-The Legend of Zelda's gameplay loop has never been particularly great. It's probably the single most thing that keeps many of the games in the series from being a favorite of all time and holds them back to just being simply great, but unsurprising. The way Zelda fetishizes dungeons has never been good for the series, but I think that's an aspect that got lost in the post-ALTTP games, because Nintendo put so much of their manpower to making sure the excellent game design shined in the dungeons themselves, that (almost) all of the best gameplay in Zelda games is relegated to the dungeons. Of course when you design your game around that mentality the dungeons are going to be what sticks out the most, but a lot of the best parts of the Zelda games is the worldbuilding and character interactions, which are not propped up as much because that's not where the meat and potatoes of the game is. Having a Zelda game where most of the important content is in the overworld is actually a big step in the right direction, because in dungeons the Zelda team doesn't have to think about story, doesn't have to think about worldbuilding, doesn't generally focus on interesting scripted scenarios of any kind: it's just solve the puzzles, beat the boss, and get the item. And oh boy, the way Zelda handles items. It feels so artificial, especially in comparison to something like Metroid. In Metroid, you need an item to traverse areas you've already been to, which leads to a new area often. Sometimes, an item you get opens up a whole world of possibilities and areas you didn't even think were possible or existed, which leads to a lot of "aha" moments when an area you've already been to is actually a lot bigger than you previous expected. This pretty much never happens in Zelda games, because the area you unlock is only useful for that specific portion of the game after you've got the new gadget.
Now, I still think these are great games, and I think some of the games handled this better than others (Majora's Mask handled it almost perfectly, ALTTP actually did it fairly well also). And I do actually want a return to more traditional, "special" dungeons in Breath of the Wild, because I like a lot of Zelda dungeons. But all of this is to say, that if I had to pick between the Zelda team fleshing out the overworld more and making better sidequests, or making a lot of traditional dungeons with unlockable gadgets, I'd pick the former in a heartbeat. I want Zelda to focus more on storytelling, adding meaningful inhabitans to the world, and putting a lot of density to each portion of the map. Not less.
-With the exception of maybe Sunshine (since I haven't played it yet), Nintendo has never really perfected or executed sandbox-style Mario very well. I played Mario 64 for the first time recently and was just baffled at how many poor design decisions there were, a lot of which weren't necessarily tied to it being the first big-budge 3D platformer. Super Mario Odyssey corrects a lot of those mistakes, but makes the objectives themselves less interesting and much easier to accomplish, leading to a fairly vapid experience. It's funny because the fundamental aspect of sandbox Mario has arguably been near-perfect since the beginning; Mario controls really well even in 64. But I can't get behind a lot of the game surrounding that, despite 3D Mario's movement mechanics still being one of the most magical experiences in gaming.
-I don't think even a lot of the acclaimed video game stories are really all that great. I think if I was to pick two games that really had amazing stories where I can't nitpick much about them it would probably be Ace Attorney and Silent Hill 2, but even then Ace Attorney is as much book as it is video game. There are definitely games where a takeaway has been how great a certain aspect of the story was, like Iconoclasts and Axiom Verge. But honestly even with those titles I kind of forgot a lot of the meaningful details of those stories months after playing the games, maybe that's just because of my memory, maybe that's for some other reason. I also think Final Fantasy IX and Final Fantasy VII have pretty amazing stories during parts of the games, but the thematic switch lets those games down a lot...
That's all I'll type for now.









