Absolutely agree about BotW. I’m barely getting into it (only 800 more korok seeds to go…), and I really enjoy it as a game, but it feels more like a great game set in Hyrule than it does a Zelda game. I think they strayed a bit too far from the formula on it. I miss going into a temple, finding a bunch of stuff I can’t do anything with, getting an item, using that item to solve all the puzzles I couldn’t do anything about, then using the skills that gave me to beat the boss with that item. I miss permanent items that are given incrementally and give a feeling of progression as more of the world opens up to you as a result. BotW feels like it gave me all my items at the beginning, handed me an open world, and said, “Have fun.”
I am having fun. Just not Zelda fun.
That single orange brain cell is just dinging around in there like a pinball trying to figure it out