I love that gimmick and play lots of metroidvanias, but it's also refreshing for the Zelda series to try something else. They've been locked into a very specific formula for 2 decades. I haven't played BotW yet, but Link Between Worlds remixed the formula a bit (no mandatory dungeon order etc) and I loved that game.

That's probably just bad game design that you've run into.

Done well, an "unlock" ability should either grant access to more space off a central hub (that you'd be returning to anyways) or give optional minor rewards if you want to be the completionist back-tracker - zelda pieces of heart, or max mana upgrades; metroid missile capacity; even raw cash.

Being forced to backtrack (especially without fast travel) to an arbitrary area _to progress the game_ is bad design.

Same here. I have no patience anymore for artificial game-y boundaries, so being able to go anywhere in BotW (even if that means getting my ass handed to me) felt very liberating.

Funny, I very much like Metroidvanias exactly for this aspect (the world feels much more like a puzzle, which grants you a feeling of reward once you "solve" it).

On the other hand, I've always loved Gothic[1] for it's gating mechanism. If you got mangled by raptors ore some ork, that meant the area was certainly not meant for your level.

I guess it will be interesting how I'll feel on BotW once my Switch arrives...

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_(video_game)

BotW does this to an extent... if you die of heat exhaustion in a desert, you probably want to come back later when the story's gently guided you into acquiring heat-resistant clothes.

Or you could locate the ingredients for heat-resistant elixirs, make some yourself and just plough on anyway.

This is a game which takes "open world" quite seriously, and lets you go and fight the final boss straight out of the tutorial area if you want. Although you'll probably die almost immediately, the choice is yours. I rather like the blend it gives me of freedom and guidance.

Oh and someone in the ancestry mentioned the cooking UI is poor. Indeed, the cooking UI is very poor. A few things like that and some issues with characterisation and voice acting would hold me off giving this game a perfect score.

Your Gothic example sounds much more natural. I never liked the typical gating mechanism because it takes away your choice. In a sense, this still does the same thing, but sort of gives you that illusion that you're deciding not to go that way and get slaughtered, rather than just being told no.

Recent example which did this:

I'd have liked to do all the puzzles in the Tomb Raider reboot, but most of the temples or whatever were locked behind "you need to have gone to the next area and then come back with the thing you acquire" idiocy.

I don't want to endlessly retrace my steps to re-find places I've been before because there's a gating mechanism. If I'd organically had to go near to the places again maybe I'd forgive them - but I'd literally have had to go to old areas for no other reason.

It's just bad design