Halfway There: Skyward Sword

At this point - halfway through the experience - I cannot recommend this game to anyone. Zelda fan or not.

My main problem is the banality of almost everything you're tasked with doing. So without spoiling anything, I'm currently on the hunt for three sacred flames, each hidden within various temples. This I'm fine with - every Zelda game ever has you searching for nic nacs and bink bonks through various lands and temples. My problem is this:

"Hello, person/creature who has the information/key I need to get into the next temple. Would you please let me in?"
"Absolutely, Link. But first, I need you to collect 15 of these random objects scattered throughout this area."
"S-Seriously? You can't just let me in? I mean the door's right there. I mean it would take you less than five sec..."
"FIFTEEN OBJECTS!"

"Sure, I could tell you how to get there. But wouldn't you rather go hunting for meaningless items?"

At one point I had to completely retread the ENTIRE first temple just to get a bottle filled with water for that stupid lady pictured above.

"But there's water everywhere. Why not just get water from the lake next to the person asking for it?" You ask.

Because I need this stupid GD special water that only exists in a specific pixel of an area at the VERY END of the first temple.

Boy, do I feel satisfied with this achievement. A bottle of water. Don't get better than that.

I don't mind revisiting old places to obtain bonuses and powerups. That's a conscious decision I've made to enhance my characters abilities with the sacrifice of going back through areas I've already seen. But when I'm forced to do the same thing twice for something so trivial as a bottle of water, I get a little more than furious.

There are moments of brilliance, don't get me wrong. Little glimmers of what this game could have been poke their heads out about once an hour. The last few temples I've been through have been really interesting - but the overall feeling I'm getting is that each piece was developed exclusive of everything else. If they had simply made the game in a seamless world, and stripped out all the backtracking the game would sing like none other. But they didn't - and I'm left pushing myself to finish the brussel sprouts so I can have the ice cream.