It is not. But that's not what you argued in your previous post, hence my disagreement with you.

Morrowind is in my top ten games of all time and it is the best Elder Scrolls title, but it doesn't match when it comes to its physics, and the storyline is scripted, for example. Combat in Morrowind leaves a lot to be desired. Although Morrowind has a lot of other things to offer, such as a very interesting and detailed lore, and a great scaling of progression which does not make you feel overpowered until you are essentially a demigod. The latter is something Oblivion and Skyrim suffered from.

"I can name a few: the physics systems (arched arrows, fire fluidity, ragdoll, objects fall realistically, accurate kinematics and dynamics, bouyancy), very little copying and pasteing as far as shrines are concerned, dungeon complexity, true open world (no loading between areas), truly non-linear main story (you can attempt to kill Ganon whenever, but are rewarded for all else you do; you aren't just walking from script A to script B), above-average verticality, intuitive cooking, horse-taming, sailing and other mechanics, and survivality concerns due to weather system. All of this when added together provides an experience more than the sum of its parts, and the attention to detail in the game, in general, is excellent. "

Highlighted the things Far Cry covers in some form or another. The things it doesn't cover are replaced by other things like flying and driving.

BOTW is a good open world game. It does some things better and some things worse than other open world games. So as far as open world gameplay goes it's on par and not beyond. I'm even in the same trot I usually find myself in Far Cry and gothic by scouring the area trying to find materials and secrets.

BOTW is fine as it is. If it didn't have its easy to fix flaws it might be better than your usual good open world game.

Your argument is very flimsy as you flat out admit that the are things it doesn't cover then come back with "But but you can still do this", I've played all the FC games BOTW has an equivalent for most if not all you can do in them and far more.

FC on the otherhand has no answer for many of the things in Zelda, you can't fully manipulate the physics in FC, you can't use an enemy's body parts as weapons in FC, you can't store kinetic energy in boulders grab on to them and ride them as they fly off in FC, you can't burn the ground to cause an updraft jump off you horse for height and use the updraft to fly in FC, you can't manipulate gravity to move or throw objects at enimies in FC etc... Sorry but FC doesn't even come close to what you can do in BOTW.

All these things relate to the magic setting that is of course Zelda specific. I also haven't said that Far Cry is better. I only said that all open world games have their flaws and things they do better than BOTW. BOTW still has flaws that all in all bog it down to the level of other open world games that do some things better but have different flaws.

You said it yourself, it's about the sum of the things and if you factor everything in BOTW it's not better or worse than other open world games. At least for me but apparently I have a weird taste and put more emphasis on certain things that others don't mind.

It's also weird that you praise the realistic physics and then go on about the completely unrealistic amount of updraft from small fires.

Again excuses, you've been given examples of things that aren't done in other open worlds and the only response is an excuse, we're not talking about what game is better either as that was never even mentioned in any context we're talking about which world you can do more in and BOTW wins that by a landslide which is a major reason the majority of people playing it are enjoying the game and why critics praised it.

You're also rattle as you're mixing up someone else's reply with mine I didn't talk about realistic physics per say and even then being able to manipulated them in unrealistic ways doesn't undermine the person's point. Sorry end of the day FC doesn't even compare to what you can do in BOTW and I don't care for excuses either.

I played Witcher 3.  I think the performance issues are far more significant in BotW.  

At least BotW doesn't have those terrible Witcher load times though.  

The reality is, a 98 metascore is both a blessing and a curse. It will certainly help sell the game. But, it sets expectations so sky high that no game can realistically reach them.

I'd say any game that scores over 95 is going to have this problem.

At release the performance issues were similar. All versions of the Witcher 3 had an annoying stutter, long load times, and the console versions had framerate drops to the low 20's. These issues took a dozen patches to fix. 

what is the deal with people obsessing over user metacritic scores? there are loads of troll reviews for most big exclusives, it's nothing new and Zelda isn't somehow meant to be above that kind of thing

as for the game, after watching quite a lot of it, I'm struggling to see what exactly makes it a 98 rather than a 91/92, but I'll reserve full judgement for when playing.