Your age doesn't make a difference. I've been playing Zelda games all my life too. And BotW and TotK appeal to me more than any other Zelda game.

You didn't like BotW. Why are you playing TotK then? You were complaining so much here and yet you still play it?

I gotta say, at least you don't lie like these idiots on Metacritic saying there are no changes from BotW in the overworld and the game only runs at 20fps and there are only koroks and shrines and nothing else and the dungeons are exactly like the divine beasts and the world is empty and barren blablabla.

It's rather absurd. I, who knows BotW's world through and through notice every even smallest difference everywhere and in many places barely recognise anything in TotK, but people who clearly barely played BotW if at all think nothing changed and hate on it.

I was actually wondering about this myself.  Since Age of Calamity is technically an alternate timeline, Ganondorf must be sealed there as well.  It would be interesting to see how his return to form would come about in an sequel to Age of Calamity, and how he could potentially break from his seal early (since there is no 100 year time skip here).

In any case I do expect a Hyrule Warriors game to cover these themes, but in the form of a direct sequel to AoC rather than being directly tied to TotK itself.

I bought TotK for my son, who liked BotW a lot - it's actually only Zelda game he finished, since he always gets stuck in classic 3D Zelda dungeons. I'm playing it cause I want to see it for myself - and while I actually find Gfinity's review fairly well written and thought out, yet somewhat exaggerated in certain places, I don't rely on reviews to tell me how good any game is.

There are plenty of stuff in BotW formula that I find to be good...and then there are crapload that I find to be bad. I don't intend to get into detailed debate about that for the umpteenth time around here, but let's just say that I find lot of core game design and gameplay loop to be less than satisfying. And yes, my age makes a lot of difference in that opinion, since I've played crapload of openworld games in my life, both old and new, and I find BotW formula to easily break after certain amount of hours, becoming somewhat of a repetitive and predictable tedium and lacking well executed progression.

Unlike some of the overzealous fans around here, I have no problem criticizing video game franchise that is in my TOP 10 of all times (believe you me, I will bury deep in the ground new Fallout or Tomb Raider, so it's not Zelda only) - because I can see lot of the flaws in past installments, just like I can see the flaws in current installment - and I can vividly imagine formula that fixes both. That's why it's not "masterpiece" for me, and that's why I'm not raving about it without objectivity that a lot of people around here and on a larger scale seems to be showing.

As I said, I'll push on, hoping it won't become a chore. There are already stuff that I like quite a bit in TotK (Depths takes the crown for now, its Gloom "penalty" reminds me of numerous examples of similar mechanisms from Pen&Paper RPGs), and if narrative structure is really better (and it seems that it is), I might even end up liking it more than BotW - that is, if I keep to quests only and avoid most of the fluff and pointless padding (and as someone who actually likes well designed padding in open world games, I find current formula's padding to be surprising amount of times poorly executed).

Anyway, back to the game.

This notion that everyone should just agree outright that BotW and TotK are both undeniable masterpieces and everyone who disagrees is wrong is a bit, well, creepy and concerning. I can't say anything about Tears of the Kingdom since I haven't played it, and I probably won't for a very long time still, but I never thought Breath of the Wild was a masterpiece. It's an excellent game, and one I enjoyed very much, but it's nowhere near the pedestal so many people have placed it on, in my opinion of course. I don't begrudge anyone who loves the game and considers it one of the greatest games ever made, but I also easily understand how others may not view it in a similar way.

I recognise that both GoW and BOTW are increadibly well made games. I'm not sure what everyone's definition of a masterpiece is, so I don't have much to add about that.

I don't neccesarily feel that I dislike some of these games as a whole either. At least I didn't get to that point in BOTW, as I only played for a few hours.
But I did force myself play through the entierty of GoW when I probably should have stopped earlier. I ended up liking the sequel a lot more, but got about halfway through it and then played something else.
(On the subject of buying a sequel to a game you didn't like, I didn't personally buy Ragnarok. My girlfriend bought it for herself, and we share PSN accounts. Perhaps the person above may have bought TOTK for his son that he mentioned?)

One factor is if a game looks interesting enough to make me want to try it. I can suspect that it's good and that I will like it, but if I have several other games waiting for me where I'm sure I'll have a good time, I'll play them "first" and then the cycle repeats itself.

And if I do try a game and the moments where I have fun are more spread out, or it doesn't compell me to turn on the power of my console when I'm not playing, then it's more a case of wanting to play something else that I feel will be more consistently fun for me. 

Also, relevant, if no one posted it yet:

I do think we should have critical discussions of the games but I don't think now is the time for that. The game is new people are enjoying it and want to talk to others that are enjoying it. It's a bit of a buzz kill having people that didn't even like botw coming in here immediately shitting all over the new one. Give it a few weeks let people finish the game and the hype to wear off and then get critical about it.

I think lack of critical discussions can really hurt communities on this site. For example the sony fanbase on here seems almost dead, very little activity or discussions and I think that is in large part due to some sony fans on this site becoming very aggressive when people criticise anything made by sony. The amount of times I've seen people called bigots for not liking certain games is ridiculous and extremely reductive. Sorry if this last paragraph is a bit off topic.

Muddle Buds - I like that they are in game, it's more or less Confusion spell, it gives you a tool to tackle the problem differently than heads on approach. What I didn't figured out so far is if monsters have anything akin to Wisdom/Will Saving Throw (to put it into D&D terminology) that will be checked in the background to decide if they are influenced by it?
Haven't get around to try it on all different enemies, but so far it seems all that I tried on were susceptible to it...any other experiences so far?

I don't think a game being new should exclude critical discussion, as that's the time when most people are playing it and when you can have the most active discussions about it. As I mentioned, I can't really say anything about TotK as I haven't played it, but other people's criticism of a game should in no way influence anybody's enjoyment of said game. Obviously, if those criticisms are made in bad faith and with no basis, then it's fine to ignore them, but I don't like the idea of disregarding someone's negative opinion simply because other people may not agree with it.

Besides, if somebody else's less positive views on a game affects other's enjoyment of it, then those people never had a very strong faith in their own opinion to begin with.

Haven’t bought this yet. Currently playing Advance Wars Reboot Camp. And then it’s xenoblade 3 future redeemed. I play Totk after that

The problem with a lot of the criticism from those who didn’t find BOTW and now TOTK not to their liking is that the angle they're coming from is a lot of the time is either subjective or an individual issue like how they play or what appeals to them while the central praise for the two games is often for it's emergent freedom which has objective aspects to it that can't be argued. No game offers the level of it in one package, you don't have to like it but understand that it not appealing to you or you not utilising it is not really a criticism against what the game is mainly praise for it's just more down to the individual.