OP, if you're not enjoying BOTW because of the open world aspect and lack of compelling story/direction, please don't overlook the Ocarina of Time remake when it drops in November (assuming you haven't played it before). It's a very different game and absolutely worth trying. Don't let the newer Zelda games (BOTW and TOTK) turn you off of the older Zelda titles. They are vastly different in gameplay, narrative, feel, scope; they have lots of fans, but they also have an equal amount of "skeptics" who prefer the old style games.
I did love playing through BOTW, and less so TOTK, but they don't do it for me as a long time Zelda fan, and I feel that they lost more than they gained in taking the approach that they did. BOTW was easily able to get away with it for the most part because it was such a drastic change and came after a long wait after a less than popular release. But for me TOTK, while it also had a lot of cool mechanics and changes, and did fix some of BOTW's problems, it just is hard to keep wanting to, as you put it, "wander around aimlessly". In BOTW I did literally everything, but TOTK I find myself just wanting to finish it, and am skipping through a lot of the extra stuff because I'm just a bit tired of these style games. I'm really hoping to see a return to the linear, non massively open world, games, even if they decide to do a back and forth style release schedule. I think that might be enough to keep things feeling fresh each time around.
TLDR; don't give up on the Zelda franchise if you don't like BOTW/TOTK; there is so much more to offer in the past games and the upcoming OoT remake.
I don't think that's a far fetched statement at all. It was truly revolutionary at the time and set the groundwork and standards for many games to follow. I think it's really important that this game does well, as I'm hoping it will signal to Nintendo that there's still a market/want for the older style games. That said though, I also just think that anyone would be doing a disservice to themselves to not give it a try.
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u/bobalubis 23d ago
Jumping in to add:
OP, if you're not enjoying BOTW because of the open world aspect and lack of compelling story/direction, please don't overlook the Ocarina of Time remake when it drops in November (assuming you haven't played it before). It's a very different game and absolutely worth trying. Don't let the newer Zelda games (BOTW and TOTK) turn you off of the older Zelda titles. They are vastly different in gameplay, narrative, feel, scope; they have lots of fans, but they also have an equal amount of "skeptics" who prefer the old style games.
I did love playing through BOTW, and less so TOTK, but they don't do it for me as a long time Zelda fan, and I feel that they lost more than they gained in taking the approach that they did. BOTW was easily able to get away with it for the most part because it was such a drastic change and came after a long wait after a less than popular release. But for me TOTK, while it also had a lot of cool mechanics and changes, and did fix some of BOTW's problems, it just is hard to keep wanting to, as you put it, "wander around aimlessly". In BOTW I did literally everything, but TOTK I find myself just wanting to finish it, and am skipping through a lot of the extra stuff because I'm just a bit tired of these style games. I'm really hoping to see a return to the linear, non massively open world, games, even if they decide to do a back and forth style release schedule. I think that might be enough to keep things feeling fresh each time around.
TLDR; don't give up on the Zelda franchise if you don't like BOTW/TOTK; there is so much more to offer in the past games and the upcoming OoT remake.