>>715928097
Hard to refute. But for me, not really enjoying BotW because it always felt like a "...that's it? That's ALL there is here?" kind of experience to me, I somehow really enjoyed TotK and fully completed it minus Korok Seeds in 215 hours, from May to mid-July back when it released.
It's also a game you can pretty satisfyingly map out for yourself as a "linear campaign" (I mean you could in BotW too in a sense) so by memorizing the patterns inside Forgotten Temple, you can really just go clockwise on them and it gives you Memory #1 - Memory #16 and IIRC a pretty good indication of the order of main dungeons.
It gave me a great way to pace the game between a bit of open world meander-slop, and getting nice discoveries as part of that, and then taking on the "story" beats and dungeons along the way. It did create some magical moments for me.
I somehow missed that Gloom Hands (the new Guardians basically) spawn a Phantom Ganon if you take all of the hands out for most of the game. So when I had to cleanse the Deku Tree from underground it spawns a lot of Gloom Hands, and this felt like a game having its "moment" that introduces Phantom Ganon midway through the game to me, much like how Wind Waker has him appear when you go back to Forsaken Fortress for the first time.
And there's also the "Finding Zelda" mid-plot that takes you back to Hyrule Castle and has a bit of an extra-story event in the middle of the game. It was just kind of nice, but for sure exhausting the more shrines and crap I cleared along the way. I also regret fully mapping the Depths. Holy shit that was pointless and it still looks like utter shit down there.
But I had a decent "pacing" through its content without exhausting too much too soon, so it really did culminate epically with the ending setpieces, and I came out thinking "that is FOR SURE better than BotW".
It's the same dichotomy as Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. Two other B-tier Zeldas.
