4. That One. No, That One
Skyward Sword has been hailed by many as the best Zelda game ever. While its good, I dont quite agree with that assessment. Firstly because it takes place in a shoebox, and secondly because the much vaunted control system is frustratingly flawed. I love what they tried to do with it, and its a miracle of technological achievement that they managed to pull it off at all. Indeed, most of it works pretty well, the sword fighting is responsive but I found I was often striking with the sword instead of just moving it to a position where I wanted to strike from. The various B items responded well to the motion, but having to move the Wiimote to select one was a complete nightmare. It was a clever idea to disguise the configuring of the accelerometer, but it meant that choosing the item was never as intuitive as pushing a direction on a d-pad and broke the flow of the game. It was ok when you werent under pressure, but with enemies coming at you the feeling was akin to rummaging through your suitcase to find your passport with an angry queue behind you, and a customs officer in front of you whos just itching to try out his new pair of rubber gloves. Also, probably more frustratingly, they chose to change the button sequence to use and put away your items. I lost count of the number of times I fired my second hookshot instead of putting it way. And then said something rude. Good ideas, poorly executed.
Frustration rating: 9.