Same progress as you, same general critique. The sword control is neat but not really what I feel as at all necessary and motion control sucks the life out of nearly every other thing it's used for in the game.
The shield thing is kinda dumb, yeah. They make a big deal about needing a shield, and using the shield... and then you use it on the first two enemies in order to get them to stop blocking, and it's pretty much done.
A shame because there's a lot of cool stuff creatively going on with the game.
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where is mankriks wife