This is the only good open world game I've ever played, and even though it is not without its flaws, I greatly enjoyed exploring its vast open world. At least the first time...
After 50 hours played I started feeling kind of bored. I had already done the 4 beasts quests and unlocked all the towers, so exploration offered very little to me, since all I could find were some more of the same boring enemies (more of that in a second), same boring shrines, and same boring weapons which I wouldn't be able to take because my stash was full (more of that in a second too).
If I had to point out one single thing that disallowed me from enjoying the game more, it would be the combat. It just isn't fun really, and that's why I mentioned that finding more enemies while exploring wasn't exciting, since I didn't want to fight them. The most exciting enemies were the centaur dudes and even then it boils down to waiting for an attack, jumping and fury swiping or whatever it's called until it dies.
I know Zelda is not Dark Souls, it's not meant to have a deep and challenging combat system, but you don't need the combat to be deep and challenging to be fun. Just having the ability to dodge without locking on would've made it a lot better. That said, it's not like the combat was so bad that it made want to stop playing the game like The Wither 3's. I still could fight stuff without feeling like closing the game, but it got boring fast.
Moving on. The shrines were neat puzzles, but they felt SO out of place. I don't think they really thought the design through, because it really doesn't make sense to have this super immersive and carefully crafted open world exploration experience, and then having it constantly interrupted by this extremely abrut change of pace and mood. You go straight from a snowy mountain with a bunch of thing to check out to a creepy basement with puzzles in it. It's like you have to be constantly stoping the game you're playing to go play a different one and then come back. It feels wrong.
As for the weapons system, I know that a lot of people complain about the durability, and I also found that annoying at first, but after like 4 or 5 hours I realized that durability wasn't a problem at all, my main problem was that I had to be constantly droping cool weapons in order to take other cool weapons.
You see, I understand why they did the durability they way they did it, and even though it can be annoying at points, it works, and I think it was a good call. Maybe not the best one, but good. And I can see why they limit your weapon stash capacity too, I just found it SUPER annoying and unlike the durability, I don't think the tradeoff is worth it, especially considering that the ultimate downside to doing it the way they did it is, as I mentioned before, that it ends up discouraging you to explore for new weapons, since your stash is full anyway.
I also have to mention that I found the story extremely uninspired and uninteresting.
With all of that, I still enjoyed the game a lot more than I was expecting given my experiences with open world games. Horizon Zero Dawn is my one reference of an open world game I didn't hate, but I enjoyed that game DESPITE being open world, this one I actually enjoyed the open world aspect of it. I had fun exploring it, at least the first time. I have to give big props to it for bringing an innovation in the open world formula to the table and I'm super excited for the influence this game is will have on future open world action-adventure games (looking at you, Elden Ring).
TL,DR: Great atmosphere and exploration experience, but with a lackluster combat and little incentives to keep exploring once you've already been everywhere, which means very little replayability, and therefore no incentives to stray from the main quest past a certain point.
I have to mention too that I played this on emulator. I've owned the game and a Switch for a couple years and I the main reason I hadn't played it earlier is I just didn't want to play it the the Switch's performance and low resolution. Playing this on apscaled resolution, with moded high res textures, rock solid 60fps, improved lighting, etc... was such a blast. I would've never played it on the switch.
After 50 hours played I started feeling kind of bored. I had already done the 4 beasts quests and unlocked all the towers, so exploration offered very little to me, since all I could find were some more of the same boring enemies (more of that in a second), same boring shrines, and same boring weapons which I wouldn't be able to take because my stash was full (more of that in a second too).
If I had to point out one single thing that disallowed me from enjoying the game more, it would be the combat. It just isn't fun really, and that's why I mentioned that finding more enemies while exploring wasn't exciting, since I didn't want to fight them. The most exciting enemies were the centaur dudes and even then it boils down to waiting for an attack, jumping and fury swiping or whatever it's called until it dies.
I know Zelda is not Dark Souls, it's not meant to have a deep and challenging combat system, but you don't need the combat to be deep and challenging to be fun. Just having the ability to dodge without locking on would've made it a lot better. That said, it's not like the combat was so bad that it made want to stop playing the game like The Wither 3's. I still could fight stuff without feeling like closing the game, but it got boring fast.
Moving on. The shrines were neat puzzles, but they felt SO out of place. I don't think they really thought the design through, because it really doesn't make sense to have this super immersive and carefully crafted open world exploration experience, and then having it constantly interrupted by this extremely abrut change of pace and mood. You go straight from a snowy mountain with a bunch of thing to check out to a creepy basement with puzzles in it. It's like you have to be constantly stoping the game you're playing to go play a different one and then come back. It feels wrong.
As for the weapons system, I know that a lot of people complain about the durability, and I also found that annoying at first, but after like 4 or 5 hours I realized that durability wasn't a problem at all, my main problem was that I had to be constantly droping cool weapons in order to take other cool weapons.
You see, I understand why they did the durability they way they did it, and even though it can be annoying at points, it works, and I think it was a good call. Maybe not the best one, but good. And I can see why they limit your weapon stash capacity too, I just found it SUPER annoying and unlike the durability, I don't think the tradeoff is worth it, especially considering that the ultimate downside to doing it the way they did it is, as I mentioned before, that it ends up discouraging you to explore for new weapons, since your stash is full anyway.
I also have to mention that I found the story extremely uninspired and uninteresting.
With all of that, I still enjoyed the game a lot more than I was expecting given my experiences with open world games. Horizon Zero Dawn is my one reference of an open world game I didn't hate, but I enjoyed that game DESPITE being open world, this one I actually enjoyed the open world aspect of it. I had fun exploring it, at least the first time. I have to give big props to it for bringing an innovation in the open world formula to the table and I'm super excited for the influence this game is will have on future open world action-adventure games (looking at you, Elden Ring).
TL,DR: Great atmosphere and exploration experience, but with a lackluster combat and little incentives to keep exploring once you've already been everywhere, which means very little replayability, and therefore no incentives to stray from the main quest past a certain point.
I have to mention too that I played this on emulator. I've owned the game and a Switch for a couple years and I the main reason I hadn't played it earlier is I just didn't want to play it the the Switch's performance and low resolution. Playing this on apscaled resolution, with moded high res textures, rock solid 60fps, improved lighting, etc... was such a blast. I would've never played it on the switch.