I felt BotW had some great ideas, but it didn’t feel as monumental as Ocarina of Time was back in the day. My main criticisms would be that the 4/5 main dungeons were pretty underwhelming, and the puzzle chambers got tedious.

For all its flaws, Elden Ring is packed with “oh wow” moments as you unlock new areas. And the design of the “dungeons” is inspired, they’re so intricate and rich, yet never so lengthy that they outstay their welcome. The main gripe I have with the game is that a number of the enemies and bosses stray from being fun challenges into just being frustrating. I’d have preferred if they’d made the game just a bit smaller and focused on making each boss encounter as memorable as those on the critical questlines.

It's a terrible and lazy model. You can't neglect making content, and just tell the player "use your imagination".

I would say BotW was more akin to Animal Crossing. That Japanese genre of relaxation game where you sort of mindlessly wander around doing menial tasks to decompress. That said, I did get like 150hrs out of Animal Crossing with my girlfriend so I do see the appeal, I just did not want that for Zelda.

I don't know about you, but I played Zelda games for a story told through a world not a world with no story. The fact that what makes Zelda games Zelda games is an afterthought was series ruining for me. I have no desire to go back to Skyward Sword after playing BOTW, it sucked all wind from my sails

I remember a lot of people disliking Skyward Sword because the traditional handholding and plot-centric Zelda design had grown to the point that you couldn’t escape the tutorial for hours and the Navi-like annoying reminder mascot had returned.

They were inspired to reinvent it by watching the reviews for Shadow of the Colossus which was “modeless” (low-UI) and refused to explain anything, like Fromsoft does now.