It's pretty much Breath of the Wild but better in every single way.
The new set of abilities and the addition of the Sky Islands+Depths are so transformative with how you engage with the world on all levels, whether it's through exploration, traversal, puzzle-solving, and combat, to the degree that my enjoyment for all four aspects has significantly increased compared to BOTW.
I only really enjoyed exploring and some of the moment-to-moment traversal mechanics in BOTW, while I thought the puzzles were too rudimentary and gimmicky, and the combat I actively avoided because it was either boring or frustrating.
In TOTK, the exploration and traversal are best-in-class for open world games, the puzzles are a lot more interesting to solve (although there are still some annoying shrines that feel too gimmicky with the cartoon physics bullshit), and I can now tolerate doing some combat. I also think the temples are a clear step up from the Divine Beasts because of the implementation of the new abilities.
Thought the story would be more substantial this time around, but even though there were some cool scenes here and there, it's still nothing to write home about like BOTW's story. Voice acting still sucks like it sucked back then! I guess Ganondorf sounds appropriately evil in that intimidating way.
I have some nitpicks like how finicky manipulating stuff and ordering the sages can be, how clunky some of the controls are, and how it's still very much an open world game that falls into patterns of content types that eventually saps the sense of wonder from the experience. I can be quite the completionist with big games, but I didn't get that itch with TOTK. In the end though, it's all minor stuff that doesn't take away from the largely good time I had.
The new set of abilities and the addition of the Sky Islands+Depths are so transformative with how you engage with the world on all levels, whether it's through exploration, traversal, puzzle-solving, and combat, to the degree that my enjoyment for all four aspects has significantly increased compared to BOTW.
I only really enjoyed exploring and some of the moment-to-moment traversal mechanics in BOTW, while I thought the puzzles were too rudimentary and gimmicky, and the combat I actively avoided because it was either boring or frustrating.
In TOTK, the exploration and traversal are best-in-class for open world games, the puzzles are a lot more interesting to solve (although there are still some annoying shrines that feel too gimmicky with the cartoon physics bullshit), and I can now tolerate doing some combat. I also think the temples are a clear step up from the Divine Beasts because of the implementation of the new abilities.
Thought the story would be more substantial this time around, but even though there were some cool scenes here and there, it's still nothing to write home about like BOTW's story. Voice acting still sucks like it sucked back then! I guess Ganondorf sounds appropriately evil in that intimidating way.
I have some nitpicks like how finicky manipulating stuff and ordering the sages can be, how clunky some of the controls are, and how it's still very much an open world game that falls into patterns of content types that eventually saps the sense of wonder from the experience. I can be quite the completionist with big games, but I didn't get that itch with TOTK. In the end though, it's all minor stuff that doesn't take away from the largely good time I had.