Man, the developers seem to hate Ruto. Almost all of the Adventure Mode missions which give her rewards (especially early on) are missions which require fighting bosses or small groups solo. Ruto really needs the hectic battlefields to shine, though. Her specials are really powerful (some insane screen clearing, especially from her XXXXXY combo), but she can be knocked out of almost all of them. So you need to practice good spacing and timing manipulation, or she'll get destroyed in a solo fight.

I'm also a bit surprised at how static she is. I'd expect a water character to play more fluidly, the way Midna an Fi do.

Currently I have Link, Darunia, Sheik, Impa, Ruto, Midna, Lana, Fi, and Zelda. I'm about to get Ghirahim and supposedly Agitha (I have the recruitment mission "unlocked" on Adventure Mode, but it's blocked by another unlocked mission that it just won't let me take for some reason). A lot of playable female characters (and they're all awesome).

The difficulty on Adventure Mode is really ramping up, but I have to say that I appreciate it. It's a good challenge. You definitely need some grinding for some missions, but learning how a character plays or how the mission goes is frequently way more important.

I do wish there were easier ways to gather high level materials. There are only like three missions where I can fight Lana, but I need a lot of her materials to finish Impa's badges. And that's just one character. I like the forced choice: "where should I spend that gold material I finally got?" (Stamina Fruit III, no question), but I do wish I had either shorter missions to get more, or access to a greater variety to fight her. Hopefully that will change as more missions unlock.

There's apparently a free patch coming that will make Cia, Wizzro, and Volga playable. Then we're getting new characters, weapons, and Adventure Mode maps in paid DLC. So awesome.

The inaccessible mission (spot C8 on the map, third row down, eight from the left) that appears to be fully active is my biggest complaint about this game. The second biggest is the awkward run animation Zelda gets in her Era of the Hero of Time (OoT) outfit.