The thing is, Zelda isn't meant to be played the same way as Horizon, so I don't think comparing the combat is really fair. Zelda aims to give you multiple ways to fight using the environment and your skills (magic powers and whatnot) making it more of a playground or puzzle. Horizon on the other hand is much more of a pure action game where you run around avoiding attacks and shooting.

Zelda is generally meant to be played slower and more creatively while Horizon is meant to be fast action.

I don't think it is anywhere close to correct to say that most of these things can be compared objectively...

So from what you saw in this trailer you are sure that this will deliver on being a good open world Zelda, but you dont get the hype? Is that not enough to be hyped already? I will add to that the mystical feeling the world oozes, how beautiful the artstyle looks, how completely free the game feels and how nice interactions with nature look, I mean this is the most different zelda I have seen since maybe Majoras Maks, and it looks, as you say, good, so I think you understand the hype better than you think even if you dont feel it.

Both look gorgeous, but I do think Horizon's graphics, on a technical level especially, hold a deeper "wow" factor than Zelda. (I'll also just be blunt, Horizon has a redhead and robot dinosaurs, which appeals to my tastes in a way that Zelda, as fond of it as I am, doesn't).  And, to be fair, Horizon is my most anticipated game. 

Personally I find a high density of animal life in some other games to be unrealistic. It is almost as if somebody has never experienced actual nature in their life. For example, the animal life in this game feels much more natural than Fallout 4, Dragon Age Inquisition, and possibly as good as the Witcher 3. The animations are natural, and the behavior of the animals (they run in herds naturally) is much more realistic. I think the scale of the world is realistic as well. That is what you perceive as empty space. But I don't find the same town every 100 in game meters interesting, and it was one of my complaints about the Witcher 3. The towns were unrealistically close and there were too many that looked like other ones. But it didn't really feel out of place, because the Witcher 3 is an RPG.

It could be very well the case they are showing an area of the map with few NPC's because they said multiple times that they didn't want to spoil anything for people - which includes any story sequence.

My favorite thing about the world is that it is seamless, dynamic, and interconnnected. It feels like a real world despite its art-style. It is something RPG's don't feel like.

By the way, at least half the Action-Adventure games I mentioned have open-world elements. If you disqualify them then I would also disqualify DA:I and the Witcher 3 from being open-world because their zones are instanced.

I'm sure it'll deliver because it's a mainline Zelda game and Nintendo's only major home console presence in the near future. I get that's why fans are starving for it, I do not get how that trailer and footage is worthy of all that praise, though. I'm disappointed with the game's art; the rest of the game looks wholly inferior to the nearly cel shaded look of the bright grassy plains, to say nothing of image quality in general. Not sure what you mean about interactions with nature; is that from the livestream? Cuz I'm not seeing anything here beyond basic stuff found in other games for years now. That can be said of most of the gameplay in general, really; new for Zelda, but basic for the industry. One thing I will agree with is the SotC and Skyrim-esque sense of discovery; I hope there's plenty of it.

So yeah, good, but nowhere near 'wow' for me right now, and certainly not like a beautifully rendered diverse ecosystem of robot fucking dinosaurs.

Actually having seen some of the stuff from the treehouse on what you can do, I swifted towards Zelda over Horizon, Zelda just looks magically fun. However still going to play Horizon and hopefully enjoy the shit out of it. Honestly ask me again in a months time and it could swift the other way again, and a month after that the other way. 

Honestly both look excellent and it is a bit sad to see either fanbase dismiss the other, but oh well, when you are tied to one console it happens sometimes.

They just showed a gliding scene in the tree-house. This game is definitely competitive when it comes to its world size and diversity.

While they are different games in a lot of ways, which makes comparing them kind of pointless, I don't agree with the bolded part.  They've shown that setting traps and pinning down your enemy is a huge part of Horizon.  They've shown the protagonist setting multiple traps and using the environment before the battle even started.  They've shown scanning for weaknesses and using different elements.  She has used a bow, a slingshot, explosives, and a spear/sword thing.  They've shown trapping wildlife and hacking it to use it in combat.  The rope-caster is one of the more inventive combat tools out there.  Combat in Horizon looks to have many creative possibilities, which is one reason I'm excited for it.

They just mentioned an "E3 Version" of the Zelda demo as opposed to a "Release Version", so they probably left stuff out of this demo.

See, now we're having a different conversation. Before, you were arguing that it wasn't empty. Now you're arguing about why it's empty. Technically we could end the conversation right here, as the whole point I was trying to make was that it's not as dense as other open world games. I never said anything about it being good or bad.

But, I do think there is another point that needs to be made, now that you bring this up.

The reason game worlds are often different from the real world is because the real world doesn't always make for the best game. For instance, the tallest mountain they seem to climb in the Treehouse stream is probably less than 300 feet high. Because it would suck if it took the player 6 hours to get to the top of a life sized, snow capped mountain.

Having a world that is more densly packed than real life is just better game design. It makes the world a more interesting place to be.

But, still super excited for BotW, I just get where this particular criticism is coming from.