I think I'll just do a list this time since some of my posts are becoming quite similar (since, y'know most of SS's threads are similar).
I'll start out by saying what is in Skyward Sword as it stands is really awesome, it just feels too bland and too primitive and too much like nintendo skipped the part where they go back to the game and refine and add and make a truly immersive video game... So aside from the dodgy plot, fanfiction narrative and prequel-less content in terms of mythology history here is my list of what I'd Add to Skyward Sword to make it worth a second play.
- More islands in the sky- particularly puzzle based islands like in Wind Waker and perhaps some elemental islands surrounding a province beam. (The Silent Realm runs could have been hosted there).
- A bigger sky- the sky was tiny and cramped despite having nothing at all in it, make it bigger give us warp points, let day turn to night, let the weather change and effect our flying. Let certain enemies be found in certain sectors. Every other 3D Zelda game has had a day cycle...
- Enhance the flying- the bird was too slow. and it only felt faster than the King of Red Lions because the sky was smaller and cramped and we had boost rocks. The Loftwing's three feather boosts were awful and did very little to close any kind of distance. Give it more than three, allow it to do barrel rolls and summersaults to spice things up.
- Enhance the flying (part two) - Let Link have some arial combat besides the bird having a tackle and later on, a spinning tackle. Use the nunchuck to steer the Loftwing, use the wiimote to use Link's sword, have him joust (TP Eldin bridge style) with friends and knights of Skyloft as part of minigames for heart pieces and materials etc. Let Link be able to fight other enemies in the sky with his sword too (TP Hyrule field horseback combat style)
- Enhance Link's combat - Motion controls were fine, i'm not against them but i would have liked to have had some hidden skills to be learnt like in TP, it would have brought a deeper sense of strategy to the combat instead of just waiting until an enemy eventually stopped blocking your attacks. the helm splitter and particularly mortal draw could have easily have been added to the combat gameplay that we have in SS already.
- A proper overworld - everyone's favourite complaint. A dungeon like overworld you say? More emphasis on exploration you say? Okay we'll take out the majority of the overworld and leave you with three themed provinces... If they wanted a dungeon style overworld then progressing from one province to the other could have had brilliant puzzles, there was no reason for nintendo to take out an overworld that linked the provinces, no reason at all, they essentially conned us out of more puzzles and more content overall by giving us no overworld linking the provinces.
- Better sidequests - The majority of sidequests in Skyward Sword were fetch quests, something that really bugged me whenever i decided to take one on. there were mini games like the pumpkin shooting minigame and the digging minigame in eldin but they're minigames not side quests, and the side quests themselves were pathetically easy, particularly the crystal ball and windmill quests where i landed essentially right next to them both times...
- More themed dungeons - we had sand, fire, water, forest and some of them twice... or more. Where was the spooky darker temple of say a shadow dungeon, why didnt we get a snow or ice region with a temple in it? A lot of the dungeons ranged from being too small to just right and then to just flat out disappointing. Most notably disappointing for me was the Sand Ship, it looked unlike many other dungeons in the franchise but it was the same puzzle throughout of figuring out which room to shoot the time crystal in... which really bugged me.
- More enemies - there weren't enough enemies in SS that had a range, we had Lizalfos and Bokoblins and keese, deku babas and Chu-chu type things but it wasn't enough and the majority were dealt with in much the same ways. Aside from dungeon only enemies SS really suffered from the lack of enemies that you came across, there could have been more, perhaps some darknuts or iron knuckles, enemies that would have thrived on long combat, yes we had some stalfos aswell but we had many different versions that just had more arms instead of being in anyway different to what we had seen before, same with the bokoblins, they had knives, or electric knives, or a horn and ran away.. again, had the provinces been linked, we would have seen more enemies with different themes but again, we didnt get it.
- A better upgrade system- I upgraded most of the weapons and items in SS before the game's end. The awful slingshot was turned into a scatter shot and became even more useless... i upgraded the bow as high as it would go and other than it looking different felt no change in gameplay or power (what does upgrading the bow do to it, it did nothing as far as i can tell?) and the only worthwhile upgrade was the pincers for the beetle which is done for you part way through your first run through Lanayru...
one thing i'd take out - Stop giving us the item collection screen whenever we get a new material. Particularly when you're in the middle of a battle...
I also didn't like any of the bosses, and i hated fighting the imprisoned three times in a row, the imprisoned, like most of the bosses in SS had an awful design and awful battle layout... Nintendo should go back to scratch with the bosses in SS and bring up some new ones. Even the bosses in Phantom Hourglass were better than those found in SS.
As for shields, they annoyed me so much that i didnt use them, i tried taking one though the first dungeon with me on my first play through and it got in my way, my first SS run through was indeed a shieldless run, i got the Hylian shield of course (after game's end....) and only wear it because its what Link should wear to make me believe its a Zelda game. I didn't like how basic the shield wielding was, i didnt like the controls of how it was implemented either,but i wouldnt take them out.
I could talk about the plot and narrative and say why that is flawed and what i'd change and what i'd take in and put out but there's a 3000 word post around here from detailing what i felt was wrong with it. So i won't say it here. Though i do blame Skyward Sword's plot for being and excuse or barrier as to why the game wasn't as good as it should have been.
For instance, with one change of a word, skyloft could have become a province all its own instead of a small little island. And there are a lot of other things i could mention as well but I'm thinking this post is already too big.