Well, the people in this thread convinced me to buy this game for Christmas despite hating LttP, so I thought I'd come back and give my opinion.
I really liked it. I was miles better than LttP, and all of my worries in that regard were unfounded. More than anything else it was the different way that Link moved through the world, and the heftier, more solid feel to interactions with objects and in combat that made this game such a jump over LttP.
The soundtrack was probably the standout part of the game for me. The dark world theme and some of the dungeon themes were amazing. And the wall shifting, which looked terrible in videos, ended up being a tremendously fun mechanic.
The game looked far better in 3D than in videos, but I'd still maintain that the art style is just rubbish. Still a huge improvement over the spritework of LttP, mind. The game was practically built for 3D as you're looking at a mini-diorama in every scene with a fixed camera. The sense of depth was great, and the levels really used it, especially the cliffs on the overworld and the multi-layered dungeons. And that 60fps smoothness made a huge difference.
Despite all of that, though, it was not in my top 10 games of the year and probably wouldn't make my top 8 Zeldas either. It was just too bland, easy and short to be truly memorable to me. There were no new items and the rental system as a core gameplay design fell utterly flat to me, and took a lot of fun out of the game. On my hard run play-through I had to limit myself to one item at a time in order to feel in any way challenged.
I felt like a lot of the Zelda whimsy and charm was missing. The world did not feel as interesting or alive as any of the 3D Zeldas, or even Link's Awakening, the gold standard in portable Zeldas. They just felt like levels, really. And worst of all I'd seen most of this world before. I was revisiting rather than exploring. The sense of the new was reserved solely for dungeons, which were short and not particularly challenging/involving. That, to me, is not what Zelda is about.
Yes, the game is wonderfully streamlined, but it was almost too streamlined. The start of Skyward Sword is tremendously slow, but it was charming and gave the rest of the game an appropriate sense of character and place. That was missing here. The antagonists were terrible; the story largely non-existent, side characters given three lines of dialogue maximum. I couldn't remember a single one of them now if you asked me. Add that to the general lack of atmosphere / world building and complete lack of any gameplay surprises in dungeons or regarding items and you have a game that simply wasn't memorable at all.
That said, it was well put together and enjoyable while playing it, and I'm glad I was recommended it. Thanks.
Prepare for something completely different in Skyward Sword though, it's not made from the same mold. I'm a very big fan of it personally but saying that it's divisive is putting it mildly. One thing shared between them both is that the dungeons are terrific.
