the thing I find appealing about the N64 and GameCube era zelda games was the variety in gameplay, though the N64 era seemed to have more variety than the gamecube era. at one moment you were fighting a bad guy, in the next you were figuring out a timing puzzle, and the moment after you were running away from a wall of flames. even every enemy has a unique way to deal with it that's unlike the others.

Most modern RPGs have very same or similar enemies that just tweak their timings and animations, in the combat style remains largely the same even if the difficulty shifts. the game challenges you to get better at the same thing throughout the adventure, rather than challenging you to learn new things as you progress.

hardly any games have good puzzles anymore, and adventure has become ADHD micro secrets every two feet. you hardly ever have to talk to NPCs to figure things out and collect data, and each puzzle can be completed in a matter of seconds.

I feel like a lot of modern games overstay their welcome without mixing things up. I find myself unable to finish most games nowadays, not necessarily because they're too hard, but because I get over the game after the 20th hour.