yes, absolutely, but the franchise definitely did not start out like that.
The original Legend of Zelda plopped you on the map and gave you nothing. zero guidance. I consider this very good.
Skyward Sword (the mainline release immediately prior to Breath of the Wild) was extremely linear and even gave you the solutions to puzzles so you never felt stuck. this is very awful.
prior to Breath of the Wild, this linear hand-holding style of Zelda game was apparently loved by the creators within Nintendo and was definitely loathed by players, and I remember reading how Nintendo doubted that Breath of the Wild would be well received because it was so much like the original Legend of Zelda, after you left the great plateau. after a couple of months, Nintendo promised to continue the "open world" style of Zelda game going forward.
I felt choked when I played Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. you were link on a rail, and you did what you were told. horrible.
You literally can’t get far off the beach until you hit a specific milestone. And then the next milestone and so on. Zelda NES was very strictly linear, as was ALTTP, Ocarina, Majora, GC Wind Waker etc.
As for “handholding” I’ve never felt that way for a moment while playing e.g. Link’s Awakening or even the later titles like Oracle of Time/Seasons (Seasons was incredibly difficult but ultimately still linear!)
I personally did not find “But you can technically just go fight Ganon with a stick!” a plus. It’s about as much of a Zelda game as Zelda 2.
I'm talking about "zero guidance" solely.
in Breath of the Wild, you are free to go up against Ganon unarmed, if you choose. you will lose, but you can do it. in Loz, you can't reach Ganon without meeting the prerequisites to gain entry. those are both gates to progress, but one is implicit and one is explicit. in both cases, the games give you very little help on how to proceed until you seek out that info yourself. I prefer when you are given the choice about how to proceed yourself.
in BotW, if I am a skilled player, I can make what resources I have go much further than I could if I were an unskilled player.
in LoZ, the requirements are the same for everyone, even if you can kill Ganon without taking damage. you have to do it all. rails. bad.
I liked Zelda 2. A lot. you're going to use that little factoid to dismiss all I've said, and that's your prerogative, but I also loved the first Zelda, and the third.
So every other Zelda game has rails, and rails are (to you) bad. Got it.
I personally find the “rails” (being a fundamental and defining feature that distinguishes the gameplay of every Zelda game) to be a good thing.
I’m a bit confused here. You’re a fan of the Zelda series, but the “rails” that are a fundamental mechanic in every other game are “bad”? Wouldn’t that mean that BotW is the first fundamentally “good” Zelda game from your perspective?
If so, that makes sense! We are in fact talking about two different definitions of what is “a Zelda game”! For me that’s a continuation of a very enjoyable and distinct game design style that began with the NES, for others it might be “the playable character is named Link”
I want new stuff. I want new things to do, and new ways to discover what is possible. I do not want to be led around by the nose like an ox.
I want to learn about the overall Hyrule lore, and the repeated battle between Ganon(dorf) and the forces of Good. I want to know more about this universe, even if... no, especially if I need to discover it myself, without the game outright telling me.
I’m talking about the one where you wander pretty aimlessly through a big field picking up sticks and stuff and occasionally get ethered by those stone robot things on sight. It’s the one where instead of getting key items by beating many different dungeons as you progress, you get a small handful of magic powers in the first hour of gameplay and then set out to collect ingredients for soup or whatever.
> that BotW fails to handhold the player through Link's progression, is by far the game's greatest feature.
I don’t quite understand this. Did you feel like previous Zelda games “handheld” you through progression? Were you a fan of the games that came before BotW?
> absolutely 0% of the overworld (excepting the four shrines of The Great Plateau) is required to beat the game. ok maybe 0.2% because you have to travel to the castle.
Unlike every single other previous Zelda game! It’s almost like a game thats only connection to the Zelda series is the character model and name!
> it was extremely well received for good reasons.
I’m sure it was! “Universal appeal” isn’t one though, as that’s not a real thing.
> don't want to grind? Don't.
I don’t! I just uninstalled it lol