Back in 2006, I recall that I enjoyed playing Twilight Princess. It was a very dark and eerie game, but I felt it was a return to what the fans wanted post Ocarina of Time after many complained about the cel-shading style of Wind Waker. I was not one of the complainers but I missed land and I missed having a horse so it was nice to have both those things back.
Five years later, in 2011, we would get Skyward Sword for the first time. If I remember correctly, it was supposed to come a lot sooner, but they changed the art style last minute to be different than Twilight Princess. Regardless of the timing, the big thing then was the Wii Motion+ controls which was an improvement on the original Wii Motion controls. Regarding motion controls, there seemed to be two major camps: the lovers and the haters. Personally I liked them, but I didn't love them. I found that they best responded when I played standing up. Then I realized that this was the first time I've played any Zelda game standing up and suddenly I was immersed. I was swinging my sword, stabbing enemies and pod filled water droplets, and I was raising my arm in the sky to do a skyward strike. I had become Link and I was fully invested in the story, I felt the emotions I saw on the other characters faces, and I was in awe of the design of Demise's final form. I remember crying actual tears. I fell in love with this game and in 2011, it was my favorite Zelda game of all time.
Ten years later, I just completed Skyward Sword HD after putting in a total of 34 hours and 40 minutes. I first tried the motion controls using the Joy Con. I hated it. It kept drifting to the right. I would reset it to the middle of the screen and after a few moments it started drifting to the right again. I think I gave it a solid hour, I saved my game, and called it a night. The next time I decided to use my Pro controller. This was also a bit of a learning curve. I didn't realize I had to hold L1 to look around with the same R stick that was used to swing the sword now that the motion controls were gone. Also running and rolling was different. It was not intuitive and slightly frustrating to play. I was not having fun. I was contemplating shutting off the game and maybe selling it on eBay. I may have taken a day or two break, came back to it, and I found myself finally getting used to it. Still, I swear if I moved the R stick from left to right I was swinging diagonally when I wanted to simply swing horizontally. Also, the death blow move seemed to only work 50% of the time. Either way, I'm glad they incorporated the non motion controls, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to play it with the drifting Joy Con.
So after finally getting used to the motion controls and frustrations aside, I'm glad to have revisited this game in its HD form 10 year later. It's no longer my favorite Zelda game of all time, (that is "A Link to the Past") but I appreciate the developers giving this one the non motion control treatment. It shows that Nintendo is listening to their fans sometimes. I still enjoyed the story and I think it would make a good Netflix miniseries as long as they toned down Ghirahim. Overall, I'd love to recommend it, but I wouldn't want a new player to be frustrated with the controls and quit. So if you can get the game on sale and you know what you're getting into and have NOT experienced this story, then I would 100% recommend you give it a go.
