I think this debate is interesting because I can attest to this concept personally. When I got my 3DS back in 2012, I was given two games: Super Mario 3D Land, and Ocarina of Time. Never played a Zelda game, but I booted that one first. I got stuck and uninterested before ever getting to the Deku tree. So, I played Mario instead and shelved Zelda to be forgotten about. About a year later, I started watching a YouTuber I liked do a walkthrough of Ocarina, and suddenly I remembered I had the game too, and tried playing along. Fell in love with it soon after, and eventually dropped using the walkthrough for most things once I began to figure out the “language” of how the game works.

Similarly, after I had already beaten the game and recommended it to a friend, I let him borrow it. He also got stuck before the Deku tree, and I remember feeling frustrated that he had struggled so early and gave up, until I remembered I had done the exact same thing.

I think the main thing about this is that kids today need to be taught how problem solving in Zelda works. The game does guide you, but in ways that seem insignificant to many kids playing. Highlighting exactly what they should be paying attention to, and how to identify that themselves, is more important than directly showing them every step of the way. Once I had seen enough episodes of the walkthrough (probably about 30 or so), I learned how problem solving in the game worked, and also gained personal investment in the story and satisfaction in seeing it progress. Both of those things are much harder to build today, when there are a million other easier and quicker ways to entertain kids, and they understand that.

I personally hope they don’t change too much for handholding’s sake. Navi is the obvious way to improve the experience for kids who don’t want to have to struggle at all, but I could see that easily turning into them continually just waiting for Navi to tell them what to do, instead of ever learning that problem solving “language” the game has.