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But exploration has always been associated with Zelda? *shrugs*

In all seriousness, I like the 3D Zelda formula, so I'm still not sure I'll like this.

I personally love it, but I love exploration. If you play Zelda for the dungeon experience, you will be sorely disappointed.

I play it for the fairy boobs. 

Oh, I thought you said "boots" and immediately thought of the Black Sabbath song. My bad. 

Goddamnit now it's in my head.

I'll definitely have to check out the video. I really loved Breath of the Wild, but I agree that it's very dissimilar to the more traditional 3D Zeldas.

I think my biggest disappointment was the lack of proper dungeons. I liked the shrines and all that, but the divine beast "dungeons" were mostly pretty easy and didn't really scratch that dungeon itch. That being said, I love the game for what it is, but I'd love to see them bring the scope in a bit, add major dungeons, and do another adventure on this engine. I'm hoping we'll see something akin to what Majora's Mask was to Ocarina of Time.

If they could merge this style of open world gameplay with more traditional Zelda design, that would be amazing.

I love the exploration of the game but have to agree with the video in most respects. It's still a phenomenal game that every open world game needs to learn from though.

I enjoyed Breath of the Wild, but it's certainly not one of my favorite Zelda games.  I just like traditional dungeons too much.  And actually most of my favorite Zelda games are the 2-D top down ones anyway.  

I know you've mentioned this before, but what is your favourite Zelda. I don't think I have a favourite but the ones I've enjoyed most are Windwaker, Majora's Mask, and Minish Cap.

My favorite Zelda game is Link's Awakening.  It was on the Game Boy and a DX version came out on the Game Boy Color.  Other Zelda games I like are Link to the Past on SNES, the original NES Zelda, and Link Between Worlds on 3DS as well as Four Swords Adventures on GameCube.  All of which are 2-D Zeldas.

I actually haven't played Link's Awakening... I may have to get on that.

Isn't this a similar complaint about Tomb Raider reboot--lack of dungeons/tombs from originals. Haven't tried Zelda yet, but I've already complained about long ass games and open worlds in the past and I really should just distill every complaint down in a proper blog and explain myself at some point. Actually with Zelda, I'll just leave it alone.

Great. Looks like my reply to this got wiped. Since you like Xenoblade games I think you'll like the open world of this.

 And yeah it is a little I guess. Though dungeons feel a bit more essential to Zelda than Tombs do in Zelda.

Have you seen footage of Ghost Recon Wild Lands? I played the beta and it's kind of like MGS 5, but with a squad. Actually, the traveling from quest mark to quest mark in open terrain got boring for me. It's kind of like GTA, I guess? You're a fan of large open worlds like Far Cry, so I figured you might have tried this? I actually liked previous Ghost Recon games, and I liked having a little video drone to operate to survey hideouts n such, which I thought was fun. I might play it when the price drops. It wasn't that bad, just not my kind of thing, but I like playing with a team.

I actually got rid of BOTW. I just couldnt get into it, I tried. I was excited at first but then it died on me. I def dont feel like its a Zelda title to me. I didnt like the weapon durability, the world was big and beautiful but it didnt feel like I had a big consistant goal that kept me going, fast travel is only to shrines and towers, shrines can be fun but some are bullshit, never even made it to a dungeon. I also miss having a companion, your just by yourself. I dont regret buying it but I do feel like it should have been a new IP and not a Zelda title. 

That's sad. Both myself and my gf got really into the exploration side of things, but the Zelda part is sorely lacking. And uh... there aren't really dungeons in this game. There are four kind of sort of dungeons, but they barely cound in my books. They're also the only real goal you have. Though you don't have to. You also don't have to get the master sword, or really do anything.

 I love exploring the world, since it's one of the best worlds I've had the pleasure of exploring. As a Zelda game... it kind of fell short. It's a great sequel to Far Cry 2 though.

Yes, but what is "traditional"?  The themed gimmick dungeons seen in, say, Ocarina of Time are not tradtional to people who see the early games as definitive. Combat being dull is something I can say about the games after the first two: easy, non-threatening, not twitchy enough. Yet I heard the combat in BoTW is the hardest it's been since Adventure of Link. Dungeon do look weak though, from what I've seen, but a return to Water/Fire/Sky/etc and the gimmicky puzzles are not the answer imo. Make the dungeons dark, gloomy, dangerous places like in the first two games, where death is likely. Turning levers and using the new whatsit on the new widget that only exists in that dungeon is played out .

The problem with the dungeons isn't an aesthetic thing. The problem is that there are 4 "dungeons" in the game. Each dungeon is about 20-30 minutes long. None of them are all that complex, and they barely require any brain power. I know Zelda puzzles have always existed to make you feel smart rather than need to be smart, but that's taken far too far in this game. Plus, none of the "dungeons" here really have their own unique atmosphere.

 The Shrines are even worse, as there's 120 of them and they all look exactly the same. Same textures, same colours, and they're only mechanically different. With the exception of maybe 20 of them, most of them are hot garbage too. They're either too short to explore the ideas they introduce, or they didn't bother introducing an idea to begin with.

Then there are the combat dungeons. In all of those you fight exactly the same enemy, with exactly the same move set. The only difference is that the harder ones have a larger health bar.

 The combat is fucking amazing for the first few hours. It's hard, you have to improvise and it's just a blast. Then you get better armour and nothing can hurt you at all. Or you upgrade the amount of weapons or hearts you can carry and the combat becomes a joke.

Oh, and all of the bosses look almost exactly the same. And there are roughly 6 enemy varieties in the entire game.

 I still adore this game. I think it's one of the best open world games ever made. But the "Zelda side" is sorely lacking.

Some of that sounds unfortunate. Well, I get my fantasy dungeon delving fix from many other games now. I really don't know what I would want from this series these days since so many games fill the same roles and do it as well.

...Examples? I'm aching for a good fantasy dungeon delving game!

Dragon's Dogma/Dark Arisen.

Dark Souls (1 in particular).

Modded Skyrim (there are a lot of samey, bland dungeons, but some standout ones too).

Diablo 1 HD mod.

Ys series

Divinity series

Darksiders

Path of Exile/Torchlight/Diablo clones in general.

Binding of Isaac/rogue-lites and roguelikes in general

Since you mentioned modded Skyrim, have you played Enderal? I think it's like the perfect merging of both Elder Scrolls and Gothic series sensibilities.

I don't know, with the exception of Darksiders (which is just Zelda for fans of Dark Horse and early Image comics) None of them really capture what I would look for in Zelda's dungeons. Dark Souls has the exploratory elements and atmosphere, but it's lacking the puzzles that really set those dungeons apart.

Oh ok. I was only looking at it from my point of preference. That's why I said other games fill the role the series used to fill for me, meaning the first two games and ALTTP and LA to some extent. Although I still did enjoy the hell out of OoT and TP, it rubs me the wrong way that  many people now think LoZ = puzzle game and anything else is not the "correct" way to make a Zelda game because they grew up with OoT and not the the original.

Yeah, what other dungeon delving games you got? I want to know too.You mean like Etrian Odyssey or SMT games?

I like Wizardry type dungeon crawlers, but in keeping with the LoZ theme, I'm thinking single character with real-time combat. See my list above. I would add roguelikes too, like Caves of Qud and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, which are in between.