Eh, I guess I can focus on the positive things for once.
The artstyle was great, although held back by the Wii's hardware. Some of the dungeons and bosses are some of the best the series has ever seen. Ancient Cistern has the best visual design ever and the boss is just straight up fun. And the timestones were so good I was absolutely sure they would come back for the next game. Phenomenal mechanic. I also really liked the upgrade system, even though it was a bit undercooked, and it failed to make the earlier items like the slingshot matter later on. Nontheless rpretty neat. Game also has the best hub in any Zelda game. And while a lot of people seem to not like them I really dig the silent realms. Made great use of getting down the layout of the respective places beforehand.
The artstyle was great, although held back by the Wii's hardware. Some of the dungeons and bosses are some of the best the series has ever seen. Ancient Cistern has the best visual design ever and the boss is just straight up fun. And the timestones were so good I was absolutely sure they would come back for the next game. Phenomenal mechanic. I also really liked the upgrade system, even though it was a bit undercooked, and it failed to make the earlier items like the slingshot matter later on. Nontheless rpretty neat. Game also has the best hub in any Zelda game. And while a lot of people seem to not like them I really dig the silent realms. Made great use of getting down the layout of the respective places beforehand.
It's just in the wrong game. Even if the tadpoles hadn't had eyes on them like in a Banjo Kazooie game, no matter how weird, whacky or silly Zelda gets, the things you collect are always contextualized. Even in Mario collecting objects like Tadtones make sense, it doesn't in Zelda. It completely took me out of the experience. The flooded Forest was cool though, true.But I always liked SS. And the tadpole thing is a more silly fantastical moment, so I like it conceptually (even more because the setting of the forest flooded is pretty col), but could be executed better for sure.