Yeah, I pretty much agree with your take on SS, except that perhaps I thought the dungeons ranged from the truly amazing (4) to rather average (6), and turning the overworld stuff into effectively one giant dungeon was great, since I've never been too impressed by much other than dungeons in Zelda. Only big flaws are the game's intrusive hand holding (paired with slow text) and sometimes going a little overboard with the fetch-questing. Happy with Fujibayashi's first attempt otherwise.
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Who knew the Rivalry Rumble would be so predictable? SuperNiceDog, that's who.