>>718945349
TotK should be a lesson to the Aonuma/Fujibayashi team that BotW's success wasn't its "content design". It was just that it had the sense of being wide open and mysterious and unknown.
It's the Shadow of the Colossus appeal, and the fact that it wasn't rigid like previous Zelda games.
The actual "game" they made was actually complained about a lot. Slipping so you can't climb when it's raining. Shrines and Korok seeds basically being the only things you find. Weapon Durability is a functional design choice but almost nobody appreciated it or understood why they went with that, and would've preferred it not being part of the game.
And TotK really is the same world, but the content-design is doubled-up. Now there's also the underworld and sky-worlds, but they're all mapped to the known Overworld, and the rest is just more "physics puzzles" and "Korok secrets". The Caves are just more "repeated game loop" content. Signpost guys are just new repetitions. Gleeoks and Minecraft-golems are just additions to the same tired "50+ Hinox mini-bosses" thing.
The most disappointing thing about BotW is meeting your first Hinox and Stone Talus, and then immediately finding more of them elsewhere. It made you realize the game was just content-repetition like other non-Zelda games.
