Unpopular Opinion

As a lifelong Zelda fan for the last 3 decades, I felt totally alone in how I felt about BoTW and ToTK. The shrines lost all the character of the original dungeons, and I hated the weapon durability and the introduction of the shiekah tablet and later the ultra hand or whatever. I was annoyed that YET AGAIN, my favorite game became an open world crafter, just like ALL THE OTHER OPEN WORLD CRAFTERS.

These Zelda games were the moment I realized most clearly that I am no longer Nintendo's target demographic.

Consider your points in that context and they are that much more obvious.

Why would a kid today care about the consistency of design for a game from many decades ago? They only want new thing, famous container

Echoes feels the most like a classic Zelda game to me, and is the first Zelda game to hook me since the Gameboy. So… I want more of that.

Ocarina of Time should have been a different franchise because its mechanically too different from the top down 2D games before it

I disliked the new Zelda games. Didn't like the mechanics, gameplay, and especially hated the durability of weapons. The weapons thing was Super annoying and was the reason I didn't play anything after the first one whatever it was called.

I dunno, just putting the first three Zelda games on the NES against Ocarina of Time is already a pretty broad spectrum of games.

If, from your perspective, a Zelda game distinguishes itself primarily by how good of a puzzle delivery platform it is, then sure, larger scale puzzles beyond the scope of a single shrine are sort of absent from the "of the Wild" era games. I suspect this was a conscious design decision, because once a player has to hold significant state in their head, any interruption (this is a mobile console after all) will lead to a number of players being stumped and not completing the game. The same idea applies to tasks with multiple solutions, funneling players by only allowing one solution, one path through the game will mostly just lead to gatekeeping and exclusion. You can see that kind of thinking exemplified in the design of the TotK dungeons, each of which are basically half a dozen independent puzzles leading up to some unrelated boss fight.

Personally, to me puzzles are a fun diversion and not very important at all. What the original Zelda was amazing for was its hardcore exploration. After being more and more limited and railroaded in LttP, then LA, OoT went too far for me. It never clicked for me, even after trying several times, and I left the franchise basically until BotW, with exploration once again being front and center of the Zelda experience.

I agree that everything after LA and before BotW could have been its own franchise. But BotW is more "Zelda" than basically every other Zelda before it, and I'm happy it has returned the franchise to its original, "proper" form.

L take move on

So you haven't played the original NES game? Because that's what BOTW and TOTK harken to. Not the 3D ones.

Disagree. They capture the essence of the Zelda franchise perfectly with masterful innovation and flawless engineering and you don't have to like it.

I disagree about TotK being a bad sequel, but I 100% agree that it should have been a new franchise. TotK returned to the same map, but with a twist and a whole new set of tools to explore with, plus 2 new massive areas.

You're spot on with Echoes of Wisdom though. It's hard to avoid using beds and water blocks as the solution to every movement puzzle and it's hard to avoid just using whatever Lv3 mob you have as a solution to all the combat.

I really like the new Zelda games, but I agree that I miss the "tight" puzzles. Some of the solutions to puzzles were too easy if you got certain items before encountering the puzzle. I didn't always realize until I was done with the puzzle and I was left thinking "oh... That was it?"

I agree with the 2 Switch games, absolutely. Loved BOTW. Did not love TOTK. The joy of exploration was why I loved it. They took that away by keeping the same territory. Felt like a big big DLC.. not a stand-alone game. Sky & underground are so barren. Barely anything to call new to really adequately call it "new content".

I'd rather excise games based on setting, rather than mechanics nuances or narrative structure. Zelda games are about the story of Hyrule. We don't be needing none of them New Hyrule, Termina, or Koholint Island stories in the franchise. They can be something else.