I just beat Zelda: BotW, and the ending is absolute trash.

[Tulipanzo]

BotW I found to be a game of amazing scope that did very little with it.
The best parts of the game are Eventide Island and the Master Swords trials, which force you to interact with the wealth of tools and mechanics the game provides so that you can advance.

The rest of the game suffers though, because the stronger you get, the less creative you have to be.
You could set up an elaborate set of traps for that monster, or you could just twat it in the face with your weapons. You could chain your metal tools to conduct electricity, or you could just move that box.

Sets of optimal action are discovered, and patterns begin to emerge. This makes the game kind of dull over long stretches in particular, but the game makes no effort to try and make playing in chunks more appealing.
This is especially true because while content is presented in a very unique way, i.e. you have to find it, it is very standard in execution. You quickly figure out that only completing Shrines and collecting Korok seeds has a material impact on your character, which makes it THE THING you spend most time doing.
Shrines and Korok seeds can be fun, but they also feature often repeated content, and they tend to really blur together looking back at them.

This isn't helped by an unremarkable story and fetch quests being the standard side quest.
There are creative moments, but there are also a lot of repeated dull ones, which makes these an unenvolving distraction from the fun you might be having in the larger world.

Because the game can be incredible, but you have to make your own fun even when the game presents more time and resource effective ways to proceed. Creativity isn't incentivized beyond the start, and the stronger you get the duller the game gets. Which is a problem in many open worlds, but it's also something I hope they will address in a sequel.


I've focused on the negative, but I think the game is alright. 7/10