hajime no Ippo had wierd controls too, and are pretty hard to get used too,( but actual fun when you get the grip of it ) ..but there is somethings reviewers dont take on account "delay" and rest/neutral position... is a wireless system and a motion cotnrol, sure you must calculate your moves precisely AND delays between them before throwing punchs or special moves. On terms of digital controls, the right way to do thigns is coming back to neutral position and proceed with next command, if you do a crouching low punch and a shoryuken/hadouken on street fighter, you know you can use your crouched position to "start" a hadouken on classic oldschool style... but what if you are a noob on the 80's and "think" you must press down from the "down" a bit more? and then try your circle forward? catastrophically akward... and you blame the machine for not performing right..!! " It doesnt work!!!'
Motion cotnrols are hard to develop, because develoeprs/designers and actual people are not on the same standard, even today some people dont get the idea of Analog controls at first, but doesnt mean that isnt working..