Motion controls. I don't kid. My circle pad is broken so I have no idea how bad the motion controls are and I don't think I ever will. I will say though its hard and the furthest I've gotten was 3000LY. I'm stuck with motion controls but I am getting a lot better at it.
Motion controls are fun to mess around with if you want to have a bit more fun but it's not very reliable longterm. I pretty much always will go for circle pad for that reason!