Gaming

I actually kinda dislike the "do anything in any order" approach of the recent games. I get the desire for freedom, but on the flip side it means that the majority of the content has to be designed to not be too overwhelming for a beginning player as a player could potentially do it first. IMO the puzzle design suffers a lot from this as there are rarely opportunities for puzzles to iterate and expand upon mechanics introduced by prior puzzles. The shrines are especially guilty of this, and even though they all have different puzzles, the loop of introducing the puzzle element and then one or two tests on it still ends up feeling repetitive.

The story also has to make sense regardless of in which order some of the main quests are played and IMO the storytelling really suffers from this. It feels like you're just uncovering someone else's story and doesn't feel like you actually play an important part in it.

I'd love a return to the classic style because I like it when the puzzles get more complex and more elaborate over time. I'd love a game that makes me feel like I'm a part of the story rather than letting me unlock movie fragments of someone else's story. I loved regularly unlocking new tools that suddenly open up new paths or make you able to unlock new secrets in the overworld. It's that sense of character growth and progression that I feel like I'm missing in the newer games.

I still enjoyed the recent games though, and they certainly do also introduce a lot of good things.

The physics interaction, or the "chemistry engine" as they call it, is just awesome and the freedom it allows in puzzle solving is amazing. It turns puzzle solving from having to find the solution to having to find a solution. It removes a lot of common frustrations with puzzles because now when something looks like it should work, it almost always does. It also allows you to think outside the box and let's you come up with ways to skip some puzzles if you understand the mechanics well enough, or to come up with intentionally wacky or overly elaborate solutions that somehow still work. I do hope that if they ever make a new Zelda game in the "old style", they do incorporate at least some of this freedom in puzzle solving in it.

I also love how much more there is to be found in BOTW and TOTK and there is so much more background information given about important side characters and about the various areas of the world, if you're willing to look for it. Side quests and content are also much more plentiful and more elaborate than in the previous games.

So I don't think this new direction is bad, but it has both advantages and disadvantages and there are parts from the "old" style I really miss. Ideally I'd like to see both types of games coexist in the future, similar to how the 3D style of Zelda has coexisted with the 2D style (which too are quite different from eachother gameplay-wise, both also with their own advantages and disadvantages).