Well said. You're so right. Odyssey might hit the nail on the head too. Keep and eye out for that one! :)

I love the weapon breaking system in the game. I remember a time where I only had a Korok leaf I could use to fight a Moblin. There was also a thunderstorm during this encounter. What I had to do to beat the Moblin was to drop my metallic shield and hope that the lightning struck the shield and the Moblin at the same time. It ended up working and I remember feeling so accomplished with myself. Cooking is also awesome as I find constantly find myself making different elixers. Skyrim is still my favorite open world game when it comes to atmosphere... but Zelda's artstyle and feeling of adventure appeal to me in a different fashion.

Still havent played skyrim yet. Perhaps i'll pick it up on the switch. Thanks for the vote of confidence. 

That generally happens to me within 10 or so hours of most open world games.
BotW is one of the few open world games I have finished.

At least with BotW you can finish it within an hour after you get past the starting point.

Its special, but its not that special.

The likes of Assassin's Creed and Shadow of War appeal for reasons and mechanics superior to what we find in BotW. Be it stealth gameplay, general combat systems, nemesis system, leveling, story or music. Even the settings themselves - Ancient Egypt and Middle Earth.

Its revolutionary, theres no doubt about that, but other open world games are doing things that (IMO) are superior to things in BotW.

Zelda BoTW nailed the exploration aspect, imo. So, it nailed the "Open-World" part of "Zelda Open-World."

Now, for to wait for a game to nail the "Zelda" part of "Zelda Open-World"

It's a great game no doubt, but I highly disagree with the popular notion that it's a perfect 10/10 without significant flaws. For me the game was more fun at the beginning than at the end, and that's a problem. You start with pretty much every ability and every enemy and puzzle type from the get go, meaning there's very little progression in gameplay. So it's fun experiencing and learning the mechanics for the first 20 hours, but then starts becoming stale as it hardly changes for the next 80 hours of gameplay. Then of course I could pick at other things like meager rewards for exploration, lack of enemy variety, almost every boss being a joke, despite them actually trying the story still fits right in with Nintendo's usual efforts, dungeons/shrines being samey and uninteresting, and so ons.

-Lonely_Dolphin

Honestly... I think the lack of progression in your character is the thing people love most about this game. Lack of character progression is a valid argument since inclusion of upgrade systems could make gameplay more varied. However... I think the people that love this game enjoy it because they have to improve in the game with little artifical interference. Maintaining a similar playstyle throughout the game means the player has to improve on the game by themselves in order to beat it. They get items such as extra hearts and stamina... but players still have to master their own playstyle in order to move further. It's a lot more rewarding when Link gets stronger armor or weapons since he was able to get it due to the player's increasing skill. I think players would feel a lot less rewarded if they had an arbitrary upgrade system that made improving in the game by themselves feel pointless. That's just my viewpoint though... as games should be left up to the interpretation of the player. BOTW is definitely not perfect as it does have certain issues with structure.

BotW is one of the best games I've ever played - maybe even THE best game of all time. No other open world game has ever been this fun to explore. However, there are still things that could have been better, like the dungeons (shrines) and the story.

I hope they'll make a sort of sequel, like Majora's Mask was to Ocarina of Time. That game could become the perfect game in my opinion.

It's the only game I've set time aside during University to play...not my proudest of choices but I enjoyed the hell out of it. Looking forward to what they do next as there's a lot of room for improvement. But for Nintendo EAD's first Open World RPG, it's amazing.