Here is my exact experience with BOTW so TOTK fix all these

have mixed feelings.

On the one hand, Breath of the Wild is the first Zelda game in a long time that actually attempts to be challenging. From Wind Waker onwards, the games were explicitly designed to be very easy, with deaths occurring only a handful of times (if you're at all experienced with games). BotW at least deserves credit for its intent.

However, that attempted difficulty is undermined by the sheer brokenness of its mechanics. Food, armor, and flurry rush all trivialize the combat to an obscene degree once you understand them. I think the fact that Zelda had been easy for such a long time meant the Zelda team didn't quite understand how to design a consistently challenging game. That's not to say that the game getting easier over time is entirely unintentional (like with the champion powers), but the sheer imbalance of truffles, for example, makes for a very sharp difficulty drop.

Another issue is the lack of enemy variety, as you alluded to. It's hard to stay excited about the combat when you're facing the same enemies over and over, just in different colors. Your first lynel fight is arguably the peak of the combat system, and that can happen a few hours in. There's not enough novelty to sustain the game's length.

A third issue is how durability works. There's been a lot of talk about durability, and there are moments in the game where it shines, but it undermines any sense of weapon progression. Every weapon in the game (except the Master Sword, which itself is limited) is ephemeral, so you never feel objectively more powerful.

The last big issue I have is the controls. In my opinion 3D Zelda has always controlled very stiffly. Ocarina of Time was still figuring out 3D combat so it can be excused, but its sequels copied its movement too faithfully while ignoring all the innovations that happened in action games since then. Breath of the Wild is a bit smoother, but you can still feel that vestigal stiffness. Compared to something like Nioh which released around the same time, it's night and day. BotW isn't -just- an action game so it's not an entirely fair comparison, but it feels like a relic compared to its contemporaries.

That's what open world games (mostly RPGs) were back in days - people either haven't played them, haven't heard of them (since most of them were computer/PC exclusives) or just forgot about them.

Fire, Ice, Electric, Wind and Water. Plus using an axe or a hammer gives you different results while using in battle, so there's a lot to be added on that mix. Just a little correction 

The wind leaves just like torches were not exactly designed for combat and that's why I didn't included them

And yup, TOTK does much better in this side effects because fusing can add a lot of spicy on weapon variability, that's why I'm somewhat inclined to believe breaking in TOTK is indeed far more lenient and less infuriating compared to BOTW

However, the weapon breaking being able to make people have more use of weapons type is pointless. There is a lot of depth in BOTW, but it's NOT tied to weaponry variety but rather to the game physics and Sheika Slate abilities. If, as I stated before, you have a group of ~12 fixed weapons and upgrades on them the effect in the game would be the same. I truly believe at least the MS + 4 champeons weapons should be unbreakable

Water didn't exist in BOTW (well Lizalfos could trough water on you), and wind was restricted to leaves. But you might have a point here

I'm still testing TOTK (only ~24 hours on it) and so far my wind weapons doesn't really look suited for combat yet, maybe I just didn't find a good combination though 

As for water it helps to clean and helps when fighting fire enemies, a niche ice enemies already fill. I was thinking maybe it could be an advantage against electric enemies, but I didn't reached the parts of the map where electric enemies are commons 

I'm an avid turned based SRPG player, so micromaneging weapons and skills is my passion lol

Still, this game is not turned based, it's an adventure game so pausing the fight every 5 seconds to select a new bow combinations is a bit... strange I think. I definitely don't like it, mess up with the flow of my battle imo 

What determines to me what a good battle is generally the thrill, I.e. the sense of "I'm going to die any moment if I don't fight properly". One of the recent games on Nintendo that perfectly evokes the thrill on me was Metroid Dread, it was enough fast paced and challenging to keep me constantly aware of my surroundings and mindful of my reflexes

Zelda fails to invoke me the thrill. The fights are mostly just plain boring for me, and that's OK, it's not the point of the game, I doesn't bother me, the game is good enough to allow me to skip fighting if I don't like it 

Well the Sky Island one, but just seems to keep on going in Hyrule! It just forced me to use a sky tower to explain fast travel again. Silly me tried to immediately fly into the chasm by the castle with the para glider. I tried before with the wing a bunch of times, but keeps despawning before I get to the bottom no matter how low I start or steep descent I try. Tried with a closed cart as well as Link often survives long falls if touching something, but died when the vehicle came to a stop on the glowing walls. The paraglider also despawned / turned off near the chasm and no way to get it going again nor steer Link to where it might work again. So he fell to his death and I had to sit through the whole unskippable sequence again lol. Do as you're told, or else :p

Anyway left off where the chasm explorer chief wants me to go.

I guess there is no auto map? I remember now from BotW I traced the edges of each zone blind on the map to explore before using the tower last. Filling feautures in with icons to mark where I had been already. Since it's the same map this time, is there a point to explore it all again, that's what I'm currently wondering. So following the quests this time. First to explore the depths.

And so far I haven't fought anything yet since Sky Island, just go around them. I spend more time lifting the wing up to the top of the castle to fly back (combination of recall and grab to lift it up where it won't spawn) than it would have taken to simply run back lol.

I'm not even sure what you're on about anymore. Once you get to hyrule you can just go wherever your not forced to go anywhere or do anything (unless you want something specific like unlocking sections of the map) although it is recommended to follow some main quests early on for the glider and sky towers for easier traversal. You can get down the chasm under the castle if you want its not that hard. What unskippable sequence? 

I don't really understand why you are going out of your way to not enjoy the game. It seems like every choice you make is to make your own experience worse and then complain about it? You just seem to be wasting your own time for no real reason. I'm reading your comments and just laughing everytime because they are so bizarre. 

That's what you read into it. I enjoy exploration and experimenting, hence trying to fly down into the chasm and using the wing to fly back to lookout town. And yes you have to follow the quests initially to get the paraglider at least (which doesn't work to get into the chasm or maybe just because I tried too early, I dunno, guess I'll follow the quest to see what it takes to get into a chasm)

I don't want to be in a situation again where I don't run into the Korok dude until 80h in lol.

You asked me if I finished the tutorial yet and I replied with where I are in the game. Yet you just see more complaining? If I didn't enjoy experimenting I would not be playing it anymore. Certainly not playing it for the combat. And yes after I died, the whole tower sequence started from scratch, continue back at the bottom before activating the tower without any option to skip the cut scenes. I'm just telling it as I experience it.

Ultrahand is a great mechanic, although a bit clunky and limited in its use. Fuse is ok, feels a bit cheap so far, basically cooking applied to weapons. Recall is useful, Ascend feels like a cheat, the weakest of the bunch. So I focus mostly on Ultra hand and am eager to explore new parts. Not so eager to explore Hyrule again, been there, done that. The mystery of what's beyond that hill is already gone, with it the incentive to climb every peak to look out over the land.

It's a mixed bag, more Zelda great. More Zelda on the same map, not great. New abilities great, same weapon durability not great.

What unskippable sequence? You can just jump into any chasm and land safely no problem if you have the paraglider. I went down below Hyrule Castle several times already.

The zonai gliders despawn after a few minutes of use but your paraglider doesn't despawn. Or did you not notice that you use durability while gliding? The paraglider closes automatically if you don't have durability left but you can still open it for one second after that, ideally just above the ground. You can also just jump down and open it when you're closer to the ground. You know, falling down doesn't require weird vehicles. And you can steer the direction Link falls in TotK. He goes into a specific position, face downwards when falling.

You couldn't figure this out on your own?