You know that kid who, regardless of what game they are playing, will always and without fail attempt to fall as far as possible without dying? Or just as far as possible, never mind with the risk of leaving a pixelated pile of bones on the ground. Well, when I was younger, and until today years old (i.e. this hasn’t stopped being the case), I was that kid. I find great pleasure in having the ability to fall from great heights with little consequence — climbing high to find the best spot for my high dives has been a pastime of many a fun afternoon.
In the Zelda series, the highest of falls can often be found in entertaining places. Tops of windmills, towers, inside trees — the possibilities are many, and as long as you don’t fall into an infinite abyss, the price is often not too steep, just a heart or two. There are even options for what you can do while falling and landing, like rolling at the last minute or catching yourself with the Hookshot at juuuuuuust the right time.
But in Skyward Sword, everything about falling in Zelda changed. Instead of Link’s body falling in a vertical, upright position — just waiting for the ground to come up and meet him — locked in a pose of eternal “I’m going to land any second now,” in Skyward Sword, Link, and therefore the player, can, in fact, skydive.
Now obviously, the free falling is meant to lead mostly to flying on your Loftwing, which is a great part of the game. Flying is, in fact *checks notes* considered generally cool. And I love the flying, I really do. But what stood out to me when first diving through the air was the fact that I could control Link in an actual, meaningful way as he fell through the sky. Heck, you can even make him face plant on the ground, limbs spread out like a starfish! Unintentionally, of course. Never on purpose.
And to make things even better, falling had an ENTIRE MINI-GAME dedicated to it! Not flying, just falling! It is a sidequest I always look forward to with glee when playing Skyward Sword, despite the definitely-not-terrifying man who gets obvious joy out of blasting his customers from a cannon with absolutely no safety precautions.
So, while I will always be fond of Link’s default pose as he plummets the height of several stories, the level of control and grace of his dives from whatever tall, scalable object I can find in Skyward Sword makes it, at least for me, one of my favorite entries in the series. And that first fall, which took me ten tries to land, is certainly a memory I will always cherish.
