>>717875521
My biggest problem other than hating that it isn't Zelda enough, was not exactly that it's a "busywork vs meaningful fun" problem, but that resonated with me because of something else.
I think that the game struggles to fully justify its Open Ended design. I don't blame the devs because this is the hardest thing about designing the game. But it has created a format where you often leap ahead of the actual "level" they put into the World, like that big fortification near Zora's River full of Lizalfos, but I've played the game 3 times and never actually go through it. But if you come at it from the Great Plateau and then the Wetlands area, assuming you never change direction, it kinda looks like the entrance to a level in a video game.
But by the time I discover that in my playthrough I'm at my 119th Shrine. I've done everything and I'm almost ready to beat Calamity Ganon. But the whole game has a lot of these moments. You've just decided to scale a mountain out of curiosity thinking "This is what the game was built for!!" but then you decide to check out the are in between you skipped over, and you realize that area was only meant to take you to the same location you've just gone to.
In that sense I find the "Open World" version of Zelda tiring, because it's overrated. It isn't even that good at making use of an entirely open sandbox, when it's often "4 different level designs that the player ignores, and explores in reverse, and finds nothing."
Playing TotK was an overbearing experience. Me carefully trying not to explore certain areas too early, because I already knew the game would be spoiled if I did so.
