Now, on metacritic 67 critics reviewed SS it got a 93 average score with two mixed reviews, and a 7.7 user score from 712 user ratings. To put this into perspective Twilight princess for the Wii had 73 critics review the game and it has a 95 average score, no mixed reviews were given, only positive. 880 users gave it an average of 9.1. Yes, more people have had a chance to play it but really the majority of reviews come out upon release. TP I don't know if you knew or not, recently became the best selling Zelda of all time, outselling OOT. So surely as it is a popular game perhaps more so than SS so far it would have received hate. TP was hype hype hyped before release too, and people spoke about it before release, I have not heard anyone talk about SS except when I have mentioned it. Same goes for OOT as TP, which was very popular and was considered, and still is considered to be the best game of all time by allot of respectable critics.
SO...
The reason for the hate is I believe that the game does not appeal to the mainstream. OOT appealed to pretty much everyone, there is something for everyone to love in the game, it is not very dark but it is not a kiddie game, it is very grown up and deals with adult themes, allot of the humour will be got by adults, as a young boy I saw nothing funny about zelda simply accusing Ganondorf of trying to take over the world simply because of his physical appearance. The simple fairy tale story formula of good versus evil will keep young children enjoying the game. It appeals to everyone. As I said above.
I will talk about twilight princess now. Twilight princess appealed to the mainstream, not quite as much as OOT, but it still did it pretty well. It used an art style everyone could like. It was something people could talk about, it was a cool game like skyrim. It was similar to OOT in style and gameplay, it had Ganondorf, a well known villain from OOT. Fans of OOT would have liked TP, it had similar elements and the sense of familiarity would have been a comforting return to how zelda used to be, before the WW came out and made changes. Some liked the changes, others hated them and wanted Zelda to be like OOT agan. TP, was the answer to their problems.
Now time to go on to SS. SS blended style elements from both the WW and TP. Which in my opinion was a terrible mistake. When you have a divide in a fanbase, one side likes WW style the other like a TP style, and then a game is made blending the two together, only some people are satisfied. They think ''well at least there was compromise and there are some elements of my favourite style there'. Some think 'well this is fantastic they have created a blend of two styles and the result is perfect'. Then allot are unhappy because their style was not used, and was watered down, and became too much like the style they did not like. Unsatisfied people who think it must be one way or the other. Compromise in gaming will rarely make both sides happy it usually makes both sides unhappy. THIS IS JUST ON ART DIRECTION!
Lets talk gameplay now shall we? SS was a motion controlled game for a series that has not really used motion controls before. In TP it was very little, and waving the wiimote was just like tapping B. Not really a motion controlled game. Back then motion controls were cool and new. Motion controls are not cool to allot of people now, many will have been put off by them and disliked the game because of them. Also people disliked recalibration and re centering of the wiimote. The traditional formula in SS was not quite the same as other zelda and there was not a field.
Change for the sake of change rather than big improvements. That is where I think SS might have gone wrong slightly.People fear and dislike change. Unless the change dramatically improves something, it is not taken too well. (OOT changed gaming as it was in 3d and people loved it) As much as they moan about wanting change, in reality the truth is that they are quite content with similarity and games that are like previous releases. COD is a prime example. Millions sold. Slight improvements with each release and an altered storyline. Graphical improvements and gameplay refinement are changes that are welcomed in gaming. Modernisation, like voice acting, would have been welcomed by gamers. What Nintendo did was fail to reach out to the mainstream whilst changing things that perhaps the hardcore zelda player did not want changing. Critics who gave lower scores said they did not change enough. What they really wanted was change in a different way to how it was done.
Well, here is my take on why it might have had some hate.