My first mind-blowing moment in BotW was peeking down from from the top of a hill and seeing a deep valley with a river to the east and a ridge with a forest to the west. They blended gorgeously into a single landscape but I understood that each option would be a different adventure. It was like choosing the north or east exit in classical Zelda, except this was totally organic, not instantiated, operating over perfectly continuous space. I was ~30 at the time and had been playing open world games since the early 2000s. It blew my mind regardless.
Having played so many games, and having even worked at Nintendo for a good time, I’ve lost my sense of wonder somewhat and I only expect to have a few more moments like that in the rest of my life. Nintendo is nevertheless possibly one of the few companies still capable of pulling it off.
For sure. When you first play BotW it's somehow like, oh yeah, I get it now, this is what Zelda was supposed to be all along. More than that even, it's like the platonic ideal of a video game.
YouTube critic Nerrel argues quite the opposite, that SS emphasizes a completely different set of the Zelda core values— it's about story/characters, elaborate dungeons and bosses each bursting with unique personality, and classical, linear item-unlock progression paths. Whereas BOTW isn't any of those things and prioritizes freedom, exploration, and emergent gameplay.
Having played so many games, and having even worked at Nintendo for a good time, I’ve lost my sense of wonder somewhat and I only expect to have a few more moments like that in the rest of my life. Nintendo is nevertheless possibly one of the few companies still capable of pulling it off.