For me it's like, BotW's dungeons aren't as good as other Zelda dungeons (and I'm long tired of Zelda dungeons), combat's not as good as Soulsborne's, monsters aren't as fun to hunt or fight as Monster Hunter's, riding across the big ruined countryside lacks the emotional weight of the same exact thing in Shadow of the Colossus (though BotW's terrain climbing is better), narrative rewards for exploration don't compare to Morrowind's, and bokoblin base raids sure as hell don't hold a candle up to Far Cry's. Doesn't help to have played it pretty close on the heels of Witcher 3, whose world I found way more gratifying to nook-and-cranny.

On the other hand it's a grab bag of features from a bunch of my favorite games, so even if it's a weaker version of all those features it's still got some scale appeal. I did enjoy a lot of the shrine puzzles. I'm hopeful the sequel will Majora's Mask the hell out of it and draw me in more with the story and character stuff.

The biggest chunk of fun I got out of BotW was watching all the crazy shit the people who love it get up to on streams and videos.