I certainly didn't hate Skyward Sword. In some ways it was an outstanding game, but it had some flaws and I think they are the reason why it's not quickly grouped among the greatest games of all time, which is what we expect of Zelda. For me the problems were:
-The art style. Cute graphics don't feel as epic as more realistic graphics. If the loftwings looked like the bird Gandolf rode in LOTR it would have been way cooler than muppet-birds with big round beaks.
-Motion Controls. I too had major issues with calibration. This was fixed when I purchased a built-in motion+ for my WiiU and it was like night and day better, but with the dongle there were times when attacking was random and frustrating. Also, the motion controls are only cool with the sword fighting. Flapping it to fly the bird makes me feel like an idiot and directing bombs and the beatle would be way more fun with a stick and a button.
-Too much hand-holding. One of the coolest puzzles in the game was when you had to look through a grate in the ceiling of the sandship and shoot an arrow to hit the time crystal outside. It would have been so rewarding to figure that out....but the sword already had told you to do it. sigh. No thinking, just following instructions. And it wasn't until the later dungeons where you had to mix it up with different items to figure things out. That should start early on.
-It's not state-of-the-art. Nothing, other than the near 1-to-1 sword play, about Skyward Sword is cutting edge. It's standard def. The world zones are smallish. There is no voice acting. There is only one real town to visit. The theme song is good but it's the only real memorable one. The scale of the game is much smaller than other big adventures out there. None of the gameplay is very ground breaking. The orignial Zelda was mind-blowingly ahead of its time. ALttP was superbly polished. OoT was amazing in every aspect...story, soundtrack, graphics, gameplay...completely ground-breaking. Twilight Princess at least had cutting-edge visuals and introduced motion control for the first time. SS did none of this. And it's zones felt pretty bland. The most unique was the sand sea, but even that felt more like a sand lake than a sea. The sense of scale wasn't there.
-The title. Skyward Sword is pretty lame.
I have very high hopes that with a new system that is 20X as powerful as wii, with the requirement to center a game around motion controls no longer there, with their designers finally free to play in HD that ZeldaU will be everything that SS was not. I want a sweeping forest with trees rising to the sky, mist on the ground and sun trickling through the branches. Ancient ruins and snowy mountains. I want catchy melodies that make me think of forest elves a decade after I first hear it. I have no hate for Skyward Sword - I very much enjoyed it for a while - but I want and expect more of Zelda.
