OOT and Mario 64 were never considered to be obsolete by their sequels. Even a game like TP which attempted to be a “bigger and better OOT” lost a lot of subtleties in the process. It says a lot about their quality in terms of game design when you basically have to compare them to future games in the same series if you wanna argue about them not being the best. OOT can still be favorably compared to BOTW in many ways. While MM came out, it did improve upon OOT in many aspects. OOT was still goated for not only providing the foundation, but also standing out from its successor (basically OOT is the Hero’s Journey, epic quest, more well rounded, MM has a different focus). If it only needed an interative sequel for BOTW to be rendered obsolete in every way except literal 2017 nostalgia and the in-game abilities that you have, it just means that it isn’t as robust in terms of design compared to other goated games. Why go back to BOTW if its sequel has a bigger world, more options, more involved villain, better level design. That honestly just shows how far following open world tropes gets you, again you simply never had this concern at all for other big single player Nintendo games
Design is general is subjective, this doesn’t mean that you can disregard someone else’s argument simply because “it’s not objective, it’s a matter of opinion”. It was pretty bad when that other user got dogpiled for pointing out how pausing to heal was a design issue. Sure you could say that it wasn’t one for you because the game was difficult enough in your opinion, but you still had all kinds of fallacies to make it sound like it wasn’t a big deal at all when it’s a legit design issue. Subjective just means that it’s about human perception, that’s why it never made sense to use the term on the Internet when arguing about stuff like videogames and movies. We’re all human anyway, what’s the point about pointing out what’s objective or not, there’s nothing to discuss there
I know I sound serious and everything, I know a lot of people were fine with how the game turned out but I’m talking about the bigger picture here. Here’s another perspective on why I think the current state of open worlds is a problem and why my opinion doesn’t really conflict with people that love BOTW over other games or whatnot, this really has nothing to do with my point. So let’s look at Mario 64 right, it was a revelation not only for 3D games in general but also in the way that even though it wasn’t a totally open game, it wasn’t a level select screen anymore. Therefore, the way players engaged with the game was totally different from past Marios, in a way it was one of the first games that ignited this itch for exploration and freedom in games. OOT obviously needs no introduction, it basically did everything right in the first try. Good level design, verticality, action button, z-targeting, interactivity with the world, you name it. Both left a mark on the imaginations of many, both have influenced many games.
Now I haven’t played every single 3D open-ish game out there that came out since then so I can’t elaborate about all of them. A lot of them are in totally different genres compared to Zelda. There is one case of another action-adventure series though that perfectly illustrates my problem with open world in terms of game design. Let’s look at Assassin’s Creed. Remember when it was announced, it was made by the Prince of Persia team, it was supposed to be a PoP spinoff. PoP was a linear but great action/platformer/adventure. AC looked cool on paper, but in terms of gameplay it simply lacked any of the game design and player agency found in PoP. The platforming was now fully automated and reducted to the press of a button. Even the “tombs” and gameplay improvements in 2 didn’t do enough to mitigate this. The action was worse overall as well. The series evolved into this mismash of AAA design trends, not only disregarding its PoP roots but also the whole thing about trying to be an assassin. Now this is a very obvious textbook example of how AAA open worlds can go wrong, but the more telling part is how it end up having absolutely none of the qualities that its spiritual predecessor had. It still sold though, why is that, why is this a design issue, why can AAA open worlds keep getting away with it. Because they take level design for granted, they think videogames are in a constant evolution and past games are just old games. Their structure are always this kind of dopamine drip feed, you get points to upgrade your stats, you just keep chasing the small increment. It’s way harder to make a good game than to make a mildly addictive game, but these are still good enough to keep selling and have decent review scores. However, in the grand scheme of things, they are teases, people buy them in the hope that they deliver the next Mario 64 moment but it never really happens.
Thankfully Zelda is far from having these types of flaws, but the point still stands due to it basically adapting to the formula rather than making an entirely different kind of non-linear structure. It’s funny how the common answer to the problem of repetition in the game, as shown in that other reply to your post, is that “if Shrines bore you just stop doing them”. If that’s not a design and pacing issue I dunno what it is, that’s the whole problem, that’s saying that the game is more fun if you don’t fully engage with every crafted challenge the game has to offer, it should be the opposite. Call TP formulaic all you want but at least that game never overstayed its welcome or had diminishing returns. You had a final dungeon that included every item in the game, you had a boss battle, that’s it. Meanwhile, BOTW is just boring once you do every truly unique part of the game, aka the main story and a few select exceptions like Eventide Island.
If TOTK still has the exact same flaws regardless of its improvements, this clearly means the foundation is the problem. Again, this goes beyond people’s individual tastes in games, I just think open world as a structure holds back the entire industry and prevents a true Mario 64 moment of redefining freedom in games, because the foundation just isn’t good when the gameplay loop is basically these repetitive small increments of content. How many of these single player open world games simply crashed and burned, too many. I just want series to bring non-linearity in their own ways rather settling on giving their take on AAA trends