*some mild item spoilers I guess?*
Zelda: BotW is a weird one for me to explain. I think it's very well made, but in some ways the play experience is uneven. The game starts very strong and wows you with a lot of new ideas, but then drags quite a bit near the end. Where previous Zelda games would bore you with a painfully condescending tutorial and then gradually give you new abilities and items over the course of the game, BotW gives you a much more open-ended tutorial area that you don't even mind being 2-4 hours long, and it frontloads most of the game's items/abilities during that 2-4 hour window.
So for me, the result is that I think that game frontloads a lot of its impact: you spend the 2-4 hours in the tutorial area getting a variety of new abilities and learning some basic mechanics, then when you leave the tutorial area you spend quite a few more hours learning the overworld exploration mechanics and learning how the game is structured, which is markedly different compared to the fairly empty overworlds of past 3D Zeldas. That period of the game is pretty magical as far as constantly finding different stuff, always having to switch up tactics as weapons break and you have minimal resources to work with.
Then even the midgame is quite fun, as you know more of how the game works, but you start tackling Divine Beasts more and have hopefully expanded your inventory some more, upgraded some armour, found a bunch of shrines, have a few long term quests you're keeping on the backburner, etc.
But I think the game kinda falls apart in the end game (by which I mean "exploring the last 20-25% of the map you haven't been through yet"). There are a variety of things that happen in the end game that just made the minute-to-minute gameplay less engaging:
Weapons: Once you have the Master Sword, you don't feel scrappy anymore, because to have the sword at all means you've conquered a lot of shrines and have a healthy amount of stamina and health. Plus you now have this unbreakable sword which means you have to rely less on crappy breakable weapons. This gets even more ridiculous if you do the DLC that boosts the Master Sword's power.
Collectibles/Resources: By the endgame, most chests you find while exploring or clearing enemy camps will be meaningless; if it's a weapon your inventory is probably full of better weapons, if it's any kind of resource you probably have more money than god and don't need another gem. As much as this game is about exploration, the main reason for exploring off the beaten path is finding valuable stuff; look, sometimes there is a cool landmark or something, but the vast majority of the time exploring just nets you more generic terrain for that area, so really you're exploring for the purpose of finding stuff. While exploring, my super rough breakdown of things you might find is this: 5% shrine, 15% rare ore deposit or other rare resource, 40% chest, 40% Korok seed. The chests are mostly meaningless by this point, and at least in my playthrough, I found enough Korok seeds to max out everything by the time I had seen about 75-80% of the map, so exploring that final 20% was pretty unrewarding. Resources of any kind were basically meaningless, whether naturally occurring or in chests, and Korok seeds were also meaningless. I combed those last few regions for shrines, but all of my time outside of shrines was pretty unrewarding because nothing you find is meaningful.
Lack of difficulty: Once you're in the end game and have upgraded your armour a lot, in combination with having the Master Sword and other good weapons, no enemies will be threatening other than the top-tier Lynels. The last few combat shrines you find are super jokes, since with the Master Sword even the toughest variant is not even remotely difficult. Also, you're probably dozens of hours past having seen a new enemy type; the game doesn't feel like it has a lot of enemy types, and as you progress you just see ugpraded/elemental variants of the same Bokoblins, Moblins, Lizalfos, and Lynels you saw in the first 15 hours. I know even those guys were likely a lot of work for the devs since each of those enemies can wield multiple different weapon types, but I wish there were more enemies unique to each area. That would've been something to look forward to as I went through the final 20% of the game, but nope, same enemy types, same resources I don't need anymore, only new thing is the handful of shrines in each area. I also just kinda felt like I was meaninglessly prolonging the game, when sometime back in the midgame I could already tell I was more than powerful enough in terms of health/stamina/armour/weapons to navigate my way through Hyrule Castle and face Ganon. It's disappointing that even in the regions far away from the middle of the map, they don't ever really mix up the way you encounter enemies. Bokoblins/Moblins/Lizalfos are going to be in camps or patrolling somewhere, while any Lynels/Hinox are going to be alone in an enormous clearing. The difficulty of enemy encounters is too flat and unvaried, and all they do to change it up is gradually increase enemy HP/damage. I would've preferred that they make you fight Lynels/Hinox in weird environments, or in combination with weaker enemies, but this only really happens in DLC 1 where you go through a challenge dungeon.
Non-endgame complaints: I wish that all 120 shrines were puzzles; way too many are dull combat shrines, and way too many are "so-and-so's Blessing" because the devs consider the overworld quest the "puzzle" so once you find the shrine you just waltz in and get the reward. Also I think the 4 Divine Beasts are just too small and short to be interesting, and "activate the terminals" was not a very interesting goal each time. Instead of those 4 Divine Beasts, I'd hope a sequel would find a way to make multiple dungeons more like the sprawling fortress that is Hyrule Castle in BotW, but incorporate more shrine-like puzzle solving instead of Hyrule Castle's focus on just combat and climbing. I liked that the dungeons of Zelda past were a mix of tougher combat arenas than you would find in the overworld, and tougher puzzles than you would see in the overworld. BotW splits these concepts up too much; the Divine Beasts and most of the shrines are 100% puzzle with no enemies, while the combat shrines, Hyrule Castle, and much of the overworld is 100% enemies with no puzzles.
Overall though, it's a really great game, and I'd still recommend people play it if they have a Switch or Wii U. The climbing and gliding make the world really fun to explore, and the shrines are an interesting way to repackage Zelda puzzles into a Portal-like size. My recommendation is that even if people tell you it's a 100 hour game or something, don't feel obligated to visit every area. If after 40-60 hours, you finish the 4 Divine Beasts and feel powerful as hell but still have a few areas you haven't explored yet, who cares, just sneak into Hyrule Castle, kill Ganon, and beat the game. Or only explore all the regions if you know you're unthorough as fuck, because if you're as thorough as the way I played, you'll have enough resources and Koroks after visiting about 60-70% of the map, and the final 30% of the game will give you almost nothing of value.
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