Pasting a generic open world and then basic bitch crafting on top of the same "go to X dungeons to awaken/empower a SPECIAL PERSON, then kill Ganon" (simplified, obviously) is not as massive departure as it seems. They just forced infinite padding in the form of durability and requiring you to grind out shrines for basic health upgrades that distracts from the same exact skeleton as always.
Like, the only major difference is you get all your items at the beginning of the game instead of inside the dungeons, but if you don't care go out looking for shrines it plays exactly like any other Zelda game. Seriously, mod in like 10 hearts to start with and the Master Sword for an unbreaking weapon and you can literally play it like OoT (but more boring because that padding got all their focus).
I played some of... whatever the first big open world Zelda was. I got bored so quickly.
Old school Zelda was well crafted, with creative dungeons that gave you new abilities, then used that new ability in each dungeon as part of the puzzle solution. The dungeons built on one another logically. Often that new ability also opened the path in s the world to the next dungeon. That newish one I played gave you all the abilities practically right away, then provided a mostly empty world with single room dungeons.
Darksiders did an excellent job mimicking that gameplay as well.
That's one of my big issues with Breath of the Wild (the one you played). Its full of those classic good Zelda moments, but they put a massive open field in between each one and removed any possible reward from it. Because money is useless and "a good weapon" is just them selling me the solution for a problem they caused. The dungeons suck because they took all the interesting dungeon ideas and cut them into one-off Shrines to give you something to do in the world.
Its shining proof of the "Nintendo bonus" because its a worse Assassin's Creed game without the one benefit Ubisoft open world gives, the autistic joy of completing a checklist. Because it tracks nothing, the rewards are mostly worthless, and it literally mocks you if you 100% it with a golden turd.
Pasting a generic open world and then basic bitch crafting on top of the same "go to X dungeons to awaken/empower a SPECIAL PERSON, then kill Ganon" (simplified, obviously) is not as massive departure as it seems. They just forced infinite padding in the form of durability and requiring you to grind out shrines for basic health upgrades that distracts from the same exact skeleton as always.
Like, the only major difference is you get all your items at the beginning of the game instead of inside the dungeons, but if you don't care go out looking for shrines it plays exactly like any other Zelda game. Seriously, mod in like 10 hearts to start with and the Master Sword for an unbreaking weapon and you can literally play it like OoT (but more boring because that padding got all their focus).
I played some of... whatever the first big open world Zelda was. I got bored so quickly.
Old school Zelda was well crafted, with creative dungeons that gave you new abilities, then used that new ability in each dungeon as part of the puzzle solution. The dungeons built on one another logically. Often that new ability also opened the path in s the world to the next dungeon. That newish one I played gave you all the abilities practically right away, then provided a mostly empty world with single room dungeons.
Darksiders did an excellent job mimicking that gameplay as well.
That's one of my big issues with Breath of the Wild (the one you played). Its full of those classic good Zelda moments, but they put a massive open field in between each one and removed any possible reward from it. Because money is useless and "a good weapon" is just them selling me the solution for a problem they caused. The dungeons suck because they took all the interesting dungeon ideas and cut them into one-off Shrines to give you something to do in the world.
Its shining proof of the "Nintendo bonus" because its a worse Assassin's Creed game without the one benefit Ubisoft open world gives, the autistic joy of completing a checklist. Because it tracks nothing, the rewards are mostly worthless, and it literally mocks you if you 100% it with a golden turd.