(bold) Of course it looked ridiculous 1! But it's the first game like this that I've played, so it's a start. The can make it look less silly as the design evolves. Analog controls or any platform for that matter could have fixed that, it's an character design issue :)

I really don't get how the addition of motion controls limits moving around. How could replacing the motion controls with an analog stick solve that constraint? Plus, Zelda's fighting events revolve around Z-targeting and little else. Could you elaborate a little?

Combat pace suffered because you could no longer just run up to a bokoblin and dispatch it with a quick button press or the equivalent, not until the final part of the game anyway with your super charged sword against the bokoblin horde.

That made them tougher to beat, which is something people had been crying out for.

I also don't see how that is 'casual'. Casual would be simplistic gameplay, so in this situation the old 'press a button, kill a bokoblin' control would be the more casual approach.

Well, I was wondering whether I should add that the technology just wasn't there yet, which halted the speed of sword battles. Guess I should have :P

The moving around part could've easily been avoided if Nintendo chose to focus on it more than swinging-directions. Remember Wind Waker and Twilight Princess where you had to jump around in combat to avoid enemy attacks and perform some of your own? That's pretty much gone now and has been replaced with slow, easy sword fights.

I guess I'm more of a hardcore gamers than I thought a few days back? :(

Swinging a sword in a certain direction is way easier than timing several buttons and sticks imo, especially given the very long time you're given to actually strike the enemy.

It's all about taste anyway, like so many have pointed out already. 

I've never played a Zelda game that offered that kind of control. The early 2D games featured simplistic sword swinging controlled by a button, and even the pinnacle of the series, OoT, offered a simple combo of press the button for a basic attack, or hold it down for a charged spin attack.

It isn't a fighter where you're constantly going through different and more convoluted button combos.

The last Zelda game I played before SS was Twilight Princess. It was a while ago now, but I have specific memories that you could run through Hyrule Field and not have to stop when attacked. A simple shake of the Wii remote would get rid of your attacker and your progress could continue. It made for a faster paced game but a game that was incredibly simple.

I would honestly kill myself if I were like you. No offense, but it doesn't seem fun at all when you're so limited in your gaming choice. I for one play and like all kind of genres so I have naturally tons of games every year that I'm looking forward to.
Also regarding one of your comments, I've played far more than 300 games so far this gen and it's far from being over.

The stick does affect the direction of the sword, but that's not my point. My point was that the pace was faster in earlier games and that the combat featured more movement of your and your enemy character. I want action when playing Zelda (or at least in combat situations), not a puzzle.

(italics) It's not that the technology isn't there, it's that the people who are using the technology aren't there. This is a SW design evolution, not a HW/Api evolution. :) That's why it doesn't matter had it been done on another console with dual-analog or not, it's the developers who need to refine their design and use what they have more properly (not that they are missing a tool, but they need to learn to use said tool).

As for difficulty:

You can still jump around, and it still works. It's just that now the sword fights are actually challenging, so you can't just swing swing swing, in WW, counter A counter A.

Of course, the challenge level is higher in comparison to Wind Waker, maybe even TP depending on how good you are at angles and motion swinging. It may not be as challenging as we'd like, but that's a whole other topic altogether. If it was up to me, I would like Nintendo to add difficulty levels. That would be more catering to the core I believe. And offer the option to remove all kinds of superfluous hand-holding throughout the game.

There are a number of things wrong with Skyward Sword, but the combat is brilliant. In fact the things that are wrong with SS are all just stupid decisions on the part of Nintendo (slow, un-skippable text, un-skippable cut-scenes and un-skippable tutorial sections... and finally there is one thing wrong related to motion controls and that is Nintendo trying to use Motion+ to perform all the pointing actions, which while it does work and you can get used to it, IR pointing would have been much better.)

It just means he's more fussy, but he seems to like replaying old classics (Streets of Rage??). I'm kind of like him to be honest and am very picky with my games. I do like COD to a certain extent, especially the competitive part. Assassin's Creed looks cool I haven't played much but I'm not a fan of that kind of violence (assassin theme).

I see where he's coming from and my tastes are very similar to him. It doesn't stop me from liking or being interested in games from other manufacturers (like Shadow of the Colossus, Halo, Mass Effect, The Last of Us, Uncharted, Little Big Planet, some iOS games, wipeout, gran Turismo, DmC), but in general I prefer Nintendo games, and especially prefer them to mainstream HD market games (Gears, Crysis, Killzone, Resistance).

My tastes are quite similar to his, and I've had that ever since my PC days. I played few PC games but a select number, mostly Blizzard, Sierra and some other few games here and there. I don't like playing games I consider of low quality or with no value despite high-production.