1. You can't take no replies as a yes, when you post in the early morning.

2. His enthusiasm didn't just go away quickly, as your question seemed to imply.

3. He's not basing his issue on that one comment. He also based it on Aonuma saying he didn't want Link with a sword at all.

4. Part of a boss fight, done just for shock value, is not one entire dungeon.

THirty hours is plenty of time! Silence is consent! Silence is consent!

Cautious optimism doesn't have to fall far to go away. If he was cautiously optimistic in other posts, you know, point 'em out! That's the real question here.

Anyone who focuses on that is missing the point of this game, which is that the controller is the sword. Aonuma maybe entertained that idea, but pretending that it's going to influence the design of the game is ridonculous.

You're not actually detracting from my original point, is that this idea didn't just sprout from Aonuma's head.

And Hell, actually, in Wind Waker? There was a whole dungeon without your sword! That happened!

1. Oops. I mistook that for seven hours. Also, the posting glitch (which is why I insist on the mods allowing a new thread) makes this appear green even when there isn't a new post. So I didn't realize you had made a new reply. I think a lot of us didn't.

2. He made a few posts during and after E3 where he wrote that it looked like the game was on the right track. It was hearing Aonuma's comments latter that made him worried.

3. He didn't claim Aonuma just made that up. He's stating taking it away for an entire level takes away from the combat. In the final boss of Ocarina, you still had your hammer (or Biggoron's sword) to be used like a sword, and could even continue using it after you got the Master Sword back.

4. You think he didn't call on Wind Waker for that?

I actually have no idea whether he did or not.

Who did what?

Assuming you meant point 4, Malstrom wrote a couple times that taking away Link's sword then horribly cut into the action, when Link is about fighting. At least the Gerudo fortress in Ocarina let you stun the girls with arrows or attack them from behind, and still outright fight four of them for the keys.

Well that's something, but that doesn't explain to me why he behaves as if this concept would somehow defile Skyward Sword when it defiled neither Wind Waker nor Ocarina of Time.

He did claim it hurt Wind Waker. He doesn't claim it for the boss battle in Ocarina because it didn't cut into the action.

Heck, he might even have a problem with the Gerudo fort as well (I admit that comment was from me; he hasn't commented on it as far as I remember).

Well I think he's stupid about Wind Waker, so there.

And he doesn't claim it for the battle with Ganon because he never beat Ocarina of Time. He brings this up around the time the 3DS and Ocarina 3DS were revealed - specifically saying that maybe the 3DS version is the one he would finally beat. Considering how far it is into the game, he may not have done the Gerudo Fortress either.

I just wonder how seriously he'll get on the hate train for skyward sword. He's negatively interpreted all of it so far, despite that brief glow of optimism back after E3, he's gone right back to his mantra of franchise ruination.

It still means he has a logical reason to think doing it again would slow down the game.

As for Ocarina, I can only surmise he wouldn't like the Gerudo fort, even if I didn't mind. For Ganon, I don't think he would mind that, as it was still short and still allowed Link to otherwise fight (and the Biggoron's sword would be noted as a bonus for this fight, like a Chekhov's Gun).