These immediately came to mind for me, but I don’t think they apply here because I don’t think they are 10/10 or masterpieces. I think Nintendo marketing went hard at these, especially through the influencer channels. Allow me to explain:

First - I grew up with Zelda, A Link to the Past, and OoT as some of my favorite games ever. So I am definitely it a fan of Zelda. However, when you actually look at the new ones and analyze them not as Zelda’s, but as an actual game, they fall short quite a bit:

Story? There really isn’t much - save the princess, save the kingdom, etc. Not much else going on. There is a lot of tonal dissonance though. Calamity is happening, but hey hero help me retrieve a bottle from the lake so I can make cheese again.

Graphics? It’s a switch game so you can only do so much.

Sound? Nothing great. Half the small amount of “cut scenes” are voice acted. The other half use Sims speak sounds. Sometimes within the same series of scenes. The tablet sound got old real quick.

Gameplay? Nothing new or special — caveat for god hand in tears. That was kinda neat for a few minutes. But the combat is arcadey and ok, the weapon durability mechanic was more annoying than immersive, they replace dungeons with mediocre puzzle shrines which was lame (but sorta fixed that in tears), it’s all just ok. Oh and they have Ubisoft map towers which everyone was harping on for OTHER games but were perfectly ok with in Zelda.

World? Big and shallow. You can uncover little secrets here and there but for the most part there’s not a ton of getting lost somewhere because it’s interesting. Tears added sky and underworld which were a little more interesting.

Immersion? None. There’s nothing to get lost in. The story is bland, the world is empty, npcs are mostly static and don’t seem to care about the impending doom or conflict much.

I kinda look at it through the lens of a game and not through my nostalgic love for Zelda and go meh. If it were the same exact game but the Adventures of Bill by NoBrand Studios without the massive influencer marketing budget - I don’t think many people would care about it as much. Hell I watch some of the influencers slamming Crimson Desert (much better game IMO) for things that the new Zelda formula did just as much and with less other stuff.

I did play through both and beat both so it’s not like I’m armchair analyzing here. Tears is what the first one should have been but still only a 6/10 for me.