>>715496929
No, that isn't how to think of it. Link did ALL the side-quests, and the NPCs do remember them. But when they say "Hey, who are you, can you help me for the first time?" that's just Nintendo putting a "first-timer" filter over their writing guidelines, so what you have to imagine they're really saying as a returning player, is "Oh hi Link, I remember you from BotW. Can you help me again?"
I've been damaged by Mass Effect 3, which was supposed to be the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King of the reknowned "Mass Effect TRILOGY" but what did they do? They spent their whole marketing saying "If you play ME3 without being a fan, it's the perfect place to start!" and playing it, with my save-game import and my custom Shepard (protagonist) and the game remembering my choices and relationships from the first 2 games, characters consistently meet you by talking as though you haven't been told things before.
That's because the marketing team said "Make it seem like it's the first game in the story!" so you have to constantly translate what you hear in your head to be like "We both remember that, that's why we need to do such and such" but it's just written to say "You haven't learned about it yet, let me tell you all about the deepest lore as if it's new to you."
It's a bit annoying but that's what happened with TotK.