Why are we comparing Zelda to RPG’s anyway, Zelda isn’t an RPG.

Ultimately, the devs explained the design of BOTW through their development videos as shown on Nintendo's YouTube channel as well as through their CDC panel. They provided reasons for the elements placed in BOTW. From their inspiration of the original Zelda to other games such as Skyrim to the various concepts they explored, Aonuma and Fujibayashi had a vision on what their open-world Zelda can be with the power of the Wii U and Switch. Of course, not everything is perfect and some in this forum have made their displeasure known. Nevertheless, the game is what it is, just like any other game, whether they are highly acclaimed or not.

I, personally, have not enjoyed a game like this in a long time and I have had fond memories from getting my first horse to challenging my first Lynel and Guardian to discovering the various landmarks to other random encounters. I even had a 12-hour play session, which is something that I have never done before. I have played games like Red Dead, Skyrim, Fallout 3, GTA V, etc., and very few kept me engaged and immersed into the world as BOTW.

Many would argue that it is (I'm not one of those). Still, BotW is influenced by open-world RPGs - after all, before LoZ 1 there was Ultima...

Many would be wrong.

And ‘influenced by’ is fine, but ‘influenced by’ isn’t ‘being the same as’, but I don’t want to be dragged into such a debate, so I’ll leave it at that.

Breath of the Wild was the obvious next step for the Zelda franchise after Ocarina of Time.

The first two Zeldas were fairly experimental games for Nintendo. Link to the Past was the jump to 16-bit and a layered world. Ocarina of Time was the jump to full 3D... but even before Ocarina of Time was released, there was mass speculation of an open world style game.

When Zelda jumped to 3D, fundamental changes occurred from Link to the Past's style puzzles. Link to the Past's were about overcoming a challenge or trial and error; Ocarina of Time began to have puzzles that were more about finding just what that challenge was or seeking out an object hidden in a large area in order to progress the game. It wasn't so much about exploration as it was about searching for stuff. To me, the fact that they continued doing this in future Zeldas was the wrong path for the franchise. The next obvious step for Zelda was open world - Wind Waker and Twilight Princess both showed that Nintendo was thinking this too, but weren't willing to commit to such a huge project. Nintendo was trying to keep their timelines under control after the N64 era, and I believe this was a part of that: a game like Breath of the Wild takes an entire generation and a big highly-skilled team: Nintendo team may be the only one in the world who could have made this game.

To say "Breath of the Wild has no dungeons" is false. The game has several large-scale dungeons including the divine beasts, the Yiga Clan hideout, Hyrule Castle, and the DLC content locations. It also has a large number of shrines which have a much more classic feel of overcoming a challenge or trial and error than the previous 3D Zeldas - not to mention the amount of time you spend in a shrine is close to the amount of time you spend in a dungeon in the classic 2D Zeldas. In addition, if you hit a point in Breath of the Wild that you can't pass, you can leave and either A. come back later or B. never look at it again - since you don't need to pass it in order to progress further in the game. Most people are going to have a different experience with Breath of the Wild.

To say that Breath of the Wild isn't a dungeon based experience is correct; but to say that it doesn't more than adequately replace them is dishonest. Breath of the Wild has many different regions: Mount Doom, Akalla, Gerudo Desert, Faron Woods, etc... This is where the game lives instead of in the dungeons. It's heavily exploration based, and then when you get to one of the shrines scattered in each region, very challenge/trial and error or challenge based - much like the classic Zelda experience.

The way I see it, Breath of the Wild is the long due next step from Ocarina of Time.

And like some others have mentioned, Breath of the Wild for me is the most interesting and satisfying game experience in a very long time. I've been playing Nintendo games since the 1980s, my kids are the same age and older than I was when I started playing. Basically, I thought that after Ocarina of Time I was never going to feel that way about a game again; until I did with Breath of the Wild. In a way, Breath of the Wild was everything I wanted in Ocarina of Time, fully realized.

This hit the nail on the head especially on being the next major step where the game lives in its regions and not dungeons, I will say SS also showed that they were looking at other mechanical aspects like upgrading and less reliance on a whole inventory of useless items it was also the game that began to shy away from dungeons and focus more on regions while ALBW showed a non linear and more free approach was on their minds.

Agreed on the shrines. Fortunately I poked around and explored a lot between each shrine so it was only a minor annoyance and never killed my momentum.  

Check out this cute Zelda ornament!

$17.99 at Hallmark.com.

"It's dangerous to go alone! Take this cool Christmas tree ornament of Link, wielding a sword and the Magical Shield, for a heroic holiday journey. Press the button to hear the 8-bit theme song from the classic Nintendo video game, "The Legend of Zelda". Battery-operated sound feature includes two replaceable LR44 batteries."

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Wyrdness said:

Oh my god, I love this!