Breath of the Wild is a breath of fresh air for the series with its focus on freedom and minimal story, but in that sense it's also a return to form. It perfectly captures the explorative spirit of the original Legend of Zelda more than any Zelda game since.
Open world games tend to bore me unless the core game systems themselves are fun to interact with. This is why I really enjoy the collectathon 3D Mario games (64, Sunshine, Odyssey) despite their often-poor level design and lack of well-crafted discrete challenges. Breath of the Wild follows in the footsteps of Mario 64 and Sunshine by having the most involved mechanics in the series up to this point. The core combat system isn't as advanced as Twilight Princess, but the gaps are made up by how exploration and combat are no longer separate things. Any part of the environment can be used against enemies or against you in some way. The enemy variety feels pretty low for a world this size, but I think the increased number of interactions and behaviors of each of them make up for it.
The world design is beautiful, as usual for Monolith, but they really outdid themselves here. It's amazing to me how every area has it's own distinct look, with dozens upon dozens of intricately-crafted landmarks. The villages are the most fully realized of any in the series aside from Clock Town. It's truly a delight to explore, and the vistas you see are rewarding in and of themselves.
What's most impressive is how they were able to create an open world that truly feels like a living, breathing place. The game doesn't string you along a long, boring story questline, but there are four mini-main quests if you want to do the main dungeons. The scenery isn't just props, almost everything is interactable. Everything exists for you to play and experiment with, as a sandbox should be. That's not to say there isn't any of the typical open-world garbage here like boring sidequests and meaningless collectables, there's just a lot less, and it's not the focus.
It's easy for me to say I am annoyed by the weapon durability system, but it really depends on the context. See, the game is at its best when it pits you against the wild and makes you use limited resources efficiently. The problem is that this scenario happens only twice; the Great Plateau and Eventide Island. If you take any time to explore at all instead of running straight to Hyrule Castle, you're going to easily stock up on resources. There are so many Korok seeds, weapons, and cooking ingredients to be found that you never really feel like you're in danger. And this is when the weapon durability shifts from tense scavanging just to survive into merely an annoyance that necessitates opening the menu to equip something else. It works on the Great Plateau, but quickly becomes balanced way too far in your favor to be a worthwhile or interesting mechanic to consider. You can just intentionally avoid gathering resources to challenge yourself, but the spongy enemies (which collectively get stronger as you keep playing by the way) keep this from being enjoyable. I think a better solution would be to either force more survival moments by limiting resources more, or to have a medium-strength weapon, bow, and shield always be available after a certain point, which could be upgraded similar to gear. The Master Sword doesn't count.
The Shrines and Divine Beasts are interesting concepts in theory, but they're unimaginative aesthetically and contain puzzles so simple that they're unsatisfying to solve even using unintentional methods. I would rather have seen dungeons that are built into the world itself. Hyrule Castle proves you can have seamless open-ended dungeons that still have some defined puzzles and combat encounters. Instead though, we have 120 ugly shrines which don't blend well at all with the environment.
Once you explore everything and do all the shrines, then what? Well, then the game turns into a sandbox. Open this up in Cemu and enable infinite weapon durability, then go do all sorts of crazy stuff. Kill Ganon with a spoon. Build a minecart flying machine that lasts forever unlike anything in Tears of the Kingdom. Again like the open 3D Mario games, this is a game that relies a lot on your intrinsic motivation to find your own fun.
I had a really great time with it, but honestly I don't think I would ever replay it from a fresh save. There's too much grinding and boring resource-gathering, none of it was that compelling the first time, and I'm not doing it again. But on a rainy day, I'll gladly emulate it with all the fun hacks and mods and whatnot that are available now.
Open world games tend to bore me unless the core game systems themselves are fun to interact with. This is why I really enjoy the collectathon 3D Mario games (64, Sunshine, Odyssey) despite their often-poor level design and lack of well-crafted discrete challenges. Breath of the Wild follows in the footsteps of Mario 64 and Sunshine by having the most involved mechanics in the series up to this point. The core combat system isn't as advanced as Twilight Princess, but the gaps are made up by how exploration and combat are no longer separate things. Any part of the environment can be used against enemies or against you in some way. The enemy variety feels pretty low for a world this size, but I think the increased number of interactions and behaviors of each of them make up for it.
The world design is beautiful, as usual for Monolith, but they really outdid themselves here. It's amazing to me how every area has it's own distinct look, with dozens upon dozens of intricately-crafted landmarks. The villages are the most fully realized of any in the series aside from Clock Town. It's truly a delight to explore, and the vistas you see are rewarding in and of themselves.
What's most impressive is how they were able to create an open world that truly feels like a living, breathing place. The game doesn't string you along a long, boring story questline, but there are four mini-main quests if you want to do the main dungeons. The scenery isn't just props, almost everything is interactable. Everything exists for you to play and experiment with, as a sandbox should be. That's not to say there isn't any of the typical open-world garbage here like boring sidequests and meaningless collectables, there's just a lot less, and it's not the focus.
It's easy for me to say I am annoyed by the weapon durability system, but it really depends on the context. See, the game is at its best when it pits you against the wild and makes you use limited resources efficiently. The problem is that this scenario happens only twice; the Great Plateau and Eventide Island. If you take any time to explore at all instead of running straight to Hyrule Castle, you're going to easily stock up on resources. There are so many Korok seeds, weapons, and cooking ingredients to be found that you never really feel like you're in danger. And this is when the weapon durability shifts from tense scavanging just to survive into merely an annoyance that necessitates opening the menu to equip something else. It works on the Great Plateau, but quickly becomes balanced way too far in your favor to be a worthwhile or interesting mechanic to consider. You can just intentionally avoid gathering resources to challenge yourself, but the spongy enemies (which collectively get stronger as you keep playing by the way) keep this from being enjoyable. I think a better solution would be to either force more survival moments by limiting resources more, or to have a medium-strength weapon, bow, and shield always be available after a certain point, which could be upgraded similar to gear. The Master Sword doesn't count.
The Shrines and Divine Beasts are interesting concepts in theory, but they're unimaginative aesthetically and contain puzzles so simple that they're unsatisfying to solve even using unintentional methods. I would rather have seen dungeons that are built into the world itself. Hyrule Castle proves you can have seamless open-ended dungeons that still have some defined puzzles and combat encounters. Instead though, we have 120 ugly shrines which don't blend well at all with the environment.
Once you explore everything and do all the shrines, then what? Well, then the game turns into a sandbox. Open this up in Cemu and enable infinite weapon durability, then go do all sorts of crazy stuff. Kill Ganon with a spoon. Build a minecart flying machine that lasts forever unlike anything in Tears of the Kingdom. Again like the open 3D Mario games, this is a game that relies a lot on your intrinsic motivation to find your own fun.
I had a really great time with it, but honestly I don't think I would ever replay it from a fresh save. There's too much grinding and boring resource-gathering, none of it was that compelling the first time, and I'm not doing it again. But on a rainy day, I'll gladly emulate it with all the fun hacks and mods and whatnot that are available now.