challenges him to a duel, promising that his friends, loved ones, and any opposition will soon follow him in death. Upon defeat, Demise spitefully curses Link, Zelda, and the rest of their people with a reincarnation of his hatred, "dooming them to wander a blood-soaked sea of darkness for all time".
Demon Lord Ghirahim is the sadistic, self-proclaimed ruler of the Surface, who seeks to free the Demon King and wipe out humanity. On his quest to capture Zelda, Ghirahim unleashes monsters across the Surface to further his goals and repeatedly encounters Link, attempting to torture him to death each time for his own amusement. After successfully kidnapping Zelda, Ghirahim agonizingly feeds her soul to the Imprisoned, reveals his true nature as the spirit of Demise's sword, and summons an army of monsters to buy time, saying they can die by Link's blade or his own. Upon Demise's release, Ghirahim gleefully gives up his life to return to his sword form, content with the knowledge that Link and the rest of the world are doomed to his master's destructive ambitions.
Contested Sequel: Standard for Zelda, especially considering the amount of shake-ups to the series that Skyward Sword introduced. However, the game's status as this trope grew over the years, particularly after the release of Breath of the Wild, which many claim made the shortcomings of this entry stand out more. Nowadays, despite having its fans, it is among the most contested entries in the franchise.
Crazy Is Cool: Ghirahim's erratic, effeminate behavior means that he has a few screws loose but he's still one of the series' best villains.
Creepy Awesome: Ghirahim. His creepy behavior makes him stand out over all other Zelda antagonists, but he's also one of the most popular in the franchise.
Critical Dissonance: If poll results, game and merchandise sales, and reviews by critics and players are any indication, one would be surprised to find out that Skyward Sword is a fairly popular game in the series with general audiences and has many fans. However, the core Zelda fanbase is more divided, often praising other 3D titles more vocally while deriding Skyward Sword, while the actual Skyward Sword fans are generally less vocal about their game preference. In particular, the ones who had a tough time with the motion controls naturally tend to be more vocal about their frustrations, while the rest of players seem to have found them overall enjoyable.
The Guardians encountered in the Silent Realm, which can One-Hit Kill Link. Worse, the Sky Guardians can fly in the air to avoid obstacles. And even if you're doing your best to avoid them, their lookouts can ruin your day. They're all placed in spots and routes designed to make your Tear collecting as difficult and time-consuming as possible. And as we all know, time is a very precious thing in a Silent Realm.
Stalfos Knights, which can easily take out three hearts in one hit at a point when your max health would be around a mere six.
Koloktos, who is regarded as one of the best bosses in the series, thanks to being a six-armed robotic swordsman that requires an unorthodox strategy to take down.
Stalmaster managed to make just as much of an impact as the main bosses.
Ghirahim is a Large Ham who steals the show whenever he appears and has some of the game's best boss fights.
Demise is a huge, fiery-haired demon who is seriously intimidating; has one of the most-visually-impressive boss fights in the series; and is surprisingly polite and honorable for a God of Evil.
Fan-Disliked Explanation: A minority of fans have remained averse to the ramifications this game’s plot introduces into the series lore, such as Hylia’s sudden emergence and upstaging of the three Golden Goddesses in significance. A particular bone of contention is how in the English version Ganondorf is implied to be the spawn of Demise’s hateful curse, which players feel robs him of his agency after he was given a fleshed-out backstory and motives in previous games. Other fans have used these revelations as Fanfic Fuel, especially as both influenced the plot of Breath of the Wild.
Skyward Sword and Skyrim, and all because of the name. Well that, and both games were released in November of 2011, with both coming from well established action/adventure/fantasy franchises (The Legend of Zelda and The Elder Scrolls). There's a bit of Friendly Fandoms at play, though, especially considering Eiji Aonuma stated he was a fan of Skyrim (to the point that it influenced the more open-world approach he took with Breath of the Wild).
The HD remaster gained one against Sonic Colors when its Ultimate remaster was announced. The fact that Sonic was $20 less didn't help. Though after the latter’s disastrous launch, Zelda fans have gotten the last laugh.
As well as "fanart fuel" at the same time. With the endgame reveal that Ghirahim is the spirit of Demise's sword, itself the Evil Counterpart of the Master Sword, it's common for fans of the game to imagine what Fi would look like if she had a humanoid form similar to Ghirahim.
Crossing into the "Wild Saga", another common fanart subject is Fi having a damaged appearance reflecting that of the Master Sword's damaged states in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.
Before his name was revealed, the GameFAQs community settled with Tracy, and Zelda Universe with Debbie. They still insist that these are the actual names.
Over on Tumblr, Ghirahim's fans refer to him as "Pete".
And there was prevalent overall usage of "Peppermint Kisses".
For one reason or another, it became common for the GameFAQs community to refer to Fi as "Steve" following her reveal in the teaser art from E3 2009. She is also known as "Zordiana" on Zelda Informer, to make fun of the people who believed that rumour.
Groose was called "Biff" on quite a few blogs and message boards, as well as Nintendo Power. His hairdo prompted people to call him the Fonz. Lastly, thanks to him, the game itself went on to be called The Legend of Groose: Skyward Hair.
The section near the end where Link must fight through an army of weak enemies was dubbed "Zelda Musou" by fans. Maybe it gave Nintendo ideas?
The residents of Skyloft are all but said to be the original Hylians, with Zelda and Link creating the royal family of Hyrule. Conversely, many have accepted a theory that Groose's descendants are the Gerudo, as he is a very large-framed, athletic, muscular person with very red hair, traits that would show up in the Gerudo race, particularly Ganondorf.
The fact that Link travels back in time and kills Demise in the past after also killing Demise in the present has led to many fans to theorize that this game created yet another alternate timeline, dubbed the "Skyward Split". Some use it as an effective Hand Wave to explain the existence of the controversial "Downfall" timeline, while others use it to give Breath of the Wild a definitive place in the series' chronology.
Ghirahim is always within Link's personal bubble and seems to love messing with him. This falls apart in the end when Ghirahim becomes frustrated with Link and stops messing around.
Fi/Ghirahim is also quite common, especially since they're both sword "spirits".
Demise expresses disdain for Hylia's mortal reincarnation, Zelda, stating that her previous form was "magnificent."
Dodo’s Party Wheel minigame is one of the most ludicrous money makers in the entire series. For the cost of only 20 rupees you can get up to 500 rupees per attempt as long as you can go through all 5 rings (pretty easy) and land on the jackpot space (tricky but doable with enough practice). You can easily hit the Tycoon Wallet’s rupee cap within 20 minutes if you’re good enough at the minigame.
Shield Bashing, which is taking out the shield just as the enemy is about to hit you. It doesn't lower the Break Meter, can be mastered quickly, and can make an enemy drop their defenses and leave a big opening for you to strike. This tactic will help you a lot in Hero Mode.
In Hero Mode, the Heart Medal allows the player to obtain hearts, thus nullifying one of the mode's biggest challenges.
Genius Bonus: At one point, Ghirahim says that he will "stain the string of fate that binds us red with your blood" to Link. The red string of fate is a Chinese legend that says the Gods connect two people who are destined be lovers and can never be broken over any distance.
What makes the Imprisoned fascinating is that he's not trying to fight you. What makes the Imprisoned an absolute pain in the backside is that he's not trying to fight you. His goal is to escape from the Sealed Grounds, and he casually stomps over Link like Godzilla, completely ignoring him. Link's job is to chase after him and stop him. Not once, but three times.
Koloktos can take forever to beat since you have to go through its fighting animation and rip off its arms to expose its weakpoint. You have to do that many times.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: During gameplay, if Link's heart count is ever low, Fi will interrupt and inform him of this. In Breath of the Wild, during the last recorded event from the Calamity, after Link has been mortally wounded, Fi reawakens—with her trademark ring—to telepathically inform Zelda that Link is on the verge of death, but can still be saved and tells her to send him to the Shrine of Resurrection. That's right: Fi never disappeared at the end of this game. She was always there to watch over her Master, like she did in Skyward Sword.
That's how fans feel about Gamespot's Tom McShea's review for the game, even though he didn't necessarily pan it so much as knock down its score for misunderstanding basic control mechanics.
Egoraptor was expecting this trope when he complained about Skyward Sword in a 2-minute Author Filibuster about how much he loathes it. So far, not a lot of people seem too bothered, beyond a few who mention he's overreacting over a fairly inoffensive game. It wasn't really until he started making extremely controversial statements about the game on Game Grumps, like saying it was worse than Sonic '06 or that people only pretend to like the game because it has Zelda in the name, that he really began to experience this.
An article writer from Kotaku expresses his distaste for the game with one of the reasons being that he doesn't like the Wii. Many question how this is even professional, considering that there was no other way to play this game at the time.
The War Sequence became this when Hyrule Warriors was revealed, as that game consists of fighting entire armies in every level. One level even takes place in the same location.
The game's Fandom Rivalry with Skyrim became this in light of both Skyrim and Breath of the Wild not only both being released on the Nintendo Switch, but Skyrim even having new Zelda-themed content made specifically for that version.
Fi is an artificially intelligentLiving Weapon who was developed by Advanced Ancient Humans long before humanity made their homes above the clouds. Her capabilities in combat are determined by her wielder, and she, for lack of better phrasing, possesses a crystal at her core. In a game whose development was assisted by Monolith Soft. It seems long before Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was even in Tetsuya Takahashi's development plans, Fi was an Aegis.
Years ago, on some obscure Zelda fansite, there was a timeline theory which spoke of the origins of the Master Sword and claimed it was once a woman who became the sword. At the time it seemed a little weird, but no longer thanks to Fi's role as a feminine spirit residing within the Sword.
The Sheikah woman who helps Zelda is revealed to be named Impa. Also, Impa being the old lady confirmed a low-profile fan theory that the Sheikah have a roughly one-thousand-year lifespan.
Though she's not one of the main trio, there is indeed a fourth major goddess as was long speculated.
Many fans had long speculated that Reincarnation was the reason why Link, Zelda and Ganon kept appearing over and over in different eras. Although there were a few subtle hints in previous games too, Skyward Sword officially established it as a lore point, albeit it still keeps it as a background detail to explain the reappearance of the main trio, rather than make it a central theme for the mythos.
Practically nobody was surprised by the announcement of an HD port for the Nintendo Switch, considering it’s the only 3D Zelda prior to have not been remastered and the HD rerelease having been an incredibly popular rumor amongst fans prior to its announcement.
Inferred Holocaust: Faron ends up flooding the entirety of Faron Woods as a way to dispose of a couple of Moblins and Bokoblins so that she can test Link to deem him worthy of receiving the Song of the Hero. However, neither Faron nor the story seem to realize that this would end up destroying Faron Woods' foundation later down the line, as not only have the Kikwis' homes been ravaged by the flood, but all of the trees making up the woods are effectively overwatered by the flood, which would deprive them of carbon dioxide and cause them all to die.
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: In general, there is a big debate on whether the game did enough to stand out on its own or ultimately fell into the conventions of previous Zelda games. However, certain aspects of the game get this criticism even from fans who think it changed too much in other aspects.
The game's use of the "two-act structure" (two sets of dungeons each with their own Plot Coupons) gets flack for being overdone at this stage, many fans feeling that the game should have used a different plot structure.
Like many Zelda games before, the forest is the first explored area while the volcano is the second. The desert gets much less of this criticism due to its heavy use of Timeshift stones, but the game's overall use of the usual Zelda level settings gets flack for doing little new with them.
It Was His Sled: The ending where Link and Zelda are cursed by Demise to be reincarnated to be fighting the reincarnation of Demise's hatred (Ganondorf) forever. Given how the game is a prequel to every Zelda game that came before it, some players may simply state this vital information to newcomers as if it wasn't a big deal. To a lesser extent Fi falling into a deep sleep in the Master Sword and Ghirahim being a sword spirit himself, with his sword form being destroyed, likely erasing him from existence are also quite well-known.
Groose may be an arrogant bully, but it's clear that he has some serious self-esteem issues, and it's hard not to feel bad for him when he buckles under the pressure of witnessing the Imprisoned's breakout.
Ghirahim. He became one of the most charismatic villains in Zelda history for being Creepy Awesome, and made players to really want to give him what was coming for him.
Groose at the beginning of the story as well. His bully-like personality and the way he plays as Link's (possible) love rival for Zelda's affections makes him delightfully hateable... until his Character Development kicks in.
Memetic Badass: Groose. After his Character Development and how effective he is helping Link during his last encounter against the Imprisoned, fans of the franchise champion him as one of the most badass (if a bit goofy) Zelda characters ever.
Ghirahim. The scene where he leans his head on Link's shoulder and lashes out his absurdly long tongue comes to mind. Also when he grabs Link by the shoulders and pulls him close on their second encounter. Needless to say, Link tries to skewer him. And when he's doing the ritual on Zelda to revive Demise, it can look a bit off-putting, especially when Zelda is moaning in pain.
Batreaux is jokingly given this treatment since he lives in isolation and once spent a night in his house playing a game of "scream as loud as you can" with a little girl.
On a smaller scale, Sparrot the fortune teller gets this due to his piercing eyes and insistence that you look into them.
"Do you have any idea how that make me feel inside? FURIOUS!OUTRAGED!SICK WITH ANGER!"ExplanationGhirahim screams this trope, complete with Chewing the Scenery when describing how enraged he is that Link is trying to save Zelda. Due to how popular Ghirahim is, people often spoof it when describing their own anger.
In the same vein of Twilight Princess, we have: *Something* Score: 7.5 ExplanationThe score GameSpot gave. Not by the same guy, though.
Have you been getting your Gratitude Crystals from the thankful women? ExplanationGratitude Crystals are strange little Plot Coupons given to you by completing quests. The "thankful women" part is probably just the product of someone's dirty mind.
Wanna play the "How loud can you scream" game? ExplanationA friendly monster that kidnapped (but not really) a child likes playing this game. Alone. With a child. It doesn't take a genius to see how people (in-universe) could get the wrong idea.
Think about what you can do with a stranded girl and mushrooms. ExplanationA girl gets trapped on an island because her Loftwing was injured. You need to give it medicine, which is mushrooms. Again, dirty-minded players had a field day with this.
The Bokoblin's/Moblin's undergarments. ExplanationThey're apparently so obsessed with their cheetah print underpants that according to Fi, they can literally COME BACK FROM THE DEAD DUE TO THEIR ATTACHMENT TO THEM.
The Legend of Groose: The Groosenator of Grooseland ExplanationThroughout the game, Groose likes to name things after himself due to his Awesome Ego. Due to how popular he is, fans are more than willing to roll along with it.
Squidward Sword ExplanationA series of photoshops replacing various things with Squidward and other characters from Spongebob Squarepants.
Zelda likes to push Link off of cliffs. ExplanationIn-game, she pushes Link off of a cliff. Twice. Jokes are often made that this is Zelda's way of either showing affection toward, or friend-zoning, Link, among other things.
Groose's theme goes with everything. ExplanationSimilar to Guile's theme, Groose's theme has been used for a variety of things, usually when it has someone failing to accomplish something in a hilarious way.
Before the game came out, fan speculation on the then-unnamed Fi ran amok, culminating in her being called 'Steve'.
"WE HATE YOU GROOSE!" "Groose, you're awesome!" ExplanationMany players hated Groose at the start of the game for how he bullied Link and got in the way of one of the most popular ships in video game history. However, as Groose was given a healthy amount of Character Development and more than one chance to display that he genuinely cared for Zelda, he grew on fans. By the time he stopped pining for her and started supporting Link as a good friend, he became one of the most popular characters in the game.
The part of the trailer where Link jumps off of the cliff has been turned into countless GIFs, typically with captions claiming that he is committing suicide over the game. Or swan diving into the logo.
Parodies and snowclones of Groose intercepting Link in mid-skydive have begun popping up already, many of them involving someone's face superimposed over Groose's, such as SaxtonHale, Trollface. Heck, Link's shocked face itself has become quite exploitable.
Depending on how you see it, the Kikwi chirps can either be this or annoying.
The concluding chime for the Lizalfos battle theme, especially after Sky Keep's "boss", an intense three-room gauntlet with plenty of enemies including former minibosses.
The snippet during Scaldera and Tentalus' boss fights that plays when their weaknesses are exposed screams "FINISH HIM!"
Footage of the Italian version of the game shows how Ghirahim's line, "furious, outraged, sick with anger" ultimately turned out to be too hard to be properly translated to Italian.
During the cutscene after Link finally meets up with Zelda in the past and she tells him The Reveal about her being the reincarnation of the Goddess Hylia Link makes a strange, wide-eyed expression◊ that makes seem like he's looking at something shocking or disgusting instead of finally reuniting with his best friend/possible love interest and hearing the explanation for why she disappeared suddenly. This expression was so weird that it was even subject to Memetic Mutation.
Whenever Fi sings, her face shakes erratically while her mouth hangs open. Many players found the animation comical, even though the cutscenes themselves are meant to convey a feeling of triumph.
During the otherwise serious final battle, Ghirahim starts dancing in a bizarre way, in a circle around Zelda, while teleporting and badly humming his own theme song. He's supposed to be doing a ritual to summon Demise, but still.
Never Live It Down: Zelda only pushes Link off a cliff twice. But to hear some people talk, she does it all the time.
The Imprisonedlooks really freaky... for the most part. Then you get to its incredibly goofy toes. When it Turns Red, it rockets up the path to the Sealed Temple like a demonic Pac-Man. And the second time around, it grows ridiculously long arms.
Tentalus. It looks like one of Mike and Sully's colleagues. One meme even declared it to be the love child of Mike and Cecilia, with a similar one comparing it to one of the nerdy janitors Smitty.
The Craniocs, despite being dreaded by every NPC, looks like Beavis in the form of a fish.
Many fans believe this game was the first one to seriouly dial up the romantic undertones in Link and Zelda's relationship. But in reality, that trend started in its most immediate predecessor, Spirit Tracks. However, the undertones are ambiguous enough in both games for other pairings to be popular.
Link and Zelda being introduced as childhood friends, instead of meeting each other 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. Coincidentally (or maybe not), all three games were directed by Hidemaro Fujibayashi.
Despite being treated as such, Zelda being a reincarnated goddess is hardly the series' first attempt to contextualize the magical powers of the royal family of Hyrule. That actually started with The Minish Cap, in which Hyrulian princesses were said to be carriers of the omnipotent Light Force, and was built upon in Spirit Tracks, in which Zelda's royal lineage is what bequeathed to her the sacred spirit power that Malladus sought.
Zelda sealing herself in slumber to ensure that The Imprisoned can't break free, along with Link's reaction. Though the effect is diminished in some ways considering the entire thing is an exploitation of the trope in-universe; Hylia fated herself to be reincarnated as the object of Link's affection so that she could manipulate him into defeating Demise in order to save her. Although Zelda showing remorse for it salvages that point for many people.
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, except the money that Link earned from this was supplied by Pipit to his mother in order to buy bread, 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.
The option of rejecting Peatrice's love confession. There's just something about this girl who was so bored of her life until she fell in love with Link and rejecting her (for whatever reason you might have) that makes you feel like a jerk. You still get Gratitude Crystals, from her rather overprotective father.
The moment when Ghirahim kidnaps Zelda just after she'd been released from the crystal and was having a heartwarming reunion with Link, Impa, and Groose.
The quest to deliver the love letter turns out as this no matter what you do: if you deliver the letter, then Cawlin is rejected in favor of Pipit and spends the rest of the game crying on Groose's bed. If you give the letter to the ghost, then the ghost falls in love with Cawlin, who becomes enraged that you didn't deliver the letter and is stalked for the rest of the game by the ghost.
Polished Port: In a similar fashion to Super Mario Galaxy's port, the Nintendo Switch port bumps the resolution to 1080pnote 720p in handheld mode, which results in clearer visuals, even removing the dithering filter present in the original version. In addition, the framerate has been bumped to 60fps and several quality-of-life improvements were made, such as being able to fast-forward text boxes, removing redundant dialogue boxes, and making many of Fi's tips optional. Last but not least, players can not only play the game in portable mode, but it's now possible to finally play the game without motion controls!
While they are nowhere near as popular in the Furry Fandom as Kass and Prince Sidon, the Mogma race still have a small but dedicated fanbase towards them since they're essentially anthropomorphic moles with a civilized and generally unique culture to them.
This game's incarnation of the Lizalfos enemies are not too far behind either; they're more popular than their later incarnations who come from a game with a whole slew of enemy design glow ups.
Presumed Flop: This game has been assumed to have not sold well because of its contentious design choices, as detailed in Broken Base above, among Zelda fans. However, the game actually sold at a modest 3.41 million units a month after its original release. It did have the misfortunate of being released on a console was that soon to bereplaced, as well as being released too close to the highly anticipated The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and the out-of-beta-version of Minecraft, but to compare, the original Wii version of Skyward Sword had outsold the fan-favorite Majora's Mask.
The Scrappy: Faron the Water Dragon is widely disliked, even by fans of the game. Many take issue with her ungrateful attitude towards Link after he saves her, even denying him her piece the Song of the Hero by claiming that he hasn't proven himself, despite the fact that he already saved her and is holding the fully-powered Master Sword. On top of that, many find her decision to flood Faron Woods to get rid of the monsters to be a massive example of Jerkass Gods, considering she endangered the Kikwi and all the innocent creatures within while doing so.
While the swordplay is largely a love-it-or-hate-it thing, many other mechanics involving motion controls (vine swinging, the harp, tightrope walking, sky diving, swimming, etc.) tend to be derided for being unintuitive or just controlling badly.
The harp has been a frequent criticism, mostly for not offering as much control as previous instruments in the series, as well as not having a bigger role in gameplay.
While good in theory, the 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, 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 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.
The screen's pointer not using the infrared sensor, thus forcing you to constantly re-calibrate/recenter it when your cursor ends up far off from where your remote is pointing.
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 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 Quality of Life trailer Nintendo released for the HD Switch remaster specifically points out that it was removed.
Playing the game on button-only mode for the Switch remaster so far has been well-received. However, if there was one definite complaint about button-only mode, it's that the camera controls are set so you have to hold the L button in order to be able to swing the camera around with the right stick, which otherwise controls Link's sword.
The same button being used for "use current item" and "switch item", especially when paired with the lack of pause when switching items, makes for a losing combination. Many times you will attempt to use your slingshot or bow, only to enter the item menu instead, with dangerous consequences in combat situations.
Scrappy Weapon: As with Twilight Princess, the Slingshot. It can only stun enemies, has horrible range, and unlike other games in the series, it's not replaced by the Bow until over halfway through the game. Even its upgrade is almost entirely useless compared to everything else in the game.
Ship Mates: Though they never interact with nor mention each other in-game, it's becoming common for fans to ship Groose and Peatrice together, since Link and Zelda are popularly believed to end up together, which would mean Groose's crush on Zelda and Peatrice's crush on Link go unrequited. Furthermore, the idea that poor Peatrice finds someone new after suffering heartbreak over Link rejecting her helps soften the Player Punch for fans who feel sorry for her. Therefore, Groose and Peatrice get to find happiness with each other instead.
Signature Scene: Having one of the tighter plots in the franchise, the game a lot has some scenes that have become incredibly iconic:
The Goddess Ceremony, at the beginning of the game. Link and Zelda are so adorable together in this scene that you'll struggle to find someone who doesn't love it, even among those who believe the opening section is otherwise drawn out. Particularly Zelda approaching Link to an Almost Kiss (which doubles as the game's most iconic Signature Shot).
The first encounter with Ghirahim, which made him one of the fan favorite villains almost instantaneously, thanks to his creepiness and delightful Large Ham.
Link and Zelda's reunion right before the latter falls into a thousand year old slumber. One of the most heartbreaking scenes in the entire franchise, particularly thanks to Link's completely devastated reaction.
At the end of the game, when Fi's consciousness fades away into the Master Sword, while expressing gratitude to Link for all that he's done, and promising they will meet each other again in Link's future lifetimes. Particularly noteworthy thanks to the unbelievably beautiful"Fi's Gratitude", which manages to single-handedly bring down to tears even people who didn't care for the character and/or thought the scene wasn't otherwise properly earned.
Slow-Paced Beginning: The driving force of the opening hours of the game is establishing Link and Zelda's relationship, which means that if you are not on board with it, whether for gameplay or story reasons, this trope applies in full force. While nowhere near as long-winded as Twilight Princess, this game suffers from a long stretch of tutorials and a lot of ultimately irrelevant cutscenes for an hour and a half before finally entering Faron Woods and starting the game proper. Then it takes another hour after entering Faron Woods to finally enter the first proper dungeon, and that hour is spent doing a Fetch Quest for members of the local tribe and solving rather brainless puzzles, all of which cannot be skipped. The HD remaster fixed this by making many of these NPC conversations and quests optional, and by allowing cutscenes to be skipped.
Every single item and weapon in the game clips through everything. When the rest of the game looks so great, this is a little jarring. Much like other examples of this trope, once you notice it, you won't stop noticing it.
For the umpteenth time in the series, Link's hat still clips through his shield. While the clipping sword/items bit may be justified by that bit about the freedom you have with your sword, the fact that they still haven't fixed this glitch even after moving to a new engine is nothing short of ridiculous.
The leaf clusters on trees are made up of several pulsating and intersecting polygons. This looks good in a stylized way most of the time, but sometimes when you are skydiving above them (especially when returning to Skyloft), they can look like barren trees with thin green Xs over them.
On your first descent to the surface, the camera shifts to an alternate view of Link passing through the cloud barrier. The angle makes it very obvious that the overhead view of the province you're entering is just an image pasted on a flat surface.
Squick: The enhanced potions you drink are made out of ground up bugs. Made extra-squicky when the enhancement includes Eldin Rollers (dung beetles).
In May 2021, Nintendo announced the HD remaster's new fast travel feature between the ground and the sky, which could only be unlocked with a limited edition Zelda-and-Loftwing amiibo that would release on the same day. The feature doesn't seem to be particularly useful (the game is actually NOT designed to be travelling often between the ground and the sky, and only seems to meaningfully streamline one side quest), but this didn't stop fans from complainig about Nintendo paywalling content.
The graphical upgrade is more subtle than the remasters for The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, though the "upgrades" in those games were controversial at the time for relying too much on bloom. This hasn't stopped fans from complaining even when comparing the original and HD version side-by-side makes the changes more obvious.
Ghirahim is extremely difficult considering he's the boss of the very first dungeon. Defeating him requires a decent amount of precision with the sword to feint and avoid being blocked, and a fresh player might not have the finesse to pull it off consistently if they're not accustomed to the controls. While many later dungeon bosses also require hitting them with the sword in a specific manner, they are much more forgiving about it.
Then later on is the Imprisoned, namely the second and third times. Time-Limit Boss, plus the realization that the stamina meter gives out too quickly unless you drank a potion, and then the fact that the last parts of it rely mostly on your aim.
The Silent Realm trials. They amount to timed obstacle courses/collect-a-thons/Stealth Based Missions in areas you've already explored. Get hit once and you have to do the whole thing over. And yes, you have to complete all of them to progress further in the story. And because of the stamina meter, it's hard to escape from the Guardians when they do spot you. The trails in Elden and Skyloft are arguably the most difficult ones; the former due to the more larger setting and the latter due to the likelihood of getting lost and falling off the edges.
The Lanayru Mining Facility is longer than the previous two temples beforehand, and contains tedious puzzles and lots of annoying enemies.
The Lanayru Gorge involves having to survive a room full of enemies, ranging from Goddamned Bats to Demonic Spiders, while following a Timeshift Stone in a moving mining cart to avoid falling in quicksand. If you were to die or fall off the cart, you'll have to start over and the enemies respawn too.
The Sandship is more annoying than outright difficult. First, to even get to the sandship, you'll required to complete three mini-dungeons to figure out where the ship is located. One of these mini-dungeons includes a rematch with the boss of the Mining Facility. Then the actual ship itself has bit of a confusing layout that requires doing a lot of going back and fourth between the inside of the ship and outside in order to access certain rooms and the Timeshift Stone.
Capturing bugs. In general it's tedious, as you must move very slowly so that the bugs won't flee. In addition, the motion controls can screw up your aim with the Bug Net if you're not careful. This does vary on the type of bug in question; most of them are fairly easy, but the Gerudo Dragonflies, Eldin Rollers, Sand Cicadas, and others can be a challenge.
To finish up the Lumpy Pumpkin quest, you have to complete a minigame with your harp. The lack of feedback on whether or not you're playing the harp correctly during the minigame combined with wonky motion controls make it one of the least favorite sidequests in the game.
The Rickety Coaster minigame is required for a piece of heart. The minigame itself is simple; you just have to complete a course within a specific time limit. What makes it difficult is that the mine cart is controlled using motion controls, note you have to tilt the controller to lean either to the right or to the left, which helps steer the cart while also allowing you to pick up speed. which have a nasty habit of being very inconsistent. Thus turning the minigame into bit of a Luck-Based Mission.
Pumpkin Pull, in which you have to shoot tossed pumpkins with your bow, is another minigame necessary for a piece of heart. This is not as easy as it sounds, since you pretty much have to shoot every pumpkin that Fledge tosses at you to build up the highest score needed for the heart piece. The problem is, once again, rooted in the wobbly motion controls making it easy to lose your aim. Fledge is also incredibly unpredictable in how he throws the pumpkins; he has a habit of randomly waiting a few seconds before each throw and will sometimes throw the pumpkin farther (to the point where they go off the screen).
The graphics first and foremost, but also apparent changes in the overworld. A press release showed the cel-shading toned down and the colors darkened a bit from the E3 build, which also caused some outrage among the community. The real story is probably that the capture devices used on the latter press release had different brightness/contrast settings, and so looked a little bit darker. One fan noticed this and "fixed" the comparison shot to show that there was little to no difference at all besides contrast settings.◊
The ground-based sections weren't received well due to their lack of inter-connectivity, especially since this approach to overworld design was already controversial from its use in the DSgames.
The removal of additional combat moves, a la the Tiger Scrolls and the Hidden Skills, was seen as a waste of a perfectly good mechanic by some fans, who thought the more accurate sword controls would help make this concept even better.
The game makes Link right-handed so that the sword motion controls are intuitive to more people, but long-time fans don't like the change because Link has traditionally been left-handed with very few exceptions.
Zelda for some. Not so much in the case that her characterization is deemed undercooked (she's actually one of the most beloved incarnations of the character), but rather that her potential is hindered by her limited screen time throughout the game. The opening section of the game sets her up to be a very close friend to Link and even stands up for him against Groose, but once the prologue ends and the main plot starts, she's little more than a Living MacGuffin who always stays justout of the reach of both Ghirahim and Link. In total, up until the final stretch of the story, Link and Zelda only get to be truly face to face in a brief interlude between the Scared Flames and Song of the Hero arcs.
As far as enemies go, Moblins, Lizalfos, Stalfos, and Staldra fall under this. All of them are very interesting to fight and have distinctive and creative methods for getting past their defenses, but each of them appear in very few locations throughout the game. Instead, Bokoblins are found practically everywhere and offer little-to-no variation in their fighting styles.
Although Link and Zelda's relationship is one of, if not the most beloved aspect of this game, considering that a huge part of the series' fandom was waiting for a Zelda game to really play the romance angle between them for all of its 25 years, a lot of people felt it to be too downplayed and the No Hugging, No Kissing brought too far (the biggest form of physical intimacy between them is just a Rescue Hug after Zelda wakes up from her thousand-year slumber).
The game spends a lot of time early on talking about your bond with your Loftwing, but he is never named, and is just used to get from one place to another, which is a far cry from the attention than Link's previous rides had, specially Epona and King of Red Lions.
When Link reunites with Zelda after obtaining the Master Sword, Zelda's Info Dump concerning the nature of Hylia and the Imprisoned's conflict ends with a confession that Zelda admits that Hylia manipulated Link's feelings, deliberately putting her mortal self into danger if it meant motivating him to become a hero. Elaborating upon this element or raising the question of being manipulated could have added depth to the Black-and-White Morality that the game offers, but Link never once reacts to having been groomed all this time, and remains just as dogged and devoted to Zelda even as she's explaining the rammifications to him. This plot thread might as well not have been included at all for all the impact it has.
The revelation that there was a thriving civilization of sentient robots thousands of years before Hyrule even existed, and that it's still partially accessible via timeshift stones, could have easily been the main focus of an entire game the way the Twili and their realm were in Twilight Princess, but ultimately it's just used as flavor text for the Lanayru area.
While Ghirahim's an excellent character in his own right, the reveal that he was Demise's sword spirit and an Evil Counterpart to Fi the entire time was so inconsequential that it might've been removed entirely without any difference. While it does highlight many of the parellels between them and justifies his Undying Loyalty toward his master, he and Fi never even speak or interact with each other, so it comes off as an interesting concept that wasn't written all the way through.
Unintentionally, The Imprisoned ended up coming off as this to a lot of people (see Narm), to the point someone made plushies of it.
Despite the formidable way Bilocyte infected poor Levias' body, the monster looks like a giant worm with some traits of a dog. Though it sounds weird, it's actually quite adorable.
The small, beige Arachas found in certain dungeons, especially if you use the Gust Bellows on them, which causes them to squeak and topple over.
Uncertain Audience: The game can't seem to decide the kind of player it's supposed to be for, a major factor in its divisive reception with Zelda fans and general players alike. Many veteran Zelda players were frustrated by the frequency of exposition and handholding, desiring a game that instead trusts the player where to go on their own. At the same time, newer players (such as the Wii's casual audience) were put off by how surprisingly complex the puzzles can be, not helped by many of them not having clear hints from Fi. Fans of exploration-oriented games were unenthused by the game's more linear structure of the Surface areas, but fans of linear games were turned off by the open but empty Sky area, the long periods of time doing fetch quests to access the next area/dungeon, and the backtracking in the Sacred Flames and Song of the Hero arcs. Finally, players of more conventional games tended to dislike the motion-controlled combat in favor of button-controlled combat, while casual fans presumably coming in from Wii Sports Resort were frustrated by how strict the directional requirements are to get past enemy defenses. The HD version attempts to address some of these issues: button controls have been added without getting rid of the motion controls for those who enjoyed it, and the interrupting nature of some of Fi's hints has been toned down while leaving the hints themselves in for newer players.
The Goddess Harp feels very underbaked, especially compared to previous Zelda instruments. It's impossible to play specific songs on command, since all the ones you "learn" can only be performed in specific areas at specific points in the story and with specific effects. It has very limited utility outside of those scripted sequences, with its only optional uses being the ability to summon Gossip Stones and Goddess Walls and a single sidequest at the Lumpy Pumpkin. Using the harp in all other cases just causes Link to strum along to the background music of the area he's in.
The Gust Bellows has next-to-no use in much of the game aside from blowing away piles of dirt, and has absolutely no use in combat whatsoever. While there are situations where you must blow pinwheels in order to activate certain mechanisms for some good puzzle design, these are limited to the dungeons in Lanayru Desert.
The Whip, despite seeming like a cool weapon at first, has nearly no use in combat against most enemies, and its main gameplay function is to trigger "switches" with an obvious loop design clearly made for the item. While it can steal Monster Horns from Bokoblin captains, this is virtually the only use it gets outside of its dungeon, the Ancient Cistern, and even this feature is so underutilized that it still comes off as a wasted concept.
The form of the Master Sword you unlock by imbuing it with Din's Flame sees extremely limited use before being enhanced to become the True Master Sword shortly afterward. Apart from some upped attack power, there's nothing that sets it apart from the lower tiers of the Goddess Sword, and the only time it gets any use is during your second encounter with The Imprisoned before it gets upgraded again.
After collecting the Water Dragon's Tadtones in Faron Woods, the player can enlist Groose and his catapult to travel instantly to certain parts of the sky and the surface, provided there's a minigame nearby. As handy an alternative as this is to flying everywhere on Link's Loftwing, there's little left to be done by the time it presents itself, and you're unable to make use of it after finishing the Sky Keep since the catapult's trajectory becomes blocked by the Goddess Statue returning to the surface.
Unfortunate Character Design: Quite a few jokes have been made at the expense of Bucha (and the rest of the Kikwis) and his resemblance to a pair of testicles.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Impa, in her interaction with Link at the Earth Spring. Her berating him for being late is meant to come off as a Player Punch that inspires Link to improve himself, but it manages to strike a completely different cord due to the inevitability of the entire thing: nothing story- or gameplay-related happens on the journey through the Eldin Volcano that significantly cuts off Link's progress, meaning he was only "late" according to some arbitrary standard of timeliness or due to circumstances that he was completely unaware of. The fact that the conclusion was scripted without any preceding event to lead up to it just makes Impa come off as a sanctimoniousJerkass who is dismissing Link as beneath her standards, despite that his journey only began shortly before then and he isn't yet privy to the amount of details that she is.
Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Faron, a water dragon, has a face that is oddly humanoid, contrasting with her reptilian body. Creepier than it sounds.
Many are quick to pronunce Fi's name as "Fee", but the Japanese pronunciation of her name is actually closer to "Fye", which is used by official English-speaking Nintendo representatives and Hyrule Warriors.
Many players have pronounced Ghirahim's name "Gheer-a-himm", but Hyrule Warriors lengthens the second "i", making it "Gheer-a-heem".
Vindicated by History: 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 change enough compared to prior Zelda games and felt dated next to more advanced Wide-Open Sandbox games that were skyrocketing in popularity during The New '10s. 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 Anti-Frustration Features the remaster introduced over the original game. The other main reason was that, due to Zelda fans having already received the 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 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.
Distant objects have a filter that make them look like an impressionist painting. It looks amazing, helping emphasize the game's art style.
The HD version makes everything look beautiful and crisp. The Thunderhead in particular stands out thanks to more brighter coloring, and an actual visible rainstorm (that even makes Link's clothes damp).
Waggle: The developers aimed to avoid this by using the Wii MotionPlus to make sword play more accurate than the Wii port of Twilight Princess, as noted with regular enemies and bosses. Ghirahim himself is a great example of how randomly waving your sword around is a good way to get yourself killed. However, some non-combat mechanics, such as the harp and swimming, have had this perception from some fans. This isn't quite as bad in the Switch remaster, thanks to its smoother controls, but will still require some practice.
Wangst: A humorous example with Cawlin; regardless of how his sidequest ends, he'll spend the rest of the game shelled up in Groose's room saddened because his love interest does not return his feelings. He is rudely turned down in favor for someone else in one outcome and in the other harassed in his sleep by a ghost FOREVER...
Link, full-stop. He is traumatized and sent into peril deadlier than literally any human has ever faced in history, all to save the girl he cares for, all the while being chastised and having his "worthiness" questioned, and it all turns out he was just Hylia's pawn to become a "suitable" hero, and this revelation is crowned by Zelda being sealed away into eternal slumber with nothing he can do about it. And even when he does everything right, even finds the Triforce and destroys Demise, he returns to at long last be reunited with Zelda, only for her to have her soul consumed by the past incarnation of the very evil he'd beat the odds to end in his own time. Even if he gets his happy ending in the end, both "good" and evil sides toyed with him to get their results.
Zelda herself is separated from her friends and family, forced to go on the run from one location to the next in a world she doesn't recognize with a complete stranger, and seals herself away for 1,000 years, all to fulfill a destiny that she never chose nor wanted in the first place. Immediately after being reunited with Link and Groose, she gets kidnapped and sacrificed to an Eldritch Abomination. Thankfully, she survives the ordeal and gets to live out her life with Link, but you'll just want to give the poor girl a hug by the end.
Batreaux is a minor example. The poor guy just wants to be friends with the townsfolk, but is discriminated against because of his appearance, to the point he desperately wants to be human so other people will accept him. Luckily, Link and Kukiel are nice enough to become his friends.
Woobie Species: The Ancient Robots, especially the ones at the Sand Sea, who are a tribe of Cute Machines who were all wiped out years ago and can only be talked to in the past. Scrapper is proof that it's possible they can be brought back to life, but even then their entire civilization is in ruins.
The official translation of the intro is generally considered to be incredible, not to mention it manages to make it even more terrifying than the fan-made translations spread across the internet in the wake of it first being leaked.
The European Spanish translation is one of the best the series has ever had. For starters, they give the Big Bad a truly frightening name: Instead of "Demise", he's called the "Heraldo de la Muerte" ("Death's Herald"), which sounds pretty great. The characterization of most characters is impressive too.
There's also Scrapper, alost curses a great many times in the Spanish version.
All the alternate names for Demise are really good. The French version is Avatar du Néant, meaning "Avatar of Oblivion", and the German version is Todbringer, meaning "Deathbringer". They all get to the same point, and they're all Names to Run Away from Really Fast.
Likewise, Demise's Italian name is Mortipher, Latin for "Deathbringer". Somehow like Batreaux, who in Italian is Morsego (Latin for "I, Death").
Even his original Japanese name is pretty great. Although "The Person of the End" doesn't roll off of the tongue in English, it could easily be rendered as "The Ender". It can also be read as a pun that would translate to "Tyrannical Being".
This extends to the names of characters and objects as well. "Timeshift Stones" in the English version? Not bad ... Chronolites in the Spanish and French versions? Even better. And etymologically, it does makes sense.
The Silent Realms, which are called Hypneas in Spanish. (Hypnos is the Greek word for "dream").
In English, the giant birds of Skyloft are Loftwings. In French, they're Célestrier (Skysteed). In Italian, they're Solcanubi (Cloudsailer). In European Spanish, they're called "Pelícaros", a portmanteau of "Pelícano" (Pelican) and "Ícaro" (Icarus) and Neburís in Latin América.
You have to collect tadpoles in the flooded Faron Woods to piece together Faron's portion of the Song of the Hero. This makes sense in Japanese since the Japanese word for music note literally means "tadpole," which is why the English translation named them "Tadtones."
WTH, Costuming Department?: IGN rated the outfit Link wears at the beginning of the game as making him one of the worst-dressed video game characters of 2011, calling it a "burlap sack disaster" and saying that "dressing like an Arizona grandma" was bad for the already effeminate hero.
The Manga
Broken Base: On whether the manga should be considered canon in some form. Unlike the other Zelda manga by Akira Himekawa, this is not an adaptation of Skyward Sword but rather its backstory detailing the Ancient Battle between Hylia and Demise, and it was only released with Hyrule Historia, a canonical book that first detailed the Zelda Timeline. Naturally, fans argue over its canonicity status.
The most controversial addition was the revelation that the Sky-Era Link is the reincarnation of an older Link who directly served Goddess Hylia. Many fans immediately deemed the manga non-canon because his presence contradicts the game's lore, particularly with Demise exclaiming that no human had ever stood up to him until the Sky-Era Link, and they prefer the idea that Sky-Era Link is the first hero and any mention of a predecessor is the result of Link travelling back to the past and defeating Demise there. Proponents for the manga, however, argue that contradictions are deliberately common in Zelda lore and that the story explains the reincarnation cycle of Link and Zelda better than Demise's Dying Curse (namely that they choose to reincarnate to fight evil rather than be dragged into Demise's eternal war).
Complete Monster: Demon King Demise rises from beneath the Surface to Take Over the World. Seeking the Triforce, Demise leads his army of monsters across the land, slaughtering as many humans as possible and burning entire villages to the ground, even killing Link himself in the process while mocking the hero's courage. After facing the Goddess Hylia in a final battle and being defeated, Demise spitefully vows to return as he is sealed away.
Hilarious in Hindsight: The Skyward Sword manga, bundled with Hyrule Historia, was released on December 2011. It depicts the 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 The Legend of Korra's two-parter Beginnings Part 1 and 2 in October 2013, which features the first Avatar and a feminine God of Good in their first battle against a masculine God of Evil, and why the Avatar reincarnates in the first place.
Older Than They Think: This was not the first story that challenged the idea that the Link you played in the prequel is the first Link. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was touted as the first chronological story depicting the origins of Link, Zelda, and Ganon; with a backstory stating that no hero took up the Master Sword against Ganon during the Imprisoning War hundreds of years ago. Ataru Cagiva's adaptation contradicts that detail by revealing that Link had an ancestor who fought in the Imprisoning War AND was shown to wield the Master Sword. Then The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time came out and all but officially retconned ALTTP Link's status as the first Link away with the Hero of Time, who in turn would eventually lose that title to Four Swords Link, then Minish Cap Link, and finally Skyward Sword Link.
looking at the Japanese original has argued that Demise's final words to Link are a warning rather than a curse, and reference Buddhist themes of karma; in this interpretation, Demise claims that the mutual hatred between the forces of evil and the forces of good that persists throughout the cycle of death and rebirth will always lead evil to rise again to balance out the world.
