That's wrong. Just proving.

Terrain elevation does change gameplay; it can hide secrets and other features, and obscure the terrain ahead, motivating exploration, and pushing you to search for higher vantage points, which may themselves require searching for a path that can reach them. You could miss a whole dungeon because  you didn't check the far side of a hill.

Wind Waker's flat ocean does none of this.

Wait, are you actually trying to argue that the act of "checking the far side of the hill" contitutes as meaningful gameplay? Just because you can't see the other side of the hill doesn't mean that there's more things to do because of it. That isn't something extra to do. That isn't added content. That just adds more ways to do the same "boring" thing.

Look, I'd rather have the hills and trees than the ocean too, but I'm not going to act like it's for any other reason then that it looks better riding a horse up and down a hill. You may have to look harder to find that content, but all you're doing is riding Epona the same distance to it that you wuld have if there wasn't a hill. You know what else motivates exploration? Seeing something interesting and then going to it, like every moment of exploration done in WW.

If that's what you consider "content," that and maybe walking around one, or heck maybe even a hundred, trees that might have something behind them, then yeah, Zelda U has infinitely more things to do in much closer proximity to each other.

It's simply not true to say that terrain variation is purely cosmetic. It affects the way you traverse and navigate said terrain in the same way a dungeon is different from a corridor. WW you just point your ship in a direction and cruise across a flat expanse of 99% nothingness.

The terrain vatiation you speak of absolutely is purely cosmetic. You're still just pointing your horse in one direction and cruising, only the expanse isn't nessicarily flat.

Well, either way OP, I hope you're correct about the Wind Waker comparisons. WW was the last truly great, console addition to the series.

Not saying that the others were necessarily bad, just that I've never wanted to replay them unlike just about every other game in the series.

I suggest, Zelda a link to the past on 3ds or Super nintendo, which ever you have. Great game.

Again, you cannot ride a horse up a cliff, and presumably not across water either.

I honestly didn't even have any issue with WindWaker. Granted the Triforce Quest wasn't anticipated by me, but I didn't mind it. Plus the design was ingenious in my opinion! Zelda U looks like the perfect art style. Mature but infused with a touch of creativity. Almost like Twilight Princess and WindWaker combined, kinda like Skyward Sword but better

Just like you couldn't sail your boat onto islands. The cliffs you speak of, and any other variation from the fields are going to be just like the islands and/or the submarines, shops, enemy outposts, etc. That's the point he's making. They all serve the same purpose.