[quote name='KingBroly']This is one STRANGE game. It seems like there's a handful of reviews in each camp. Good/Bad controls, good/bad cutscenes, character development, etc. They pretty much all contradict one another in one form or another. I honestly don't think I've seen anything like it before.[/QUOTE]
There is definite weirdness. One of the podcasts I listen to is Weekend Confirmed with Garnett Lee. They talked about it on the Friday show and they brought up the awkwardness that I was talking about before when switching between holding the control like a NES controller and like a pointer.
I believe it was Jeff Canata (not sure if I spelled it right) that had some difficulty aiming with the pointer when you switched back and forth because he found it difficult to reacquire the location of the pointer on the screen when you had to switch back and forth. However, his experience like Ship's was that the transition occurred instantaneously it just seemed like he had difficulty quickly locating where the pointer popped up on screen and reorienting himself. For me, this wouldn't be a technical issue, just one of needing some practice to adjust.
In contrast, Garnett complained of actual technical difficulties with the game similar to what I had on Super Paper Mario where he had difficulties getting the machine to accurately make the transition. His description indicated that it would quickly flash to first person and then flash back to third person while the Wiimote tried to zero in on the sensor bar. However, the fact that Ship and other reviewers had no issues makes me wonder if there are environmental issues at work that caused my (and Garnett's problems) such as my sensor bar placement, the lighting in my room, or particular IR signatures of surrounding devices in my entertainment center and the TV itself somehow confusing the Wiimote's acquisition of the two IR lights in the sensor bar.
I know in my case that the simple option of going the Muramasa/Okami route of allowing the nunchuck for movement would go a long way towards ameliorating the issue, as my Wiimote would always be generally pointing at the sensor bar even when in 3rd person mode easing the hardware's acquisition process when the switch was made. (I'm assuming "C" or "Z" could then be used to trigger the transition to 1st person.)
A lot of the other points of disagreement in the reviews seem to rely on your particular tolerance for Japanese characterizations, Japanese artstyles, and comfort with using the Wii remote. At many sites there is a guy who generally is ok with Wii controls and gets most of the Wii reviews handed off to him. It must be pointed out that this is a Wii game series that cross appeals to other gamers/reviewers that generally don't like Wii controls and the reviews for this game have not all been handed off. (i.e. those people who like the core Nintendo franchises, bought the Wii at launch for them, and have generally complained about the dust on their Wii since then)