Yesterday, I finally finished Tears of the Kingdom... it turned out to be one of my favourite games I've ever played.
In light of this, I wanted to go and reflect on my pretty mixed opinions about Breath of the Wild, and retrace the thoughts that I had when I finished it last year. So here's some opinions that will hopefully lead to a TotK review soon.

I say i feel mixed, but I like BotW. I enjoyed most of my time with it! it feels like a game that wants you to have fun, on many levels... but it also tested my patience with monotony, sheer size, and frequent little annoyances.

At the forefront of it all, i want to start by saying that this game nails the excitement of exploration for me like very few open worlds can manage to do, especially in the first half of my playthrough I was having a great time. Its map is absolutely stunning and varied and rife with vistas, the best open world ever created on such a scale, frankly.
Additionally, the smart placement of PoIs so they're visible from hills and other landmarks is at the core of the gameplay side here. So, most of the time you go to a place that seems significant, like the top of a mountain, you'll find at least a korok seed to reward you. Most of the time.

Once I got more than used to the loop of discovery, the cracks started to show. Distances are long, with many stretches of emptiness inbetween PoIs, so getting to any destination in sight is rarely just a little hoppity skip, but could instead take multiple minutes of walking and climbing, not even mentioning possible hindrances like rain, snow, or giant cliffs.
All in all, apart from the rare settlements and stables, there's really only four types of PoIs to find while exploring the majority of the map: shrines, korok puzzles, enemy camps, and minibosses.

The first one is what mainly kept the exploration exciting for me. Shrines are by far the most unique and substantial type of repeating content scattered around the map, almost every shrine offers a unique set of puzzles and completing them lets you up your stats, giving any player good reason to search for them.
Korok seeds fit right below in the dopamine hierarchy for me, as upping weapon slots with them feels critical especially early-on. while not all of the korok puzzles are engaging, the most satisfying thing was developing an eye for where to locate them in the environment.

So, wanna know about minibosses and enemy camps too? heehee hoohoo let me talk about the combat system. :>

Weapons break quick. you can only carry about 5 weapons at the start. there's mostly weak weapons to find at the start, but you might come across some strong weapons while exploring. as someone with attachment issues, I really started cherishing any good weapon I would find.
Camps and minibosses may or may not offer a few nice weapons, but there is no guarantee that it will be worth the investment, especially as you get past the starting hours and overworld enemies become ever stronger variants, thanks to the hidden levelling system.
I think there's a pretty clear issue with the incentives for raiding camps here, but if fighting enemies is always fun, it wouldn't be too bad.

Sadly, the combat itself was a mixed bag for me. the basic souls-y system the game uses is a bit too simple to sustain swaggy sensations through many hours of gameplay, and the engagement i found with it gradually dropped off, except when I was fighting Lynels and doing cool flurry rushes. it doesn't help that enemy variety is lacking in most locations, too.
Difficulty, at least, is highly up to the player thanks to the anti-instakill at full health combined with a food system that lets you instantly heal up anytime if you've cooked up enough girl dinners. Similiarly, the elements of sandbox combat provided by bomb barrels, elemental arrows, pushable boulders etc provided glimpses of more player choice, but not enough to address my issues.
So I simply stopped engaging with most enemies partway through, which only made exploration more monotonous.

The story quests are sort of sprinkled on in small doses, and they're the other part of the game that kept me motivated. While the Divine Beasts themselves are not that much to write home about, and the boss fights and their gimmicks aren't super fun (except for Kohga), the towns and their inhabitants are cute... these sprinkles of lively civilization are what keeps BotW from feeling, well, lifeless.
They're beautiful little hubs to guide you through both the plot of the game as well as each of the larger areas of Hyrule. And all of the town themes slap too, I enjoy having them playing as my brain bgm sometimes.

I even found the majority of the story NPCs likeable, and while this game gets a lot of slack for its patchwork storytelling, I found it captivating enough, I didn't expect anything more and it's not needed in a game where the plot is more of a backdrop (literally).
Now let me state that I love Mipha and she's SO fucking cute :3 Her and Zelda (she has autism btw) upheave this game.

I could keep going about more of the little things, like how frequently meeting characters around the world who have their own little sidequests and stories added to the atmosphere quite a bit, though on the same hand not many of these quests were notable.
I could talk more about the highlights of Eventide Island and rebuilding Tarrey Town, or the lowlights of Too Many Combat Shrines and how thundery weather struck me as a stupid annoyance.
But eventually, I just felt an urge to get done with this game, and I gotta do the same with my review.

It should say something that despite tiring out, I was still having enough fun with the game to go out of my way and do every single shrine before going for the ending.

Hyrule Castle made me damn happy to be playing this game, one last time. The realest of dungeons in the entire journey, backed by a majestic soundtrack... this is true peak BotW.

And then, Calamity Ganon...exists.

It's impressive how Nintendo made such a sprawling world with an immaculate atmosphere while knowing that very, very few players would ever see all it has to offer. They should have made a game that lets you appreciate even more just how fantastic this Hyrule is.