You've downplayed BotW in the past:

Best part is you don't stop yourself from handing out 10/10s.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=226558&page=1#54

Thanks for this insight, OP. This seems to align with what I've heard, but it's helpful to see someone walk through it.

It seems like Zelda and Horizon have very different design philosophies, with the former putting a bigger focus on exploration, and the latter being more story-focused. Nothing wrong with either, but I can definitely understand your sentiment. I absolutely loved how completely open Zelda felt. It's hard to explain I guess...but it really felt like I was given a world that was completely mine. I could choose to experience the story, could choose to walk around massive hills, fly from mountain to mountain, or just dress as a woman and collect and throw chickens to scare local children.

I assume Horizon gives you freedom as well, but the restrictions I see in the OP convince me that I probably wouldn't enjoy it to the same extent. Going into an open world game now, and not being able to glide across mountains, or climb essentially anything...I can't help but think it'd make me a sad boom...

I remember trying to explore in Destiny's beta. With just a few easy jumps I got on top of one of the roofs and the game started freaking out. That was the moment I knew that I never wanted to buy the game. While yes, every game tries to keep you in the play area, some games struggle at doing this invisibly. This is even more of a problem in exploration heavy games, because it makes it difficult to understand the line between "explore-able area" and "off limits" which makes me not really want to explore.

That said, I haven't played Horizon so I don't know how well it handles this type of thing.

I'm struggling to finish the game because the combat is such a bore, and the open world formula it follows has gotten stale. I just cleared a level 23 corrupted zone today, I am level 44 IIRC. It has two Rockbreakers in it. This is this second time in over 30 hours of play time that a combat scenario has been difficult, even playing on Very Hard. Again I had to use the environment to my advantage, getting to high ground where their glitch you ground dig attacks couldn't reach, then shooting off their digging claws, then hitting their weak spots again and again, killing them until they died from it. But thanks to shit AI, almost every enemy encounter in the game is too easy.

It's also hard to get motivated to continue plowing through when your map is loaded with a billion markers. It looks like an Ubi game. I'd much rather have had the map just say "point of interest" at the most and allow for some actual exploring.

No, it's the following that I consider downplaying:

"you have to be a fucking fanboy to rate a zelda a perfect score"

"look IGN review, made by the biggest nintendo fanboy there"

"zelda is way older IP, people grow up playing zelda, so its natural that it have more fanboys in the press that put the nostalgia glasses on"

What's especially damning is you don't hesitate for a moment to list games you consider 10/10. It's okay for you to hand out perfect scores but when it comes to Breath of the Wild gettin' loads of 'em, all of a sudden perfect scores are scores "that no game should have".

You sippin' haterade?

Put down that haterade bottle mate.

I wanna point out this thing you said right here:

"yet most of the time it comes down to bunny hopping around (to stay in slow motion)"

Can you play the game however you want?

Yes absolutely, but the way you worded that makes it sound like you NEED to jump all the time for slow mo in this game, and thats not the case... in fact i dont know a single person that plays this game (aside from you) who does this, i mean... you literally have a slow-mo ability called concentration that slows time and it recharges after 6 seconds, being able to do slow-mo every 6 seconds is more than enough (and against some enemies its even OP), and even then you dont need slow-mo all the time, you can perfectly just fight without it.

It gives you quite a bit of freedom but does expect you to follow a (pretty broad) linear path with closed off sections if you don't.
To compare the two:
Horizon: 1. Combat 2. Story 3. Exploration
Botw: 1. Exploration 2. Combat 3. Story
Maybe story even becomes first place in Horizon later on

Exploration is still plenty fun in Horizon yet it's not really made for it, and it fails at giving you the option to create your own path / journey. Which is kinda ironic since that's what the job of a seeker is from what I gathered. Yet perhaps I have it all wrong, still scratching the surface apparently after 18 hours. It's another long one. The ability to get sidetracked is definately there.

Maybe I just suck at it :) Yeah I know about concentration, it usually runs out before I get my shot off. I didn't upgrade it yet though, it's next on the list. When I screw up being stealthy, which usually happens, I end up jumping around in a group of angry dinobots. It works. Analog aiming is not one of my strengths.

Framerate problems never stopped you from handing out perfect scores.

How do you know?

Just because a lot of people say it doesn't make it true.

No. Just you so far. You said it yourself.

I just wanna point out that im not trying to say that you suck at it, (if it somehow came out that way) anyhow if slow-mo is what you want there are 2 upgrades that make that ability almost broken, (and definitely OP against stuff like watchers and anything with a clear accessible weak spot).

I'll have to take your word for it. I haven't played it since it launched. I distinctly remember having to change discs because I went back to a previous area, though. And changing it again after that. It was so bad, I didn't even get one of the character's Dragoon power because I didn't feel like being aggravated.