I'm not saying story is a bad thing. It's not, but it seems like a lot of devs focus so heavily on coming up with an engaging story and good visuals that they forget to actually make the game fun to play.
I think about some of the games I've played over the years, and a lot of my favorites either had fairly limited or even downright absurd plots that basically boil down to an excuse to make the gameplay loop happen.
Just a random musing.
Yes, this. Zeldas and Sonics exist as a series because they "hey you liked Zelda 1, how about Zelda 2" for marketing and name recognition. It was never intended to be anything more than that then some crazy people had to act like it mattered. Want deep lore? Go read Tolkien books.