What are you playing right now?

[Roz~]

Honestly SS isn't my fav either. The dungeons are definitely clever and well-designed, but it has one of my least favorite overworld's of any LoZ title and the Wiimotion Plus quickly becomes gimmicky and tiresome. Still a great game all-around.

Also Cavestory is probably the best thing I've never payed money for. LOVE IT

I don't really mind linear games (I absolutely love FFX), but I can see why people didn't enjoy the overworld. Honestly, it was kinda dumb to revisit the same places over and over again. That's probably why they're making a huge overworld in the next Zelda installment.
I don't see why people complain about the controls though. Could be just me, but I never had any problems with the motion controls whatsoever when I played the game. I enjoyed the motion controls in TP and in SS, but I guess having the option to play with the Controller Pro would've been nice.

[mikey]

I liked revisiting the areas and realizing there was a whole other section of the province though :/

[Roz~]

Yeah I didn't mind it too much, but I can understand why people would hate it. Not everyone likes linear games, and this one was linear as fuuuuuuuuck (kinda)

[mikey]

While you went from the dungeons in linear order (which I guess is why everyone likes ALBW so much) the dungeons themselves weren't linear and actually contained quite a bit of backtracking.  At the very least walking away from SS I felt accomplished getting through the fun dungeons (ancient cistern was the BOMB, not to mention the best boss).  Pretty reminiscent of the Earth Temple from WW though, that was a really good dungeon.  Not to mention all the goodies to get up in the sky.  Don't really know how you can call it linear when you factor in stuff like the gratitude crystals and the goddess chests and all the islands in the sky!  In my opinion it had just enough to keep you going through the game but when you got bored/stuck you could go play minigames (there were a ton) or hunt for goddess cubes (there were a ton) or fly through the sky looking for goddess chests/regular chests (there were a ton) or medals (there were a ton).  Plus there are so many memorable characters to chat with throughout the game- Groose, Fledge, Beedle, Batreaux?
Oh yeah and Ghirahim is the greatest villain of all time

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At worst we can walk away from this knowing the next zelda game will have fabulous villains and fabulous dungeons, everyone agreed?

[Roz~]

I don't think you understand. I love SS. Ancient Cistern is, hands down, my favorite dungeon ever. If you read the other thread where everyone posted their Zelda top 5/top 10, you'd see that SS is my favorite Zelda game ever.
That being said, the game is linear. Yeah, you can hunt those godess cubes/treasure chests all you want. Doesn't change the fact that, at the end of the day, you have to go from point A to point B to continue the story. FFX, one of the game that was shat on the most because it was too linear, offered plenty of side-quests and minigames. But we're not talking about those. We're talking about the main story and the places you need to visit in order to complete said story.
If you can't see why people would be upset about only having 3 main overworld places to visit, I can't really help you. I personally didn't mind it, but I can see why people would hate it.
Linearity =/= Bad. But I could see why people wouldn't like SS as much because of that.

[KefkaticFanatic]

I think my problem was that I never found anything besides the desert area to be interesting.  We get the same dull forest area that every Zelda game ever has had and Death Mountain redux.  The desert area with the robots and weird time warpy stuff was totally new and was a really interesting idea that they managed to fit really well with the rest of the game.

The fact that there wasn't any big hyrule field to explore just amplified the negative feelings I had towards the few areas we had to explore I suppose

[Roz~]

^Yeah, and the sky was fairly... bland too. Couple islands here and there, but to me the sky felt kinda empty. And it's not like you can really explore the areas when they're so linear too. =P

[ZeldaFan]

I think my problem was that I never found anything besides the desert area to be interesting.  We get the same dull forest area that every Zelda game ever has had and Death Mountain redux.  The desert area with the robots and weird time warpy stuff was totally new and was a really interesting idea that they managed to fit really well with the rest of the game.

The fact that there wasn't any big hyrule field to explore just amplified the negative feelings I had towards the few areas we had to explore I suppose

Agreed. I actually really missed having a big open area to explore and I missed riding Epona lol.

My issues with the game are
1. The wii remote didn't always pick up which direction I was going or the direction I was swinging the sword.. I have died at least 4 times in the game just for that reason. I did like that you had to swing it a certain way to kill certain enemies, that made it more interesting and fun rather than just mashing B the whole time, but I wish they had done a better job making the wii remote easier to handle in that regard.
2. Having to go back into the temples and going back to the same areas you've been was kind of annoying and somewhat unnecessary. I wish they had just created more new areas to explore.
3. The music was not great and very unmemorable. This was probably my biggest disappointment in the game. If you asked me to hum the music that plays while you're flying, or in the forest, or in a shop, I couldn't do it. Maybe I just haven't played it enough, but it seems very unremarkable compared to the last few games.

That being said, I did like the story (it was very different from previous Zelda games), the new characters, the different collectibles, and new "races", not just Gorons and Zoras anymore.

Still, it's a good game, I'm just not sure that I'll pick it up again once I beat it.

[SuperFireKirby]

I actually don't mind linear games. Dark Cloud 2, my all-time favorite game, is fairly linear and nearly no open-world exploration. But with a Zelda game, it's ALL about exploring for me. TP(for the Gamecube) and WW are two of my favorites solely because of how great their open-world areas are(and the music that accompanies them). So when a Zelda game is super lacking on the exploration front, it definitely disappoints me.

[mikey]

Can't a game be linear and open world at the same time though

[KefkaticFanatic]

That would mean they failed at creating an open world game, as the strengths in a good one is that they have a vast amount of fleshed out side content and areas to explore and complete, rather than just the main quest that you run from a to b to c to finish.  I always felt that TP was unfinished in that it had a vast overworld but a huge lacking in sidequests.  I still like the atmosphere, regions, and dungeons of the game enough to prefer it over SS though.

[Pit0010]

Finally finished Bayonetta...TIME FOR THE SECOND ONE!

[Maelstrom]

I finally finished Etrian Odyssey IV. The final boss wiped out my lvl 60 party 3 times in a row. -_-  I only beat it because I sealed the head before it could reform it's arms and I just managed to seal the bare essence and finish off with my mp in single digits for 3/5 characters.

[Roz~]

I finally finished Etrian Odyssey IV. The final boss wiped out my lvl 60 party 3 times in a row. -_-  I only beat it because I sealed the head before it could reform it's arms and I just managed to seal the bare essence and finish off with my mp in single digits for 3/5 characters.

"Final Boss"
You should do the post-game content, it's great.

[Maelstrom]

That post game dungeon is so creepy....