This is actually a very good point you raise, Lord. Take Crash Bandicoot on PS1 as another example: when the camera is set behind him and you make a high jump (in other words, jump on an arrow box which propel Crash into the air) on a tight edge, the only way you can tell if you will land right is by watching his shadow, and then there's the side-scrolling parts, which makes the platforming a whole lot easier. The only problem it can suffer is timing spin attacks right, but this was fixed in later iterations (Crash 2, 3).
Now personally, I never had problems adapting to these supposed awkward cameras.
I think a fair amount of reviewers just jumped on the bandwagon of using the camera as an excuse to mark down the game.
Rockstar: Announce Bully 2 already and make gamers proud!
Kojima: Come out with Project S already!
