MORE CONT.
Pacing was also kinda ehh. While I loved the long overworld stretches that were only made possible by addressing the overworld how the game did, it really slowed down after the 3rd dungeon. Up until then it felt like you were on an urgent chase. Afterward... go take just as much time as you did before with constant story progression.... with gathering flames instead. Don't get me wrong, Fire Sanctuary, the Sand Ocean, Ship, and that poor ole' Skipper were all awesome. But story development fell to a huge halt during that period. They kept you going through a sense of urgency via the Imprisoned's escape but that didn't do anything to make up for the relative lack of story progression compared to the first 3 dungeons; it really just made me feel like Link probably shouldn't be helping people up in Skyloft 'cause s***, he doesn't exactly have time.
And lastly, as far as I can think of for now, is motion controls. Again, the item use and combat were fantastic. But the swimming and flying were just unnecessary. Flying was impossible to control precisely, as was painfully evident during the Levias fight. Though the way those eyes moved as Levias moved did not help either. And plainly, flying and maintaining a straight course was unnecessarily hard due to how the turning worked. Chasing/attacking things in the sky was a crap-shoot too. Sky-diving/freefalling was ehh, it wasn't impossible to control but the leaning just never felt like it was something I really "had," even once I understood how to get Link to go in the direction I wanted. Trying to do that Fun Fun wheel thing just feels way too much like luck in terms of making it in the rings without hitting a ball, which it shouldn't if the controls are worth using. Swimming they clearly designed around the fact it was imprecise given the amount of leeway you got with jumping gates and slamming into enemies and how consistently a spin jump out of the water would find you still on land at the end of the somersault. But god damn, if you have to design it with that much leeway, why the hell are you bothering? If you have to try to make it work artificially as well as control stick based control naturally works, then the system isn't good nor worth using.
Edit: Oh also the underground fighting bits with the Moldorms were kinda stupid. Mostly not frustrating and justifiable but the difficulty in making yourself face the right direction sometimes made the experience rather annoying, as did it when you used up a whole stamina bar and not once did the worm decide to stop at a cross-section and decide which way to go.
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