For all that effort, Nintendo rewarded me with a steaming hot sh*t sandwich. Do they know what year it is? Are they aware that other games exist and that they can play them for insight? Z: BotW is a collapsing star of a game that gradually implodes over time, which is depressing for a game that starts so gloriously with such massive potential only partially realized. 

There are so many things to love here: vast landscapes, interesting enemies, wonderful artwork, beautiful music, tons of content, responsive controls, cool weapons, smart powers, etc.

However, there are awful elements that gradually wear the player down: terrible camera, outdated fighting mechanics, random collision detection, extremely underwhelming rewards, garbage gyroscopic puzzles, idiotic button mapping...

Some of these are more forgivable than others, but some are just incomprehensibly glaring. Who makes the move button the crouch button? It's a great way to stop, mid-combat. Run and jump are opposite each other? Seems legit. Enemies can stab you through one another? Solid. Swarmed by enemies? Pick one and take your beating from the rest. Dodge type is relative to enemy positioning and directional input? That's gonna be a problem? The camera will float during combat? Get used to eating sword swings.

If that doesn't get to you, wait until you finish all the shrines. Even better, do the DLC shrines. Better yet, collect all the seeds. Once you get all that out of the way, beat the game and try staving off he disappointment. Then again, there's really not much story, and the story is a trope. Since Zelda really built the foundation of its old trope, that actually doesn't bother me too much. 

How do I rate this game? I dunno...8/10? 8.5/10? If I had ignored all the side quests and just powered through, it might have been higher. Then again, the sheer amount of content warrants a high score. OoT was more complete than this, right?

For the record, I'm at 120 shrines, all regular/DLC quests, 500+ seeds, and every picture complete.

the final battle in general was a low point in the game for me. the minimal narrative did not create enough of a sense of urgency that was normally present in Zelda games. you can get lost in this game for hours, days, weeks, just exploring every nook and cranny, knocking out every shrine, and getting distracted by every shiny object, and there is never anything pushing you further towards ganon. so when i did beat the game, it didnt feel like i just fought the final boss, it just felt like i completed another arbitrary task, and coupled by the fact that no post-game content exists, i now just roam around the game, sometimes i will get bored, go back and defeat ganon again, and then carry on. BotW is an amazing game, but just not a good narrative-driven one

Yeah, I completely agree; maybe this is the plight of most open-world games, but I didn't feel that way about GTA, H:ZD, or most JRPGs.

Should’ve been a lot longer. Either that or it should’ve been a village/city which eventually leads to the castle. That way it doesn’t feel so anticilimatic

Still a legendary game though

Should’ve beat Ganon sooner.

I'm gonna DDoS your servers for that.

Me: here are some problems with the game's design and reward system, and these are the actual reasons why.

You: let me whine about your valid points and just dismiss them as "whining."

Other games exist and have existed for years, yet they don't make all of these missteps. You're literally whining that I don't share your opinion, just because it's YOUR OPINION. Think about that. We can look at the gaming landscape and find games that haven't screwed the pooch in the above boneheaded ways; they just executed better. The issue here isn't what I want from the game; the issue is that the game fails to live up to precedents set by many other games.

You dirty dog...

I agree with all of this.

You're almost definitely right.

Hahaha, go ahead and knock my Switch offline: I'll still be able to play!

True open world games have a quandary--which segment of fans should they cater to the most?

Players who quickly "beat the game" and then do the other stuff later? Or players who do everything first before heading to the supposed climax? It's like juggling fried pork chops.

How much should turning points, including finishing the main quest, affect the rest of the game-world?

Interesting appraisal. Came into the thread expecting Nintation360 tbh.