Breath of the Wild is probably the best rendition of nonlinear exploration in a 3D world I've had the benefit of playing so far, maybe even some of the best exploration structure and design in general. The way it encourages freeform make-your-own-story gameplay through its map design and incredibly deep Sheikah Slate systems that are arguably the best mechanical component of any Zelda game to date is something to be praised to hell and back. However that being said, it's still an incredibly messy game most likely due to how it had to re-contextualize a bunch of series staples into the massive freedom this game entails. The internet has really already summarized the base issues, but for clarity's sake I'll put my spin on each of them
Endurance for weapons is a great incentive for on-the-fly decisionmaking but ends up meaning very little after about 20 hours in
Shrines are a fantastic way to divy out rigid zelda puzzle design but just like rigid zelda puzzle design are still mostly fairly simple and uninteresting
Divine Beasts are great dungeons in terms of structure with their forced consideration on the player to think of the whole dungeon in a 3d space but are incredibly easy to solve even by brute force
It's surprisingly difficult in the beginning but has a huge reverse difficulty curve the more you explore, but at the very least this component is customizable depending on where you go.
With that out of the way, the physics system and exploration more than makes up for these pitfalls for a truly strong open world experience that will probably not be matched by a mainstream way for many years.
Endurance for weapons is a great incentive for on-the-fly decisionmaking but ends up meaning very little after about 20 hours in
Shrines are a fantastic way to divy out rigid zelda puzzle design but just like rigid zelda puzzle design are still mostly fairly simple and uninteresting
Divine Beasts are great dungeons in terms of structure with their forced consideration on the player to think of the whole dungeon in a 3d space but are incredibly easy to solve even by brute force
It's surprisingly difficult in the beginning but has a huge reverse difficulty curve the more you explore, but at the very least this component is customizable depending on where you go.
With that out of the way, the physics system and exploration more than makes up for these pitfalls for a truly strong open world experience that will probably not be matched by a mainstream way for many years.