feels a bit like a bill of false goods, what with the whole "player freedom! immersivity! realism!" angle in the marketing and reputation of that game that in the actual experience of playing it is parlayed into semimodular series of basically linear challenges, story elements, and puzzles which tend to have one strongly intended solution. yes, if you put all your orbs into stamina you can get some places early and yes if you're good enough at parrying and dodging you can kill a lynel with 4 hearts but mostly everything here is less exploratory and freeform than it suggests itself to be. don't get me wrong, i enjoyed the game, but at a certain point i got tired of exploring repetitive, empty-feeling areas which were short on actual surprise or engaging challenges (with a few exceptions! i like the leviathan skeletons and the ruins with twenty guardians in like two huge windy rooms, stuff like adds color to the world and the action when used sparingly). the physics puzzles are not good. the special abilities are not good. weapon durability is...fine....above all everything feels really expensive and more than a little thoughtlessly so. had me longing for the constraint and vibiness of the n64 entries, which for all their empty spaces and lack of ~realistic horse controls~ feel so much more like actual worlds to me.