I can hear the assassins closing in on my house as I type this…
No but seriously, I have friends who do the whole “Oh it’s the best game ever ” or “best Zelda game” and I ask them the same things. What’s your favourite dungeon, favourite boss battle, music, memorable NPC, moment, side quest, story, themes? So on.
Almost ALL of them with their answers mention every other Zelda game except BotW, it’s very rarely it gets mentioned for any of the questions. So I then ask “If BotW is your favourite Zelda game like you say then why is it that you never picked it for most of your answers?”
They usually have nothing to say…the fact is, from the story, dungeons, boss fights etc, past games did it better, you know things which make a Zelda game…Zelda.
I’ll give it top marks for little details like going down a steep hill in your shield, making things, gliding, the clouds shadows on the ground, turning water to ice using them as platforms and so on but when the rest of the game is just a step back from other main Zelda games, what’s the point, these things don’t hold it up on their own.


