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this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2023
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I argue that the feel of BotW is a return to Zelda origins. It's the most any game has felt like the original Zelda.
There original Zelda game was a game about exploring a giant over world to find it's secrets. The dungeons weren't puzzle filled, they were essentially just combat challenges.
... It's that feeling that you are setting out on a difficult journey of exploration across a giant world with no support.
Every Zelda game since the original has felt smaller in comparison because the role of the over world got shrunk to just a thing to connect dungeons.
My favorite is AlttP which I think has the best balance between dungeons and over world exploration, but I prefer over world to modern dungeons we got in skyward sword and such.
Maybe at a very high level, but as a huge fan of the original NES games, BotW completely falls flat on dungeon design. The fun of TLoZ was two-fold: exploration and dungeons. Most of the rest of the series leaned way more on dungeons than exploration, but they all had some element of that.
And yes, the puzzles did center on combat, but they were still puzzles nonetheless. For example, for Dodongo (my favorite puzzle), you'd get a hint in one room, then try to figure out what it meant while fighting the boss unsuccessfully. Likewise for most of the bosses and mini bosses, there was usually some puzzle to figure out how to beat it.
BotW goes the opposite direction, leaning far more into exploration than dungeons, and I think they totally messed up the balance. After the first divine beast, the rest felt boring to me. There's usually some gimmick (e.g. rotate rings to access doors) that felt more annoying than fun, and the boss fight had one gimmick that's pretty easy to figure out and otherwise feels pretty much the same as the others. They fill in the game with crafting, which I really didn't like interacting with, especially since Zelda games almost never rely on consumables (outside of 2-4 slots for potions/fairies), and I didn't need healing once I got Mipha's Grace. Shrines were fun, but they were too shallow and short, so I'd spend way more time finding the puzzle than completing it, and the reward was 1/4 of an upgrade? Shrines and divine beasts just didn't feel as good as completing a dungeon.
I absolutely agree, and this is one thing I really didn't like about Ocarina of Time. The overworld was large, but largely empty, outside of 3 or so locations. I always knew where to go, so exploration really want necessary to find and finish the dungeons.
I very much want both to be substantial. ALttP is fantastic as you said, and I really like TLoZ (wish it would get a remake with better contextual hints baked in so you don't need a game guide).
That said, I played Skyward Sword right after BotW and loved it way more, so I guess I'm on the dungeon side of the equation. However, I found the overworld quite sufficient, I just got annoyed at having to use the stupid bird to get around between islands, I really wanted fast travel. But Skyward Sword is absolutely one of my favorite Zelda games, perhaps beat only by TLoZ (largely nostalgia) and ALttP.