Late-game fetch quests have been known to rear their heads even in some of the greatest adventure games of all time, like Metroid Prime’s Chozo Artifacts and The Wind Waker’s infamous Triforce hunt. Skyward Sword was also guilty of this when it sent you all over the map to piece together the Song of the Hero, just as you were headed toward acquiring the Triforce and meeting Ghirahim and Demise in an epic final battle.
To receive Faron’s segment of the legendary song, you must complete the exhilarating, heart-pounding task that is… swimming around to find a bunch of music notes that look like tadpoles, aptly named Tadtones. On paper, the Water Dragon’s trial should have been a tedious bump in the road on the way to Skyward Sword’s unforgettable finale. The leisurely collect-a-thon of Tadtones should have felt like a whole bunch of busywork.
And yet, darn if it isn’t one of my favorite parts of the game.
Normally, I want nonstop action and rising drama as I close in on the finale of an adventure game, but exploring the flooded Faron Woods at my whim made me appreciate that Skyward Sword slowed everything down and turned the forest into one great aquatic playground. The hunt for the Tadtones is a perfectly relaxing segment that you can experience at whatever pace you want. There’s no time limit dictating your search, at least aside from your oxygen meter, but there are plenty of air bubbles to help you out when you’re running low. To avoid having to worry about that altogether, all you need to do is equip the Potion Medal in your Adventure Pouch, drink an Air Potion+, and your oxygen meter will stay completely full for at least nine minutes.
It was a clever way to change the scenery when you were making your third trip to Faron Woods. Once the Water Dragon floods the whole place, it might as well be a brand new environment that you’re visiting for the very first time. Aside from the obvious visual change, it completely alters how you explore Faron Woods. No spot is out of reach beneath the waves, giving you unprecedented access to each and every last corner of the forest. You can view the Faron Woods from all kinds of different vantage points that would never have been accessible in open air. When submerged, there is nothing tethering you to a surface. Being able to move about in any direction underwater provides a similar kind of freedom as flying.
Underwater exploration — even in video games — is so fascinating that it’s become its own subgenre. That’s how we got such games as Endless Ocean, Abzu, and Subnautica, all of which I loved. I’m the rare Monster Hunter fan who is adamant that the series needs to bring back underwater combat. Maybe it’s because I barely know how to swim in real life, so any underwater escapades seem adventurous to me.
Skyward Sword’s Tadtone hunt was an inexplicably good time even back on the Wii, where we had no choice but to play it using those awkward motion controls for swimming. It was all the more frustrating that Nintendo already had a near-flawless control scheme for swimming thanks to Twilight Princess’ Zora Armor that they blissfully ignored to shoehorn waggle onto. It all worked out in the end, though, when Skyward Sword HD came around this past summer and finally gave us the chance to swim via a traditional analog stick. Whether it was with the Joy-Cons or a Pro Controller, having the option to use normal controls was the refreshing update that the Tadtone quest always deserved.
Swimming about in search of the Tadtones was laid-back fun, but it also wasn’t a complete cakewalk, either. Enemies like oversized Blue Chuchus and Froaks never passed up an opportunity to harass you. The Craniocs, meanwhile, could apparently smell you from a mile away before they came charging like Jaws. Some of the longer Tadtone sequences needed precision on your part to follow after them in order, and while weaving around hazards like Burrs and poisonous bubbles. Others, especially a couple of the individual Tadtones, found excellent hiding spots that you could easily have missed even after a thorough scan of the stage.
Thankfully, if ever you were truly stumped, Bucha the Kikwi Elder was ready to bail you out by reminding you that Dowsing for the missing Tadtones was always an option. Even better, once you finally found all of the Tadtones, Bucha hit you with a good old-fashioned dad joke that many fans probably appreciate a lot more now that we’re ten years older than when we first played Skyward Sword.
Skyward Sword is 10 years old on November 18, 2021! We’re celebrating with dedicated articles all week.
