Skyward sword had plenty room for exploration in the different biomes. It's not open world, but far from a linear experience as well. BotW feels more cohesive, indeed more like a complete world than separate areas you visit.
However the lack of persistence kinda breaks the immersion. That wobbly bridge you build over the river, gone after you come back. It can be useful as well, want 4 rockets for shields and there are only two, attach the two, save/load and they're back, attach 2 more etc. Don't feel like fighting a Lynel that spotted you, save/load and he's reset. Of course any loot laying around or Zonai devices disappear as well. And then the blood moon also repopulates all the camps.
That turns the game from 'Rebuilding Hyrule' into a resource management sim. The camps and enemies are just there to provide resources, there is no point clearing anything out nor in fixing anything. Apart from quests everything remains the same no matter what you do. So it's good you can skip all the enemies now simply by flying over or running past and save/load reset the agro. It's worthwhile farming the Depths for Zonaite, poes, puff shrooms and bomb flowers, yet on the surface I see no reason to raid camps. Maybe I'm missing something.
Also no reason for horses anymore. In the Depths they're useful to run over the gloom yet that's never really a problem. Just got to sprint from clear spot to clear spot and let the timer reset. However can you trade in the game? You can have a horse pull a wagon, so I guess you can use that as extended inventory, put excess weapons/bows/shields on the wagon. As long as you don't walk too far (or enter a shrine, reload) it should stay on the wagon. Not very practical and I don't think you can sell weapons anyway? Maybe a good stress test for the game, keep loading weapons from camps on the cart, how many can you fit.
And the main problem with the open world approach is, I'm already at the dozenth temple / place that gives me access denied or a locked gate. Find the quest person first ugh. It's all an empty stage until you trigger the quest or approach from the right direction.
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