Series protagonist Link, a resident of a floating town called Skyloft, sets out to rescue his childhood friend Zelda after she is kidnapped and brought to the abandoned lands below the clouds.

It was the first Zelda game to use a live orchestra for the majority of its tracks, with music composed by a team led by Hajime Wakai and supervised by Koji Kondo.

A high-definition remaster of the game, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD, was co-developed by Tantalus Media and released for the Nintendo Switch in July 2021.

[4][7] Link's sword movements are mapped to the direction the Wii Remote is flicked by the player, and other moves include a forward thrust and a stab.

[4][5][10] Skyward Sword takes place at the beginning of the Zelda continuity:[11][12] according to legend, three ancient Goddesses bestowed a great wish-granting power: the Triforce.

Link then has to defeat the Imprisoned, a monstrous form of Demise attempting to reach the Sealed Temple, after the old woman shows him a second, albeit dormant, Gate of Time.

The game ends with the surface now freely accessible to the residents of Skyloft, while Zelda decides to remain there to watch over the Triforce; she and Link together establish the kingdom of Hyrule.

[16] Development lasted around five years, and according to series producer Shigeru Miyamoto, the game's budget was considered quite high for a Nintendo project.

[23] Mischievous elements were also added to Zelda's personality by her pushing Link over a ledge: initially intended as a rule of three-style gag, it was cut down to two during development.

[20] The figure of Hylia was a new addition to the world's lore, although her existence was linked to Zelda, with the two being essentially the same character known under different names in subsequent ages.

[23] According to staff, Fi's technical dialogue for each area of the game was written by different people, verbal inconsistencies arose that needed addressing, so Fujibayashi adjusted them all so she sounded consistent.

[25] The game's use of warm colors and brushstroke-like aesthetics was inspired by impressionist artwork, pioneered in the 19th century by painters such as Claude Monet: a particular element cited by Miyamoto was the sky, which he called a tribute to post-impressionist Paul Cézanne's work.

The team settled this art style as it would properly portray the more exaggerated actions of some characters and general swordplay while preserving Link's mature appearance.

When first proposed, Aonuma was highly enthusiastic, and his wish to change to Wii MotionPlus meant that work on the game needed to begin all over again.

[15] The implementation of Wii MotionPlus meant that the enemy artificial intelligence needed to be able to counter it, adjusting their stances depending on the position of Link's sword.

The Skyward Strike was initially born from Aonuma thinking up a possible mechanic of holding the sword above Link: these also gave rise to the game's title.

Having sword fighting relying on Wii MotionPlus freed up other buttons on the controller, allowing the addition of the Dash sprinting option.

The sky was initially going to be presented similar to the course selection screen from the Super Mario series, but this was changed to an overworld with its own quests and population so Link had a place where he could prepare for his adventures.

While they had experimented with indestructible enemies in Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, but this time it was changed by restricting Link's options and actions.

One notable element was the game's main theme "Ballad of the Goddess", which was a retrograde version of the recurring tune "Zelda's Lullaby".

Once revealed, Nintendo issued instructions on avoiding it and set up a special channel on their Wii site in Japan to gain feedback, along with offering to manually repair corrupted save files.

[54] This ultimately led to the production of The Wind Waker HD, whose success encouraged the Zelda team to pursue other high-definition remasters.

[66] Jose Otero, writing for 1UP.com, praised the developers for putting effort into moving away from Zelda tradition and called it one of the better games in the series, but said that those detrimental elements that remained such as side quests and some item usage made Skyward Sword "a weird middle ground filled with genuine surprises, inessential carry-overs, and copy/paste quest structures".

[63] GameSpot's Tom McShea was notably less positive than other critics, praising the storyline, dungeons, enemies and visuals while faulting the controls for being unreliable and feeling that most of the experience felt both unnecessary and overly familiar.

[71] Destructoid's Jonathan Holmes called Skyward Sword his new favorite 3D game from the series, but noted that its exclusive use of motion controls would put off potential players.

[67] Game Informer's Phil Kollar echoed both general praise of the gameplay and presentation, and minor issues experienced with the motion controls: he concluded by saying that Nintendo had fulfilled its initial promises for the Wii with Skyward Sword.

[69] GamesRadar's Carolyn Gudmundson called it "A perfectly balanced mix of innovation and classic Zelda gameplay" despite minor control issues.

[70] GameTrailers noted that, despite its many strengths such as a believable relationship between Link and Zelda, Skyward Sword represented the series' "first gray hairs" due to some of its mechanics feeling dated in the modern gaming landscape.

[74] Steve Hogarty of Official Nintendo Magazine shared many points of praise with other positive journalist reviews, calling it the greatest game in the series to date.

[103] In the UK, Skyward Sword was the seventh best-selling game of November in the multiformat charts, stated as impressive given the waning popularity of the platform.