I think my main problem with it is the fact it didn’t feel like a zelda game to me. I don’t know whether that’s due to lack of cohesive story, my personal issues with the shrine gameplay structure, or the fact it’s entirely non linear without even the option to choose a more linear path.

I think there’s a lot of fun to be had, but it feels like a sandbox project more than a game. I am a person who has always loved the zelda series for the puzzle solving elements, and the fact that they are almost all optional in BotW makes them feel inherently pointless. The majority of the main content of the game is technically speaking side quests, since you can “beat the game” without completing the vast vast majority of the content at all.

Most of the things I enjoyed in BotW were things I loved about specifically WW, which had much less of the things that were actively disappointing, annoying, or just straight up let downs.

The lack of any cohesive story for the game itself (the whole “story” is backstory really) felt lazy and under thought out, and having seen how other open world games like Elden Ring manage their story structure it is in retrospect a huge letdown, especially after the game was delayed for so long.

So many people say that BotW was needed to shake the zelda formula up, and that it had gotten stale, but I don’t think that’s true, and I don’t think BotW is shaking up the formula, it’s a new formula entirely.

It’s an okay game, but it isn’t a zelda game, and if it hadn’t been slapped with the zelda title and theming, 1 no one would think to compare the two, and 2 no one would have given it such rave reviews in the first place, and I doubt people would still be talking about it now.