Its weird to read such unanimous hate (with a few exceptions) for a game i loved so much...i dont see how people can not like it. I dont know what I did differently than everybody else that got me to love this game so much :/

Most of us don't hate the game, just some of the things that were or were not implemented in the game. Nintendo is trying to cater to a large audience that it tends to not see that they also hurt some of their loyalists in the process.

Here are some of my issues and potential fixes:

1. The game telling me how much a rupie is worth or how many bugs I have when I pick up one after not playing the game for a day.

- Only show this info after a week/month of not playing the game.

2. Slow unskipable text.

-Make it so if I press A all of the text appears so I don't have to wait for it to slowly type it out.

3. Fi being anoying

-See my solution to two. She wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have to wait so long for her to tell us stuff.

4. To many cute NPCs.

-Add in some of the quirky NPC that were mixed with the cute in other games.

5. Backtracking.

-I have no problem with looking for various items as a part of a side quest, but please don't extend the main quest by adding a bunch of items that make me jump in and out of territory that I have been too. I am fine if the main quest is short and all of the side quests to find peices of this and that make up a large portion of the game. But I don't like when I want to get on with the main story that I'm forced to search for peices of something (ala fishing for triforce peices in Wind Waker.)

Don't get me wrong the combat is the best it has ever been and the story is interesting, but every time I am about to go back I dread looking at the same slow moving text telling me the same thing it told me the last 10 times I have started up the game.

It was a very mediocre game. I gave it 3 tries.

First I got bored after the first dungeon, disappointed with the empty overwold.
Picked it back up a month later and played it until after the third dungeon when it made me backtrack and repeat the first dungeon.
Picked it up 3 months later again after reading it was supposed to get better. Well the sand sea part was great but the rest was still very tedious. I finally gave up at the 2nd and 3rd Thunderhead battle. I couldn't take the slow text, unskippable cutscenes, annoying fi, rigid boss battle that let me simply fall through thunderhead if it was the 'wrong' time in his animation cycle, control/camera issues, all leading to running out of time and the battle restarting from the very beginning with the slow text again. It simply wasn't fun.

The art direction was fine. I can't remember any of the music so I guess it wasn't great, but also not grating. The swordplay was annoying. Maybe the wiimote doesn't like me. 1 or 2 out of 4 slashes it interpreted me wrong and did the opposite. Maybe interpreting a back swing as the actual swing. Very annoying when half the battles expect you to hit from the correct side.
The overworld was too empty, hardly anything to explore / discover.
The amount of content recycling and lack of variety was the worst part of all.

Worst Zelda imo and the only one I did not finish.
My favorite Zelda's are Windwaker and OOT.

1. Very slight problem imo...this is one of those things that would be better if fixed but isn't enough to be a problem for me

2. Pretty much the same deal

3. I didnt mind her...she wasn't a great sidekick like midna but she was just kinda there. I do think that they shouldve made it so either you could skip her text or keep playing while she talked but once again, this is a tiny problem to me. Just a little nitpicky thing that doesnt really affect my enjoyment. Of course I have seen quite a bit of hate directed towards her so i guess im in the minority on this one

4. ...wait what?! is this seriously a problem?! there were strange quirky npcs too...they had a small cute layer but thats just the style of the game. really not a complaint imo

5. I disagree with this point. To me it feels like people see the "three areas" thing and freak out...i spent very little mandatory time "backtracking'. Every once in a while i needed to pop into the temple of time and do something but that took like, 5 minutes or less because of the fast travel stuff. There seemed to be a very small amount of backtracking in this game. I would say its pretty much equal to twilight princess.

I feel like all the great stuff the game did (controls, story, characters, style, music, level design, dungeon design, enemy design, boss design, side quests (could be better and more plentiful but the ones that were there were still entertaining), etc) makes those things seem trivial and when i look at my experience with the game i see all the amazing stuff...if i dig into my memory i remember one or two times i got frustrated because of one of those things but immediately after i was once again set back to normal by the greatness of the game

Of course i know my experience is unique it just seems like the complaints are trivial...and then when people start complaining about the controls im left speechless :P

Oh yeah. I finally got batteries so I will replay it too. Nintendo should have made their controllers rechargeable.
-_-

It is a great game still.. i may play it a third time.

This is how I feel.

crystalchild. I already gave you my opinion. I said keep playing. I honestly stand by it. The game as a whole has some of the best level design i've seen, and i really enjoyed the fact that in a few dungeons there are no bosses. But then, out of nowhere, there's just a stand alone boss battle.
I leave you with point of interest and a point of help. INTEREST: Alot of this game sets up important story points for the future. I was really delighted with the story in general. Alot of times link and zelda don't even know each other until disaster strikes. Notice there's an incarnation of jabu jabu in every recent zelda? Want to see possibly the 1st incarnation? keep playing. If you really get in to stuff like this i'd say keep playing. Read into the final bosses dialogue. In my opinion it's the juciest bit of story forshadowing.
Now, HELP: i hate fi. Also wanted to stab her. Until i made one connection with a video i saw on youtube. Everytime she would interrupt me i just stopped and yelled "MEGA MAN MEGA MAN" and started cracking up, making humor from annoyance. Watch this video and hopefully it'll get you through as well:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM You should watch it all, but you'll get it in the 1st 5 minutes. However, not every game in a series can be loved by all, so if you really thinks it's time to call it quits, maybe it's time to trade it in. Someone will love you for it.

I started a thread a while back that was critical of SS, so it is nice to see I'm not the only one who doesn't think it's a masterpiece.

I have loved the Zelda games up to now, I even loved TP which a lot of people seem to dislike. Sadly, SS has been a disappointment.

Firstly, the world seems tiny compared to previous games, I do have a problem with there being only three main areas because I am used to exploring varied environments, rather than constantly backtracking. The flying sections are clearly meant to be awe inspiring and give the illusion of a sense of scale, when in fact they are a bit boring and annoying - making it feel more like a hub than a world.

As far as the style of the game goes, I'm not personally that fond of it. I liked the look of Wind Waker, I liked the look of TP but this is in some vague area in between. It doesn't have the darker look of OT/TP and it doesn't have the vibrant cartoony look of Wind Waker. I know this is just a personal preference but somewhere inbetween was no good for me.

The story has not grabbed me so far as well, the text interaction whereby characters say the same thing all the time and seem like inanimate objects is starting to wear a bit thin now. I have not found the characters in SS that engaging.

I have forced myself to play through this one and it does have some great moments, but they are few and far between. I'm guessing I'm at least two thirds in at the moment, and I hope Nintendo pick up their game for the next one. I'd hate for this to be some kid's first impression of what Zelda's about.

I bought this first day, ran home to start playing, was so damn excited for this game. Started playing, and... stopped. Since that day, I've not even looked at it. I can feel the game staring at me from my collection, but it is the first Zelda I have ever played that has completely failed to grab me. All the others had me playing maniacally, I had never known such magic, but SS for me is just, well.... Soulless.

I hope to complete it one day, though, and enjoy it. But somehow, I don't think I will.