This post contains minor gameplay spoilers, no story elements; but you have been warned. Also, this is a very long post.

Everyone is talking about different aspects of Breath of the Wild, either in a good or bad way, but there’s one key aspect of this game that does it exceptionally well that I haven’t seen mentioned often which I can’t pinpoint with an exact name but I call it:

Players learning through experience.

 Let me put the best example of a game that already does this: Dark Souls.

Whether you like Dark Souls or not, one thing it does very well is teaching the player, through gameplay, how to approach a situation. You might start trying to kill everything in your way but after many deaths you realize that you might want to consider changing your strategy, maybe try to kill some enemies from a distance first, maybe try to sneak out and get a powerful hit, and at the end of the day, the player as it fights bosses and tougher enemies, gets better in combat as well.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild does this beautifully, and for an open world this is even more impressive.

When you start the game, you might want to just rush and kill everything is your way, this for the most part will end your life; large group of enemies can destroy you if you are not careful, for one they can hit very hard and second your weapons don’t do that much damage at the beginning, this encourage players to try different approaches, sneak out, killing from a distance, use your magnesis rune, use a cucoo, etc

By doing those other approaches you will fight enemies in a safer environment, maybe 1 or 2 at a time; since the game is so big, you will find tons of scenarios where the above happens and you will slowly start to get better and better in combat. You will then feel better in taking larger groups of enemies, because you have slowly been learning how to fight, learning enemy’s movements, how they attack depending on the weapon they have equipped, this will in turn help you get more flurry attacks.

I wanted to avoid the topic but is a perfect example of a good use of this system: weapon fragility.

There are basically 3 main types of weapons: spears, two handed swords and one handed swords. At the beginning of the game you might be good with one type but suck with the others; by having weapons break frequently you are encourage to use all types of weapons, making the player slowly get better with each one; as an example: how to handle two handed swords and not having a shield will make you better at dodging, which means more flurry attacks. I sucked with two handed weapons at the beginning of my adventure, but by the end I felt very comfortable with it plus the other types; in another game, I would have probably stayed with one type of weapon and keep it the whole journey, this adds a minor but very important aspect of variety to the game.

Another great example of this are the mini bosses throughout the world; while technically not a mini-boss (because it doesn’t have a life bar) but rather a very hard normal enemy, the best example is the Lynel. This dude will destroy you in a way Dark Souls bosses can, but similar to Dark Souls, by fighting it a few times you start learning his attacks and patterns, by getting flurry attacks and blocking his attacks you can get around this enemy; the first time I encountered one I got completely destroyed, but after some persistence and changing my strategy a bit (like drinking a defense elixir) I was able to defeat it, and I didn’t have to find a better armor or a better weapon, I used the same gear as before. I never felt so satisfied in a game in a long time.

Now, one of the reasons I think this is done incredible well is because enemies get tougher as you play; I believe it has something to do with the Blood Moon, though not 100% sure. The Blood Moon not only resurrects enemies you have defeated, but it makes them stronger, by the end of my adventure I fought White Bokoblins which can hit you very hard; and here precisely is where the magic comes:

Even though I was getting better armor, better weapons and special abilities I never felt overpowered in the overworld; I always found the game to be perfectly balanced, there was never a group of enemies so strong that I couldn’t take them, nor so weak that I could just breeze through it, even with my better armor and 15+ hearts I was still getting hurt a lot, making it still reliable to use other approaches other than combat and for the combat I already had 80+ hours of experience where I felt comfortable going crazy.

The only disappointing thing I can mentioned about this “Players learning through experience” is that unlike the enemies in the overworld, the main story bosses don’t get stronger as far as I know. I do feel I was a bit overprepared for most of the dungeon bosses except for one by the point I tackle them, and the final boss was a bit on the easy side, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t take away how amazingly well the system is build. Plus, is fun to see, or maybe doing it yourself, challenges like beating the game in under an hour.

Grumble grumble weapons break grumble grumble won't learn  or use different strategies.

Ehem... I do think the combat is quite innovative (for Zelda). Instead of adding new mechanics or change the control scheme, they added more weapons and different ways to approach combat. It's not about the flurries or motiong controls or reaction times. It's about how you approach enemies, which weapons you use, the surroundings, what enemy you are fighting. Also, do Blood Moons really make enemies stronger? I thought it was just to respawn.

I do think the rewards are mostly underwhelming. Like, I fought a group of Lizalfos with strong Boomerangs and Bows, and ny reward was a Gerudo Bow, which is much weaker, and breaks much faster... 

That's what I believe, is the only thing I can think of that makes stronger enemies to appear (like the white bokoblins). Either that or the story progress is what makes them appear.

Well said. One of the great things about Demon's/Dark Souls is that every enemy encounter is a learning experience. Even death is a learning experience. I'm constantly learning, adapting, and experimenting in BotW, which is a big part of what keeps me coming back for more.

Now that I think of it, Breath of the Wild is almost a combination of my top three games: Ocarina, Deus Ex, and Halo. The action-adventure elements of Ocarina, the emergent gameplay of Deus Ex, and the improvisational combat of Halo. No wonder I love it so much :P

To my knowledge, Blood Moons only respawn enemies/refill the health bars of one (some poor soul had the final boss' health bar refill during the fight). Tougher enemies are just a factor of which areas you happen to visit. As a personal example, I did the Goron divine beast second and encountered some really difficult enemies along the way. When I did the Gerudo divine beast, I ran into almost exclusively cupcake enemies that I one or two shotted.

BotW definitely does let the player learn by doing, although I think the praise might be slightly misplaced. It's not so much that letting the player learn by doing is an extremely difficult concept to design, it's that very few games are willing to let the player fail and instead handhold the player into oblivion (something the Zelda series itself has been incredibly guilty of in recent 3D installments). So kudos to the dev team for being willing to let players fail.

I do disagree with the feeling of overpoweredness, though. The powers you get from completing divine beasts and ancient arrows (which can one shot Lynels and active Guardians) are ludicrously overpowered.

I think I'm about 50% done. Beginning to miss that feeling of helplessness I used to have. Anyway, agree with the OP 100%

Mipha's Grace has a very long cooldown, so I don't think is overpowered; there were time where I was revived during a Lynel's fight just to die a minute later haha.

Daruk's protection only has 3 charges and a pretty long cool down as well; I usually had to burn my 3 charges during a single encounter, though that might be me just sucking at the game.

Revali's gale doesn't do anything for combat other than escape I guess.

The gerudo one (can't remember the name) was something I only use once or twice, this was my fault really; I didn't found any scenarios where it was super useful.

I maybe didn't explore as much, but the ancient arrows are pretty rare so I don't consider them overpowered, since they can ony be used a handful of time, I saved most of them for Ganon and they didn't do that much damage; unless you buy them but I personally decided not to do it.

As you progress (I'm not sure how that's measured, but I imagine via main quests and/or health/stamina boosts) the game spawns increasingly difficult monsters. It's not merely a matter of where you are; they get progressively tougher and tougher, to the points where most everywhere I visit now includes Silver and Black mobs where I once never encountered them.

Oh man, you've gotta go back and try Urbosa's Fury out some more. It does like 25% damage to Lynels and puts them into a stun state for 5 or so seconds where you can get a ton of free hits in. It also does about 5% damage to Calamity Ganon and removes his invincibility for a few seconds in the final boss fight.

Daruk's Protection is mostly useful for Guardians. If you're close enough and block a laser, the hitbox on the laser will hit the Guardians as well. It's usually enough to kill a broken Guardian instantly and will do like 60% to a fully functioning one. Has a similar effect for Ganon's laser.

Blood moon makes some enemies stronger, not all. I got white koblins around Hateno that require a full sword worth of hits to finish, meanwhile I can one hit kill Hinox. (One spin attack with thunderclap finish) They're dead easy compared to what's in camps now)

Lynels used to destroy me too, yet now I seek them out for upgrades. They still take more than one high level 2 hander to take down even though I only flurry rush them.