Just beat the fifth temple which was, again, wonderful. I don't have the best memory of all the Zelda temples, but Skyward Sword's seem like a cut above. The only temple I remember from Twilight Princess is that snow mansion one. The set up for the boss fight was awesome. I was kind of hoping the whole fight would have been that insane set piece, but it was great while it lasted. The boss fight was pretty predictable which was disappointing after that set up. I also take back what I said earlier about areas not being as satisfying on the return trip as they were initially. At least with the Lanayru desert, the return trip was just as awesome as the first one. 21 hours in. I have loved 20:45 of that.
RFN has talked about not liking (or not preferring rather) the idea of the areas in this game being segmented from each other. I do agree it was a negative aspect of Metroid Prime 3, but it's not bothering me at all here. In previous Metroids, part of the joy you get towards the end of those games is seeing just how brilliantly connected all the areas are and Prime 3 ditched that completely. That was never an aspect of Zelda games. Lanayru Desert by itself has to be close to the size of all of Ocarina of Time in terms of square footage. Also, is it possible this game has some Mass Effect influence? Skyloft is Zelda's version of the Normandy. The disconnected, segmented areas. Lip service paid to dialog choices. Granted, they're both doing wildly different things, but it's interesting.