Didn't read the discussion in this thread yet, so somebody else might have said this, but personally the fact that BOTW and TOTK actually have non-trivial physics systems that make the world feel alive > eye-candy, in terms of immersion in my opinion. I hope other open-world games learn from this.

If graphics are a big concern, buy the game to support Nintendo and then use an emulator on a gaming PC with texture packs and 4k resolution. Yuzu runs games pretty great a week or two after release.

Edit: I see somebody mention BOTW vs. Horizon Zero Dawn. I love Horizon, but the fact that BOTW actually had a dynamic physics system makes it feel more modern to me than Horizon does, despite how good Horizon looks.

One still feels like the future of open world games whereas the other feels like a cinematic experience from the 2010's. The prior is going to age and has already aged better than the latter, for me. 

Ans the exact opposite comments are "30fps in 2023 is a joke"

Nah. They got super lucky Nvidia sold their very powerful chip for peanuts (cause it flopped) and they managed to squeeze out wonderful stuff on it. No way they could have their handheld more powerful than their previous home console.

6 years later, we still cannot find another arm console that come close games-wise.

Got the same feeling when Sony offered the game during Covid.

Nothing happens if you walk around bushes with a torch, you can only climb in specific places, etc. So 2014

I remember way back in 2008 or so on this forum there would be discussions about how weak the Wii was compared to the 360 and PS3. Often those of us on the Nintendo side would say, "as long as the gameplay is excellent I don't care how it looks." Then the reply would be "more powerful hardware is not just about how it looks, but allows for new experiences that couldn't be done before." Yet ironically, when I look back at that era, the games that pushed the boundaries of hardware in non-visual ways were just as often on the Wii as they were on the PS360. Xenoblade, for example, was one of the best open-world role-playing games of the 7th generation. Analogous games on other 7th generation platforms, like White Knight Chronicles  -- which had a similar combat system, art-style, and play-style had a world much smaller in scope and believability than Xenoblade. But the textures were nicer, and the image quality was better. Were and was, because now you can play the remaster of Xenoblade, which looks much better than WKC, or at a few years after Xenoblade's release you could play with a texture pack in Dolphin emulator and it looked on-par or better than WKC. Which world felt more believable and deep though? 

It is funny how much I can go back to many Wii titles and they feel more modern than quite a few PS360 titles that I enjoyed at the time. I can go back to Mario Galaxy and enjoy it without thinking, "this feels old", but recently I was playing Uncharted 1, and compared to UC4, it does feel old. Not necessarily visually, but mechanically. 

It seems obvious to me that when I will be replaying BOTW ten years from now (likely on an emulator) it will be a less dated experience than playing Horizon Zero Dawn. Why? Because the hardware was used to make a more believable, immersive world. And again, I love Horizon for what it is, a polished and fun cinematic experience that has an interesting world that I am not a part of, but BOTW is definitely the experience that makes me feel as if I am in the world.

VR games looking better than switch games is nothing new...

If you look at the hardware driving the PSVR2 something would be extremely wrong for any switch game not to get comprehensively spanked.

EDIT : and there are plenty of PSVR1 games that looked better than many flat-screen games... 

Mario games are easy to go back too. great platformers in general with great gameplay never really age. mario 3, mario world,  and yoshi's island are still considered the best platformers ever. mario galaxy is still considered the best 3d platformer ever, the genre is not really advancing anymore.  trying going to twilight princess and sky sword aged like crap.

Open world games are so hard for me to go back too. way too big and bloated. gameplay is never as good and really they mostly about exploring, discovering and seeing cool places. while games with amazing combat and platforming that are more tightly focused are a joy to replay.

Not in terms of perceived resolution though. I didn't expect Red Matter 2 to look sharper than 900p on a screen, but it does. Technically it shouldn't as PSVR2 is 2K per eye over 110 degree fov, while I sit 10ft from a 65" screen when playing Zelda. That's a 27 degree fov on the screen, 1600/27 = 60 pixels per degree, while PSVR2 can only offer up 20 pixels per degree. (But looks sharper up close due to stereoscopic view, and likely 120 'samples' vs 30 plays a role as well)

It must be super sampling or some other great form of anti aliasing to make it look sharper. The stars in the background are still quite big so the limitation is still there. There's a lot more to perceived resolution than simple pixel counts. Anti aliasing, contrast, color depth.

Anyway it was the first time for me when looking back to the tv after using VR that the TV looked less sharp than VR presentation. Normally I marvel at how amazingly sharp the tv is after taking the headset off. Immersion is no contest of course, as well as controls, but GT7 on tv looks much sharper than in the headset.

Anyway this whole diminishing returns, not seeing it yet!

I regularly replay older Zelda games. Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword still have some of the best dungeons in the series imo. I last played Twilight Princess HD last year, and Skyward Sword when the remaster came out. Windwaker HD is also a game I regularly go back to, and it has aged very well due to its art style. And of course A Link to the Past and Majora's Mask are my favorites of the series before BOTW and TOTK released. 

The thing about Zelda games is that even if they aren't overall the best in the series, they can be the best at something. 

No, BotW and TotK running on 20yr old X360-level hardware without any current or potential future challenger on the horizon after 6 years makes the AAA industry look even more stale and decrepit than it did 10 years ago. What are they even doing with their massive budgets?