This review contains spoilers
There are many things about this game I really like. There was a moment when I was playing the game, namely right after the pirate ship dungeon, when I genuinely thought I might like it more than both Ocarina of time and Breath of the Wild. The dungeons are all just so fucking good man. I love them. My favorite one being ancient cistern. It's just got fucking everything man. Then you have one of the best items in the series with the beetle which is probably one of the best if not the best item in the zelda series, only beaten out by the shekaih slates stasis if we count those abilities as "items." Groose is great. I overall really like the story. Then you have ghiraham who is just such a fun character. Then you have the final fight with demise, which is cinematic and bad ass as all hell, perhaps the best final boss fight in the series (though I have to go back and fight majora the regular way to properly assess that boss). Though I do also feel like he would've been greatly benefited from a third phase. The final line about his hatred coming back in a cyclical nature leading to future zelda games is interesting as all hell.
But then... the stuff that's not that... Holy shit the moment when they were hyping up the triforce as able to be found soon on skyloft only for you to have to go back to the locations for A THIRD ASS TIME AFTER THE SACRED FLAMES FOR SONG PIECES just absolutely killed the momentum of the backhalf of the game for me. Even worse that 2/3 of the challenges for the song pieces are just... not good... The only good one is the thunder dragon one. The stealth section one with all your shit stolen and the fucking water song finding challenge were just... not fun. I was so ready for those things to just be fucking over with. The water flooding is a cool concept I guess, but it's not the type of shit I want to be doing 25 hours into the game as the final road block to the climax of the story. I was fine with the sacred flame shit because it all was engaging. Minus the final flame which was the beginning of the end because that fucking terrible escort mission. Fuck that. I got stuck on the final section because I ran out of fucking arrows. I hated that and it didn't need to be in the game.
Then there are also some fundamental missteps in the design approach to the game. Namely in how so empty and disconnected the flying feels from the overworld and actually interesting game content. It's just so weird compared to windwaker's sailing. While flying in this game is infinitely more engaging than windwaker's sailing because of the increased complexity of inputs required to even you know go forward, there is just... so fucking little to actually fly too. YOU DON'T EVEN GET THE ABILITY TO FIGHT OR DEFEND YOURSELF IN THE SKY (the spin attack) UNTIL 25 HOURS INTO THE GAME. WHAT THE FUCK. The skyworld needed way more to do. What is currently there just ain't it. The windwaker's world is miles ahead by every possible metric.
Oh yeah, Fi was very boring and annoying as a character. Their goodbye didn't really work for me until I thought of the goodbye as not "Fi" saying goodbye but "the master sword," which made it click much more for me.
One of the other metrics of enjoyment I had from playing this game though was seeing "the final traditional 3d zelda" and seeing how some stuff, like the stamina wheel, that got brought over to breath of the wild, while also seeing how some stuff are as far from breath of the wild as can be, like forcing you to do chores before you can beat the final boss. If I had played the zelda games in a normal ass order maybe I could say more interesting stuff about the progression of zelda games though lol.
Overall, I really like the game, definitely less than ocarina. I'm unsure how much I like it less than botw though, because while botw has much higher highs, it also suffers from critical flaws that prevent it from being as great as ocarina or majora's in my eyes.
MM > OoT > BotW > SS > WW
I would like to play twilight princess before tears of the kingdom but since it comes out in 4 days that's probably not happening and I'm good with taking a break from 3d zelda's after tears of the kingdom given that I've binged nearly all of them within 2 months lol.
(I didn't talk about motion controls because I played on aswitch emulator with button controls, which was surprisingly fine. I probably would've liked the game even more with motion controls because of how it would've added to immersion but I sadly do not own a wii.)
But then... the stuff that's not that... Holy shit the moment when they were hyping up the triforce as able to be found soon on skyloft only for you to have to go back to the locations for A THIRD ASS TIME AFTER THE SACRED FLAMES FOR SONG PIECES just absolutely killed the momentum of the backhalf of the game for me. Even worse that 2/3 of the challenges for the song pieces are just... not good... The only good one is the thunder dragon one. The stealth section one with all your shit stolen and the fucking water song finding challenge were just... not fun. I was so ready for those things to just be fucking over with. The water flooding is a cool concept I guess, but it's not the type of shit I want to be doing 25 hours into the game as the final road block to the climax of the story. I was fine with the sacred flame shit because it all was engaging. Minus the final flame which was the beginning of the end because that fucking terrible escort mission. Fuck that. I got stuck on the final section because I ran out of fucking arrows. I hated that and it didn't need to be in the game.
Then there are also some fundamental missteps in the design approach to the game. Namely in how so empty and disconnected the flying feels from the overworld and actually interesting game content. It's just so weird compared to windwaker's sailing. While flying in this game is infinitely more engaging than windwaker's sailing because of the increased complexity of inputs required to even you know go forward, there is just... so fucking little to actually fly too. YOU DON'T EVEN GET THE ABILITY TO FIGHT OR DEFEND YOURSELF IN THE SKY (the spin attack) UNTIL 25 HOURS INTO THE GAME. WHAT THE FUCK. The skyworld needed way more to do. What is currently there just ain't it. The windwaker's world is miles ahead by every possible metric.
Oh yeah, Fi was very boring and annoying as a character. Their goodbye didn't really work for me until I thought of the goodbye as not "Fi" saying goodbye but "the master sword," which made it click much more for me.
One of the other metrics of enjoyment I had from playing this game though was seeing "the final traditional 3d zelda" and seeing how some stuff, like the stamina wheel, that got brought over to breath of the wild, while also seeing how some stuff are as far from breath of the wild as can be, like forcing you to do chores before you can beat the final boss. If I had played the zelda games in a normal ass order maybe I could say more interesting stuff about the progression of zelda games though lol.
Overall, I really like the game, definitely less than ocarina. I'm unsure how much I like it less than botw though, because while botw has much higher highs, it also suffers from critical flaws that prevent it from being as great as ocarina or majora's in my eyes.
MM > OoT > BotW > SS > WW
I would like to play twilight princess before tears of the kingdom but since it comes out in 4 days that's probably not happening and I'm good with taking a break from 3d zelda's after tears of the kingdom given that I've binged nearly all of them within 2 months lol.
(I didn't talk about motion controls because I played on aswitch emulator with button controls, which was surprisingly fine. I probably would've liked the game even more with motion controls because of how it would've added to immersion but I sadly do not own a wii.)