Does Zelda generally have mediocre combat?

It's OK-ish. Nothing too special. Not bad either. It's serviceable.

Agreed with most of that and to be honest I figured Ocarina of Times's combat pretty early on. Even active enemies like the Wolfos and Stalfos tend not to do anything if you keep your shield up. They'll just run around and attack here and there. Only really engaging enemy is the Iron Knuckle but there are like 3 of them in the entire game.

Majora's Mask is different and enemies actively engage you. Many of them also require more than just sword attacks to defeat with some being outright immune to it. They also deal a fair bit more damage in general and many can withstand more than the typical 2-3 hits of OOT. The combat has pretty much the same mechanics has OOT but the enemies' behavior is different and it is a notch more difficult. The bosses are also more than just find weak point with dungeon item to defeat. There are multiple ways to defeat them and they can take a lot of punishment before going down and can dish it out accordingly. TP's combat is more polished but sadly the enemies are back to their OOT attack patterns except for a few like Darknuts. Gyorg legit almost killed me in MM, something that never came close to happening in OOT.

Generally I agree, 3D Zelda games are just a few shy elements from being great. To me the only exception is MM but I can understand why it's not everyone's cup of tea lol.

@Jag85: I hope its the only element to Dark Souls ... you don't have any real quest, no story, exploration is all about finding the next boss to fight ...

its not but its way too easy especially boss fights

I would argue Surgeon Simulator 2013 has better controls than Skyward Sword.

I mean, the difference in superiority between the two is Surgeon Simulator was purposefully designed to have incompetent controls and thus laughable draw of the game was warranted; whereas, Skyward Sword tried to have good controls but it failed to be so.

@jaydan:

Skyward Sword controls are inconsistent and they have a learning curve. Generally, I see them as a very divisive topic when people discuss the game.

Personally, it's a mixed bag. I loved using the motion controls for sword fighting, the net and the bow but I didn't like the bombs or flying the Loftwing.

If the best way to describe Skyward Sword's controls really is "inconsistent", then go figure why many people hate it.

There's some fantastic motion control games out there. I think FPS games benefit it most of all. I thought both Metroid Prime Trilogy and Goldeneye 007 on the Wii incredibly well-implemented and fluid and they rarely ever hiccuped. WarioWare: Smooth Moves, I quickly learned during its time to be an awe-inducing party game because of all the crazy motion things it has the player(s) doing.

With that said, Skyward Sword fell flat and I expected way way better from Nintendo.

I don't really think a game loses its replay value after you figure out its puzzles the first time.

It's simple and works well. Have never had an issue where i felt the controls weren't responding the way i wanted them too. Which is a lot more than i can say for most games today.

3D zelda combat hasn't evolved since 1998. twilight princess tried some new stuff with sword techniques but it's still too easy. that being said the combat is fine for what it is and it's not really a big deal in a series that has traditionally been about dungeons, puzzles, boss fights, and exploration.