I've found climbing to break the game from fairly early in game - 2 stamina bars is all you need to get anywhere, and with infinite respawns of ingredients, you can cook up enough shit to even climb in rain without lot of problems.
Now, I'm all for climbing in games (especially in RPGs), been clamoring about it since forever, but it needs to be done properly - committing to that should be a playstyle decision and take a lot of skill points and learning in-game how to do it (talking RPGs in general, not BotW) - this will give you expert climber, but your character will inevitably suffer in other areas.
The way it's done in BotW just kills exploration for me, so world design becomes broken easily - just climb here, maybe find another worthless loot and glide down again with paraglider.

I skipped whole Hyrule Castle by accident really - not that I cared to bother with it much, tbh, at that point I was so bored with game that I couldn't care less. I did reload when I beat Ganon to see what I missed and went through castle - let's just say I haven't felt I've missed much first time for skipping so much of it.

In the end, it was decent game, but it just shows how much they lack when it comes to building open worlds, with proper main and side quest (well, most devs do).

When I finished it, first thing I thought of was - will I ever replay it? And unlike all other 3D Zeldas, answer was resounding no - maybe I'll even press myself to play through MM finally after this, but I'd take any other 3D Zelda over BotW.

I think its hard to deny that BOTW would be a much better game if it had 5-6 OOT/MM style temples in it in addition to the shrines. 

Not really dungeons were the reason the series became stale to begin hence why BOTW moved away from all of that, the dungeons became too much of a focus on the game were as in BOTW the focus became the whole of Hyrule. Players who enjoy BOTW will talk of the fun they have in the game's world and the things they're finding in it as well as can do in it unlike in a game like TP were the world outside the dungeons is non existent.

This is why the shrine were such a good idea as rather than force the whole dungeon thing on players they can take part in it if they want and it's not a long drawn out slog through them.

That's like saying having more gold is better than having less gold.

It’s not that the other Zelda games suck. It’s that from the very beginning the bar was set high.

Legend of Zelda - groundbreaking in its time. Many would consider this better than Mario, and at the least the other main Nintendo series.
Adventure of Link was a lot of fun for RPG fans, but by that point in time it wasn’t altogether so far above other existing side scrolling adventures (Faxanadu, Castlevania) or RPGS (Particularly Dragon Warrior games). It held a special place for me at the time, and I still play it to this day.

Link to the Past was the Zelda game that passed the bar. In various publications it remained the #1 16-bit game for years.

Ocarina of Time passed the bar
Majora’s Mask, while creative in many ways that would make it more interesting to people like me, didn’t exactly blow away people like Ocarina of Time, Link to the Past, or the original Zelda.

All the Zelda games that came out in the meantime had interesting elements, but not one of them blew people away. They weren’t hitting that bar that the previously mentioned trip of games were. The handheld games weren’t even trying... At least until Link Between Worlds where they said “see this non-linear approach to a classic? This is what we can do!” and people loved it.

Breath of the Wild is the first game since Ocarina of Time that is a clear argument for “this is the best game you can play right now” and it blew people away - myself included. So yeah, it may sound like I bash previous Zelda games, but I still liked the series quite a bit. Part of the issue with past games is the pacing was getting longer and longer - and they felt very linear, with the overworld being obstacle courses between dungeons.

Breath of the Wild made Legend of Zelda LIVE in the world, the first time the game has felt like that since perhaps the SNES. Despite being a FAR larger world, the pacing issues of dungeons was fixed - and while thematically the temples may not be as interesting; they overall felt a lot better to play through because they weren’t an oppressive 250 minute trek through puzzles and hide-n-seek games (little keys hidden in obscure locations in very large rooms or series of rooms). The pacing was brought back down to the level of Link to the Past. So aside from the experience being quite mind blowing, it was also a lot more fun than Zelda had been in 25 years.

Emergent gameplay is also a factor, a lot of people like to get very inventive with the game and it’s physics. I think this is a big part of the appeal and what draws others in. Not only is it non-linear, but there’s a lot of ways to do stuff, not just the same thing every time like all previous Zelda games. People have different experiences, and so when people talk to each other about the game, they’re exchanging unique information - you could talk to 25 different people and get 25 different stories about the same area of Hyrule.

There’s a lot of internal storytelling to - people on youtube trying to be the best snowboarder, or the funniest jackass, or the most prolific and prosperous hunter-gatherer; and they teach people their methods to success; some like to be inventors, and they show what kind of flying machines they have created and give tutorials on how you can do it too. Trying to herd guardians... There’s A LOT of emergent gameplay and storytelling. It’s unlike most games in that way: Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft are the only two I can really think of, and Zelda DESTROYS them in production values (not that the fans of DF and Minecraft give an ass about production values though - DF players often say that the storytelling is so good that better visuals and UI are really a minor detail).

But yeah, Breath of the Wild topped the bar - that doesn’t mean that other Zelda games suck, only that they aren’t in that club of Legend of Zelda, Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, and Breath of the Wild - each of which in their time were considered by many to be the very best game you could play and an undeniably awesome experience.

You can have the existing BOTW world PLUS massive OOT/MM style dungeons. You're not subtracting, you're adding dozens of hours of gameplay. Everyone would be happy. It already has dungeons anyway, the divine beasts. However they are short, with cookie cutter designs and music. Make them more massive and intricate, with well designed, detailed rooms and puzzles and OOT/MM style orchestral music and you have a better game.

I agree, for a large part Dungeons felt discouraging namely towards the end. They will just get longer and longer, and I always felt exploring and discovering was something that should be more highlighted. 

You're adding clutter that's the problem as these dungeons already have their void filled by the shrines, dungeons stopped being enjoyable for many people and started becoming tedious this is why the shrines are so well received a positive reaction because they're not these long drawn out moments like in previous games should the player decide to dabble in them.

BOTW did what the series needed and reduce all of that to focus on the world, as someone has mentioned they became discouraging where as exploration and discovering was never really touched on in the prior games. If anything they shouldn't be adding dungeons but more towns, secrets and places to find.

?????????

I agree 100%. The Shrines made the “dungeon” aspect of the game feel fresh for what felt like the first time since the Forest Temple in Ocarina of Time. Rather than stringing up an insanely long portion of the game that might take you hours, it broke it up into smaller locations with 1-4 puzzles; I never finished TP or Wind Waker because in each game my whole progress got blocked in some kind of a hide n seek game that was on the critical path. I had to find some small item in a very large 3D area in order to progress. I could have gone to gamefaqs to look it up, I likely had done that a bunch of times already in each game for similar things - but you hit a point where it’s just like “I can’t be bothered with this crap!” And I turned it off... I probably had similar issues in OOT and MM, but I probably wasn’t sick of the formula yet.

With Breath of the Wild, if I couldn’t get past something, I’d leave and come back later (you can warp to any Shrine you’ve visited). Breath of the Wild lives and Breaths in its overworld, and that fresh air focus is quite a breath of fresh air. Forcing in a bunch of long-slog dungeons is not only regressive in the series, but it’s adding back in the elements that caused the franchise to stagnate in the first place. Putting in something that takes 2-4 hours of stuff you HAVE to complete to finish it is not better than several 15-30 minute things.

Number 1: the smaller ones means you spend a lot more time doing stuff outside.

Number 2: way less chance on getting stuck after an hour because you can’t find some little switch somewhere in one of twelve giant rooms, and you need to in order to complete this dungeon; and then there’s like ten other things like that.

If we’re talking about themes, then yeah, I have no problem with - for example - theming Mt. Doom Shrines with lava and such; Forest Shrines like the forest temple; etc... But doubtlessly, Breath of the Wild’s Shrines fixed the problem with the sloggy dungeons that caused the franchise to become stale and fall from the position of grace it held from NES to N64. Breath of the Wild is the Zelda game that put it back up there.