A lot of fans of The Legend of Zelda thought that Nintendo would have as explosive an anniversary for the franchise as it did for Super Mario's 2020 anniversary. On the contrary, The Legend of Zelda has been pretty quiet in 2021. Contrary to popular belief early in the year, there's no sign of ports for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess or The Wind Waker. Instead, Skyward Sword HD leads the charge for Zelda's 35th anniversary, doing its best to sate fans before Breath of the Wild 2 releases next year. It would've been great to see Twilight Princess join its fellow Wii title on the Switch, but seeing how many adjustments Nintendo made to Skyward Sword, it's not surprising that the publisher opted for only one port.
However, there's definitely something valuable about Skyward Sword HD for other Zelda games longing for ports. Skyward Sword was a controversial title in its time for quite a few reasons, but Nintendo found a lot of ways to optimize, streamline, and generally improve the game. Although some still view Skyward Sword as significantly flawed, Skyward Sword HD's reception has been positive, particularly toward the ways Nintendo improved the game. Twilight Princess deserves a similar revamp, in large part because it shares a glaring flaw with Skyward Sword. A Twilight Princess remaster for Switch really ought to let players opt out of unnecessary item notifications as Skyward Sword HD did.
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Skyward Sword HD's Item Notification Changes
A major issue that Skyward Sword suffered from in its Wii release was a deluge of unnecessary item notifications. The game was designed to explain every collectible item, from Rupees of different colors to crafting components, the first time Link finds an item of its type during any one session of Skyward Sword. This isn't an inherently bad idea; new Zelda fans don't know the value of every Rupee by heart, and sometimes item notifications can provide helpful information, like progress in collecting Pieces of Heart. However, every time Skyward Sword players booted up the game after turning off their Wii, they'd have to review all of these item notifications for even the banalest items. It proved to be a major annoyance for Zelda fans everywhere.
Nintendo must have realized how much fans disliked the recurring notifications because it made a big deal out of the fact that Skyward Sword HD vastly streamlined item notifications. Rather than items getting described every time Link finds them in a Skyward Sword play session, Skyward Sword HD just explains items the first time Link finds them, then moves on. It might seem like a small change on paper, but in terms of Skyward Sword's pacing, it's a lifesaver. Players that once felt actively discouraged from collecting treasure because of annoying notifications can now collect precious Rupees and valuable components at their leisure.
Treasure should feel rewarding in any game, but low-level treasure should never hinder the pacing of the game. Initial notifications are useful, but in the long run, Skyward Sword players want to be able to pick up red Rupees and Amber Relics without stopping in their tracks. These items aren't nearly as important as Pieces of Heart, which deserve a moment's celebration. Nintendo made a fantastic decision in developing Skyward Sword HD, listening to fan complaints about items descriptions, and improving the game's pacing.
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Twilight Princess on Switch Can Inherit Improvements
Twilight Princess suffered from some similar problems to Skyward Sword. Fans may remember that Twilight Princess also stopped to describe the value of each Rupee type whenever Link finds the first Rupee of its type in a session of play. This made finding treasure feel a lot more sluggish than it ought to. It didn't help that there were plenty of other collectible items that constantly offered Link notifications. Collecting Poe souls could feel slow because Twilight Princess would remind Link what he'd just gotten. Similarly, Agatha's insect collecting would stop the game to tell Link exactly what he'd picked up, even though there was only a marginal difference between each bug. Just like in Skyward Sword, these notifications were small issues individually, but they added up to consistent annoyance.
Twilight Princess HD on the Wii U did take one step in the right direction by getting rid of excess notification of Rupee amounts, on top of other accessibility improvements when it came to Rupees. Even so, it'd be great to have a Switch version of Twilight Princess that got rid of other unnecessary notifications like Skyward Sword HD. For items like Poe souls and golden bugs, Twilight Princess could easily lift an idea from Breath of the Wild, putting a small text notification on the side of the screen when Link gets such an item. That way players will know what exactly they've picked up without needing to stop for a few seconds just to look closely at what minor item they've picked up.
Twilight Princess HD Could Still Go Further
Skyward Sword HD is a great improvement over the original game. However, it also highlights the fact that Twilight Princess deserved another appearance on the Switch, just as fans hoped for. Twilight Princess is also a great game, but it's not perfect. Skyward Sword HD highlights Nintendo's willingness to acknowledge the flaws in its games and improve upon them. It could easily take many of the improvements that it put into Skyward Sword HD and apply them to a Twilight Princess HD remaster for the Switch.
For now, it doesn't look like Nintendo will release another version of Twilight Princess HD in the near future. The extend of Skyward Sword HD's changes and the important work on Breath of the Wild 2 mean that Nintendo has had its hands full with Zelda projects for quite some time. If Nintendo is discussing a Switch edition of Twilight Princess internally, then it's probably nowhere near ready to release. Thankfully, the appearance of the Switch OLED suggests that Nintendo will stick to the Switch generation for a few more years before moving on to something totally new. That means that there's still hope that Twilight Princess HD will someday join Skyward Sword HD on the Switch and borrow from Skyward Sword HD's long list of improvements.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is available now for GameCube, Wii, and Wii U.
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