I still remember getting around 50 or so hours into breath of the wild and just… feeling my interest drain away. Suddenly realizing that all the story is in the past, and the actual game is just running around checking things off of lists. It was the first time i realized the inherent flaws of an open world game design. Everything has to be optional because the designers have no clue when you'll do what, or if you'll even do something. Twilight Princess was able to write an entire character arc for Midna because they could build in every step of her growth along the linear path they knew the player would take. They could build in a mid game twist because the game was linear. Made Midna still one of the most iconic characters in the series. BOTW cant do that. The sum total of everything you can do in breath of the wild's big fancy open world amounts to "how much of our already easy and short final boss battle would you like to skip?"
idk. The zelda games i grew up playing had such a satisfying feeling of growth and journey to them. Being able to run right to the final boss from the start is not appealing to me. I was completely hooked for awhile, it took time for the game to lose its appeal. There was just this moment like 60-70 hours in when i realized that i couldn't actually do anything in botw to affect the story. I was running around a big pretty empty bowl checking things off of lists. All the important story happened 100 years ago and all i get to do is choose how long i take dragging my feet to bring it to an end. Suddenly the whole world felt so empty, and the spell botw had on me was broken.
