Tears of the Kingdom... finished. Very interesting experience. I didn't enjoy BOTW that much but this fortunately fixed some of the major issues I had with that game so I was able to enjoy most of my time with it. I do still think it's highly overrated but atleast now I can say it's a good game nearing on greatness. I did all the shrines, all the lightroots, 100+ side adventures/missions, all labyrinths, 100+ Koroks.

Let's get the bad out of the way first. Breaking weapons still suck even though fusing midicates the annoyance. Inventory management is so annoying, especially when trying to find something particular. Stamina management for sprinting is braindead. Climbing is boring as it provides no actual challenge and become very tedious, especially when it rains (btw. why doesn't the full frog suit completely prevent slipping). Horses control so bad. There are so many unnecessary cutscenes that you just mash to skip everytime (shrines and blood moon). Depths was bland and tedious. The temples were really underwhelming. The approaches were cool but actual puzzles and boss fights were meh. Activating companion abilities was a pain in the ass, such a terrible system. And the hidden level scaling feels totally off and doesn't fulfill the power fantasy of getting stronger.

Then the good! Having a decent story was a surprise and mixing in the memories kept me interested. Sense of exploration was great. I think I might feel different if I had fully played BOTW because for me most of the areas were totally new. I really like how the world felt more alive and there was more interaction with the people of the world. There were bunch of great side adventures which were compelling and fun to complete. Shrines for the most part were fun but I do wish they were a bit more difficult. There was only couple that really had me thinking and I wanted more of that. Combat is interesting as the base combat is bit lackluster but mixing in different elements and the devices made for some ridiculous moments which I enjoyed.

Special mention to the ultrahand and device stuff. I personally wasn't really compelled by the system to create stuff but seeing the physics work in is incredible and I give the devs lot of props for that.

Overall I'm really happy that I gave the game a shot because I did have a good time with it. Some of the design choices I still do not like and they cause me a lot of frustration but that's just me