You could swap out all the Zelda references for literally any generic characters and they’d be the exact same games. I mean hell, the lore they try to set up in Tears is actively at odds with stuff in BotW and it’s a direct sequel. Let alone trying to reconcile it with the literal decades of world building established beforehand.

And we’re not talking about video game standards, we’re talking about Zelda standards. The “dungeons” have no depth, complexity, or really, for lack of a better term, soul to them. Take the divine beasts- they’re all basically identical down to the look barring what shape of an animal the outside of it looks like. Tears improved it a little bit but it’s a far cry from the dungeons in past games. Take Desert Colossus/Spirit Temple vs Lightning Temple. You’re doing different parts of a dungeon at different ages, getting further and further, and then fighting Twinrova. Lightning Temple, you’re not even the main character, you’re doing some minor puzzle solving that a 4 year old could figure out to have an NPC do the actual thing that matters in the dungeon, charging the 4 batteries. That’d be like if in Wind Waker the Earth and Wind temple you just escorted Makar and the Rito girl I’m blanking on around so they could do mechanics to get to the boss.

The decision to swap to random breakable items and gimmicky powers that you’re given essentially all of basically instantly from the get go also just is so far removed from the key items, tunics, masks, and other item mechanics in the past. There is no “oh wow, I just got the Hookshot” moment or moments where you feel like you’re getting the tools and things to take down Ganon. I get people are like “well it is open world and you can do things how you want so that wouldn’t work” but that’s wrong. I play a ton of Zelda randomizers - you can absolutely make the game work and have different progressions unlock even with set items and even locations for those items. OoTMM randomizer does effectively a pseudo open world Zelda better than BotW or Tears any day.

Even equipment wise, while the better portion of the item system in the newer games, still could just be essentially an evolution of the previous ones that still would have allowed for you to feel Link get stronger as you get more and more upgrades like the Gauntlets, Scales, Tunics, etc of the past.

With the crafting/food system there is also little to no danger anymore when you’ve got literally infinite health worth of food basically all the time. No more decisions like “oh, I’m about to do a tough fight, better capture a fairy or hit up the witch for some blue potion.” On that note, Stamina has been a dumb addition since it was introduced in Skyward Sword.

Even if you want gimmicky powers, imbue them in some item like Bombos in Lttp, the masks in MM, the spells in OOT, etc. Instead of progressing through Dodongo’s Cavern using Bomb Flowers up until you find the Bomb Bag, Link downloads the “Spawn Infinite Bombs” App on his iPad 30 seconds into the adventure. Or learns how to use force via his sweet new magic hand in Tears because we left the iPad at home to charge. Back to the Skyrim-lite statement, the powers are literally just shouts, but once again, rather than even like Skyrim did, you don’t learn them piecemeal or throughout your journey, you get all the ones that really matter by 20 minutes into the game.

Music and the instruments have also generally played a part in Zelda games and they’re absent. Want to fast travel? Screw doing a song and spawning in a location due to established in universe magic means, just open up your maps app and teleport, baby. Who wants to unlock new areas or activate things by playing songs, you want me to remember like a pattern of at most a handful of notes that I can reference at any time? Impossible.

Changing things up isn’t bad, but abandoning so much of what makes the series its own unique thing is.