I missed the ability to fight directly at first, but summoning grew on me as I got the hang of it and constantly gained new echoes to play around with. 

I've only completed the first four dungeons so far (just reached Faron Temple, so will update once I complete) but so far I loved Gerudo Sanctum, it had great theming/vibes and clever puzzles that gave me that "a-ha" feeling without being obtuse. Suthorn Ruins was cool too, teaching the player the game's mechanics in a fun way.

I guess the more open-ended and experimental nature of post-BOTW Zelda just resonates with me more. I like having a wide array of tools to mess with and multiple solutions to each problem.

Haven’t played it yet, but lets not get carried away here.

I never had a Gameboy so I played Link's Awakening for the first time on Switch, and honestly I thought it was okay, but it felt too obtuse a lot of the time, and I had to look up a guide a few times to figure out how to progress the story which kills the fun for me.

Makes sense.  I'm pretty sure I'm on the last dungeon.  Quality of dungeons drive my rating system.  I think Skyward had the best dungeons in the series.  

From my POV, that's one of the problems with modern Zelda - its creators, for the most part, don't understand that most tools must come at some price for them to have any meaning. They need to actually make you stop and think about how you will proceed - otherwise game challenges become downright trivial, like in EoW.

I don't find solutions to "puzzles" in EoW to be clever at all - they are just there, since you have crapload of echoes with no cost to expand them. Combat is even worse, especially once you figure that is a lot more efficient to just call on new one instead of waiting for old to attack again - again at no cost.

I'm glad for everyone that enjoys it...for me, EoW is just another step in the wrong direction. I guess, back to waiting for someone to actually get Zelda move toward Zelda 1 (or, even better, Zelda 2) formula, while implementing immersive sim mechanics much more cleverly than they are in the current state.

Yeah Skyward Sword had some bangers, Ancient Cistern, the Sandship, and Sky Keep being among my favourites. If I had to choose, I'd say Ocarina of Time has the best dungeons in the series for me, but Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess are right up there as well.

I personally found that EoW made me stop and think often.

If it's any consolation to you, Aonuma's in his 60s so it's probably not long now until he retires and hands over guidance of the series to someone else.

The game I would call the most comparable to Echoes of Wisdom is Paper Mario: The Origami King. All the ingredients for a great game are there, but one boneheaded decision regarding the core gameplay drags everything down. For TOK it was the removal of RPG staples like EXP and combat abilities during the turn-based battles which were all already proven to work splendidly in the first two Paper Mario games. For EoW it's the removal of the sword (or any conventional weapon, because Zelda could have been given something other than a sword).

Due to the lack of a weapon, EoW feels all too often like you have to take an extra step to get something done. Instead of hitting an enemy directly, you have to summon something. At its core it's also absolutely idiotic to advertise a game as offering so many choices when the most basic and obvious choice is being taken away from the player. There's no "you can play this game like you want" like in Breath of the Wild, here it's a "you have to play it like we want you to." This culminates in the final phase of the story where

It's so infuriating.

What's left is a decent to good game which is not the level of quality you'd like to see and expect from a Zelda game. This is the kind of Zelda that Aonuma would love to make until the end of time. It becomes glaringly obvious when

Top-down Zelda games are faster to make than 3D Zelda games, but we are getting them at a slower rate anyway. Makes it sting all the more that this is this decade's new top-down Zelda. A Link Between Worlds had its shortcomings, but it did a lot more things right than Echoes of Wisdom.

Lastly, can Nintendo please move on from using A Link to the Past's overworld? They seriously embedded it in Echoes of Wisdom's center with a bunch of alterations, but it's still easy enough to recognize.

Rolled Credits last weekend. Loved it. Immediately started a second play-through on Hero Mode. Loving it even more now that I know where to pick up some handy echoes early.

Zelda is my favorite series. I love it for its games all have their own personality. Gameplay personality. That also means some games hit my taste more than others. I was surprised at the EoW reveal how Nintendo can still come up with new ideas. Not sure about EoW at first, but it really grew on me and really enjoying my time. I'll be replaying this game for many years into the future.

I agree with some points you make, but I'd be interested in your idea for a new 2D Zelda game. You'd have to come up with a new gameplay concept though, because that's what every 2D Zelda has. So no A Link to the Past, but prettier, or in that vain. I'm impressed with EoW feeling new again.