I'm just flabbergasted at how much people seem to praise the shrines. They start at a challenge level 0, then escalate to 1 once you leave the tutorial and then never goes anywhere from there. The only good thing about them is that they are so short that you don't have enough time to actually get tired of them. In many ways they're quite similar to the Riddler trophies in the Arkham games, and that is basically never brought out as a strong part of those games (rather the opposite mostly).

Now there are some open-world puzzles in this game that are actually fun and clever, but to say this game is filled with interesting things around every corner when you go exploring is a massive exaggeration. 85+% of the stuff you find is repeat content that would get labeled as "busy work" in any other open world game. It just seems like it takes people a while to figure that out since they're not shown straight away that there's "50 monster camps, 80 korok seeds, 120 hidden chests, etc etc" with map icons.

That fucking stealth mission involving the Yiga clan. Stealth in that game is not particularly handled well

@bojackhorseman: I grew up on NES and old PC games and I think this game is terrible. Everything about this game is dull. Original Zelda games thrived on gameplay, and this game has bad gameplay.

Now if you played OOT first I can see how you would like this game. I though OOT was awful as well for similar reasons that this game is awful. It's all about LTTP.

@coolarman: Forced stealth sections in games that dont have good (or any) stealth mechanics is probably one my least favourite things in video games. At least that section was mercifully short. (I remember the Goruda stealth section in OoT being a lot longer)

Sooo I really really really like the game but there are a couple of design decisions that I find legitimately baffling to the point that I'm wondering if they may any attempt at all to focus test the game:

- given the extremely limited inventory size, literally anyone who plays this game is going to have a full inventory of swords, shields and bows at all times. Which means, when you try to pick up a new weapon, YOU SHOULD BE GIVEN THE CHANCE TO DROP A LESSER WEAPON IN EXCHANGE without exiting out of the entire chest opening animation, pausing, entering toto your inventory, selecting a weapon, hitting down twice, hitting drop, and then having to manually reopen the chest and sit through same chest opening animation. Give me a fucking break. At the very least, just leave the chest open. Even the Nioh devs -- where you have an inventory of 400 items and no weapon durability -- made it so that you don't have reopen the chest.

- if you are going to include weapon durability, how the hell do you not include any indication at all about how much durability a weapon has remaining until the thing is literally about to break? A durability meter or percentage tracker would be sufficient. A "hits remaining" counter would be even better. Want to give me a soft indicator like a slowly detoriating item picture? Sure, not ideal but better than the nothing that they provide.

- why can't you repair your gear? my finecrafted sword just falls apart into dust after a dozen hits?

These are some extremely basic things that a 10 year old would tell you after playing the game for 5 minutes.

open up a chest, "inventory is full" fuck let me open up a few menus to get to the weapon section that i want to browse to check if there is anything I want to drop... wish there was a better way of managing this stuff.

Well, there is hostility, trolling for attention and being critical/analytical, you can't just lump them all together. It is kind of necessary to take things apart to be able to identify strengths and weaknesses, how else can you understand things. Of course when that has happened, some people pick those few things and start harping on them to create or sway a kind of angry mob consensus.

I can appreciate both a critic who can really put the finger where it hurts and the other thing. Sometimes I enjoy both writing and reading the angry tirades, because they rarely hold up. This is also a way to write, you start with a highly motivating angry rhetoric, but then realize that you are being unfair and wrong, ending up with something actually insightful though the process.

So whenever people stick to their guns and their BS rhetoric, that just means they failed at being honest or observant, then it just becomes an exercise in identifying their fallacies. Bonus points for being able to categorize them. Like the fallacy of appeal to tradition, Open world games really should use this and that.

Bad critics will always be skeptical, cynical at the beginning to appear neutral, but then write a glowing endorsement, a kind of incoherent rant about how they found Jesus. That's what you are basically describing, and this is an old advertisement cliche and a tired trope, and it is all kinds of wrong, but not because of negativity.

• I miss traditional Zelda items (hookshot, etc.)
• I miss dungeons and different bosses
• Final boss BLOWS.
  
• Decent story content locked behind obscure optional quests (Master Sword, Memory cutscenes)

So I'm just through my first dungeon (Vah Naboris) and currently fighting its boss.

Are they all like this? Because honestly the dungeon seems like they played a practical joke on the designer telling them that it'll be a regular Zelda game and then pranking them good by completely changing the mechanics of the whole game. I mean, Link is literally obstructed by a waist high wall at one point that he can't climb over.

The gimmick to the dungeon itself was pretty good and seems as if it would be the ultimate form of a 'traditional' Zelda dungeon, but is out of place in BOTW and honestly it's the least fun I've had with the game so far...

I think I've been to two places where it literally doesn't stop raining. That's quite annoying. One has a shrine in a pit where, I believe, you are suppose to hit a rock into the wall to break it open. It's a very fun task. Lining up your hits is too imprecise.

There's one shrine that is basically golf that is quite annoying. The first hole is easy which is all you need to complete but there is a second hole that is near impossible that unlocks a chest. I left it but I'm wondering if there is a good item there since it's such a difficult one to get. I've only found one item that wasn't a weapon in a chest in the shrines so I'm hoping it's something like that.

If anyone knows what shrine I'm talking about, just tell me if that chest is even worth it. I marked it on my map to come back to later. I broke my club weapons trying to get it so I had to leave it be.

Calling two of the greatest games ever made terrible and awful kinda destroys your credibility. Opinions are good, but that's less of a opinion and more of a hyperbolic statement.

Weapons breaking. Weapons in your inventory not auto-equipping when one breaks. And that you dont have a weak default unarmed attack, not even just throwing a punch.

Can't comment on controls, I keep playing in tablet mode with the joycons attached and it just feels like playing a Vita game.

@hopuk: I live in Canada, so it's the North American version.

Nothing game breaking but this is my complaints (Wii U):

• Frame rate. Some places are awful, it feels like playing OoT all over again. Overall not a huge problem but awful when and where it happens. Also, the game is capped at 30 FPS, which I'm not a fan of. Zelda is more forgiving than a Mario game, but yeah. I dislike 30 FPS. The Switch version is smoother overall according to Digital foundry.
• I don't mind rain and climbing at all. It makes sense and it can sometimes be interesting to solve a problem a different way. But when you really need to climb and can't light a fire (due to the rain) it gets tedious since you need to fast travel to a bed or weather protected fireplace to pass some time. Meaning two loading times if you don't wanna run.
• Opening a chest and your inventory is full with no fast option to swap. Clunky to close the chest, throw or drop an unwanted weapon and open the chest once again.
• The resolution of the Wii U gamepad. So on the TV the game runs in 720p (Switch 940p iirc) which is fine but the Wii U gamepad only got a resolution of 854x480. Which isn't that good for a game like this on a 6.2 inch screen. It's good enough for games like Mario Maker, but in Zelda it can sometimes make it hard to see details when you spot for secrets. I still play on the gamepad sometimes but it's not optimal.
• Voice acting could be left out. It doesn't add to the game in this state.

So mostly technical related, and most of it is better on the Switch. A list of the stuff I like would be way longer than this.
Overall I'm very pleased, a really good game so far.

@bojackhorseman said:

I completely agree with him. I played most of OoT when it came out and hated it. Then I played most of it again when the remake came out on 3DS and hated it again. It's probably the only game I've ever bought and traded away twice. To me the whole game is dull and obtuse in a way that I just find completely un-fun. I desperately want to like these games because everyone else seems to love them, but it seems like there may be some fundamental thing about all of the 3D Zelda games that I just don't enjoy. Also, the best Zelda game is A Link Between Worlds and I desperately hope they make another one of those.

Overall i think this game is absolutely incredible Things that could of been better have been brought up

• Memorize recipes/cooking shortcuts
• I wish there was a potion that made you able to climb in the rain without issue
• Frame rates
• Items break too easily . Should have someone you can go to late game to make an item similar to the master sword where it's over used.
• Traditional style dungeons/items. but not a deal breaker

I love this style of game, but I do hope it's not all Zelda games follow this formula in the future. I think there is a place still for the older style or even a Link Between Worlds approach to Zelda.

• Run and jump button should be in the traditional Mario configuration goddamnit. And confirm should be in the Playstation "X" or Xbox "A" position.

• I love the idea of the new dungeons but I wish they were twice as long and felt more unique. A cool idea would be something like the water dungeon being more effected by water. For example, having barnacles and coral overgrown inside and being full of water based enemies to fight. It would keep that "ancient tech" baseline but have flourishes that would give the inside a distinct "silhouette." The scale and quests surrounding them are so interesting then getting inside is a little bit of a letdown as they all look so similar and lack any individuality. Even the bosses are riffs on one theme.

I've done two "big" dungeons and about to do the third. Been doing a lot of the side content on the way (e.g. I've finished the "memories" quest, as off the bat I found about five or six and figured it was a good way to motivate exploring the world).

My main gripe so far is that the dungeons are really not that interesting. The shrines are nice for what they are and I'm okay with them being (for the most part) straightforward. But I was pretty disappointed getting to dungeons with basically no combat and hardly any real puzzles. The boss battles I've done so far have not been terribly interesting either, although I can buy the thematic significance of that (still would have been cooler to have to fight ghosts of the champions). I seem to recall Dan gushing about the dungeons and I have no idea what impressed him so much about them.

I don't really have an issue with the durability system. It would be nice if torches / leaves didn't take up slots, but so far I've made do with alternatives vs. trying to carry those around with me. I wish you could expand the house more (though maybe you can later).

BTW regarding climbing, there is gear you can get to allow climbing in the rain if that's your thing, though it's not like you'd find that early on.

Last time a game caught my eye in this manner, is when Greg Kasavin played Skyrim for 12 hours. I'm looking forward to playing BotW in due course. Meanwhile I have absorbed a lot of information out there about the Switch and Zelda and by far the most alarming thing I've heard so far is something Jeff mentioned on the Bombcast.

Something that is just impossible to unsee once you've noticed it. Something that did ruin Skyrim for me and forced me to basically run around looking down in front of my feet . It's a hard technical limitation, and older games used just a wall of fog around you or they boxed you in with the walls and ceiling of a corridor. Game engines figured out they could increase the size of the box around the player by reducing the number of polygons on objects in the distance, and they found a way to stream in higher quality textures into memory as you approached stuff. Critics christened the visual weirdness as draw distance and texture pop-in.

In Skyrim I had the snowy mountains, and green rolling hills, but I could see the edge of the render box even with the draw distance maxed out. With objects materializing out of nowhere upon approach. So if I hat to pick a flaw, this is even a bigger problem/limitation than 30-20-15 FPS Vsync.

The rain climbing thing. I know why it's there, and it sometimes creates a fun little journey for you, and it made a nice thing to block you off the Zora kingdom road, but for the most part, it's just annoying.

I really like everything else. I love climbing, cause you can climb all sorts of stuff, and you're never limited by mountains. In fact, you're encouraged to climb them! And they had to limit that with a stamina bar. I really don't mind, and now that I'm stronger, it's barely ever a hindrance. And it's kinda satisfying to be in the red on your stamina bar, jump, and make it.

I really like the breaking weapons. I hate loot games, they feel so pointless with you using the same weapon for 10% of the game, then switching to a weapon that's 5% better, and then using that one for another 10% of the game. Boring. I dislike Borderlands, because you don't give a shit about 99% of the weapons that fall out of enemies. In this game I collect, and use all of the weapons, and hold on to 1-2 of the better ones. I absolutely LOVE this system. Creativity, variety and experimentation at a cost of the feeling of control and satisfaction with building up your arsenal (which you still get, since I have, like, 15 cool weapons in my inventory right now, and always collecting more cool weapons, it's just that they cycle).

I sometimes feel like the temples take me out of the experience a little bit. They've created this marvelous open world that has no loading screens, and then oh, hey, look at that, there's a shrine there. Siiigh, guess I have to get into that, go through the loading screen, blah blah blah. I mean, they're really satisfying puzzles, and I love the shrines, it's just that the way you get into them is a bit jarring. Would've been great if they were just caves in the world, but then the game would come out in, like, 10 years. So yeah, they're good, but could have been better.

I like that the map is so big, and there's always cool stuff to find and see. Hey, see that weird looking rock in the distance? If that drew your attention, I'm 100% sure there's something cool there waiting for you. Even the collectibles have fun little puzzles to them.

So, yeah, good stuff. The framerate could be better though. Man, sometimes it's choppy as hell on the WiiU. Also, the inventory management would be way better on the gamepad, but they did not do that, and it's a tad clunky. Better than in, let's say Dark Souls or the Witcher... or Fallout... or a bunch of other games, but still clunky.

Nitpicks. This is the most fun I've had with an open-world game ever. Yeah, I never liked Far Cry, Crisis, GTA, Fallout or Just Cause, or Sleeping Dogs, or Saints Row. Found them all boring and empty and disappointing. Well, Red Dead was kinda fun. Either way, I am having fun with Zelda. It's great.

A lot of my complaints have been stated by others but now that I've been done with the game for a few days, a lot of what is staying with me negatively is how little reward you get for exploring ultimately. Finding the master sword completely detached from any main quests was pretty neat, but beyond that there was rarely any material reward for my effort. The world's treasures are just chests with weapons that really weren't all that better than anything else in my inventory, or shrines for the same standard health/stamina upgrades. I would have preferred finding things in the game that expanded on how I could interact with the world, but by the end of the game Rupee chests were the only ones that were really worth anything.

It kinda surprises me to hear other people so obsessed with getting all the shrines, because after beating Ganon I don't see any point in going back and finding the ones I missed. Maybe there are some good puzzles I'll miss out on, but nothing I skipped will make exploring any more fun or more interesting. So much of your resources and rewards only serve the combat.

To be clear, I loved my time with the game overall. Exploring is really fun when it's from a "see what's next" perspective. But once you filled out the map and seen about all there is to see, the game doesn't really motivate you to dig any deeper.

This. I have the common arguments of frame rate drop and too much rain, but I feel they "MGS5'd" this game sometimes. The Zelda bits aren't enough and thats what i really want out of a zelda game but the gameplay parts/exploration made me cling to this game longer then i usually do.

Really just the lack of a reference for recipes. Crafting is stupid in any video game once you've made enough things, and while the cooking in this one is among the better crafting systems it's still baffling that they'd want to make it take so much of your time.

Other than that it's my favorite Zelda game, and my favorite open world game. Mainly because it lets you climb vertical surfaces (I wish as many games as possible would steal this system) and because they included a paraglider (good in nearly all games.)

It's a material that is pretty worth it. The key is that a hit from a heavy weapon hits the ball further than a hit from a lighter weapon.

The framerate. That's about it ...

UI could definitely use some work. Ideally each Material you find should be tagged with the status effect it can be used for cooking with (these icons are already made for the buffs, so that shouldn't be too hard?).

And when you come up to a cooking pot, it should pop open a cooking UI where you can nab stuff and cook it, rather than having to go into your inventory and Holding stuff.

You should also have a button to repeat your last cook so long as you still have ingredients.

All of these would make me happy!

I feel like the game is a fantastic open world game. It has one of the best open worlds in any game I've played. I love that there are puzzles out and about in the world all over the place, in addition to the shrines. I like that there are parts of the open world that have level design, like climbing death mountain, getting through the Lost Woods, and other similar areas of the world where it's not just open space, but clearly designed sections that aren't divorced from the world, but are tucked away. I also think they do a great job of making the different regions have their own distinct flavor and feel.

With all that being said, as someone that considers Zelda my favorite game series of all time, I think it comes up short in some areas that I consider core fundamental elements of the series, first and foremost being the dungeons.

Typically my favorite part of any Zelda game, the dungeons in BotW leave a lot to be desired. For starters, there's not enough of them, and each one of the dungeons in BotW would be the shortest and easiest dungeon in pretty much every other 3D Zelda game. Not only are they short and easy, but they are aesthetically and thematically similar to each other to a shocking degree. They all share the same core mechanic and have a version of the same boss.

Previous Zelda games all have a variety of dungeons with a tangible theme and an original boss. Where's this game's version of Snowpeak Ruins and City in the Sky from Twilight Princess, Ancient Cistern and Sandship from Skyward Sword, or Tower of the Gods from Wind Waker? These dungeons were unlike anything else in their game or any other Zelda game. Those dungeons had such a distinct personality that make them instantly memorable and unique. You can find dungeons like that in pretty much every Zelda game, but not in this one.

Even if dungeons in BotW were each themed after the rote and predictable "Forest / Fire / Water / Desert" that past Zelda game usually feature as their first handful of dungeons, that would be preferable to the samey and bland aesthetics shared by all the dungeons we ended up getting. That still wouldn't address the issue of their small size, easy puzzles, shared core mechanics, cloned bosses, and the fact that there are only four of them, but it'd be a start.

I understand that a core design goal of Breath of the Wild was to rethink the conventions of the series, and they definitely improved a whole bunch of things that had gotten stale in recent entries. However, I don't know anyone that thought there needed to be a major shakeup done to dungeons. Maybe in how you access them and being made to do them in a rigid order, but the dungeons themselves have always been the highlights of Zelda games. If not for the great dungeons in Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, the perception of those games would be much worse.

It's somewhat disappointing that, as I approach the end of BotW, despite adoring the game and feeling it will be a serious contender for my personal GOTY when it's all said and done, I can't help but look toward to the next game in series and salivate at the prospect of a Zelda game with the quality of game world in BotW filled with a dozen high quality traditional Zelda dungeons.

I really hope the traditional Zelda dungeon isn't gone for good and we see them again, because they're one of my favorite things in all of games. If BotW had them it would probably be my favorite game of all time.

The Zelda fan base i don't like.

That's an awful lot of people.

and an awful lot of people that don't have to do with the game itself.

I really just want to be able to craft arrows. That's the only thing I really have any need to craft, nearly 30 hours in.

I want animals and other things to stop vanishing while I'm looking at them in my scope, chasing them, or just simply observing them. I get it if I'm not being stealthy, I don't get it if something disappears while I'm simply looking at it.

I'm actually getting tired of the art style now. I liked it at first but now I'm tired of all the cel shaded grass and dirt. I also wish there was less grass and dirt and more...I dunno...just more.

Animals poofing into non-existence drives me nuts. Still love the art style but totally thought you'd be able to craft arrows at some point.

Having played it for a few hours, I wish they'd nailed a solid 30 FPS. The framerate is all over the place, and it's particularly egregious whenever you're near tall grass or in a village. I've had friends give me the whole "I care more about gameplay than graphics" shtick (the one Nintendo has cultivated since the Wii, as if you can only have one or the other), and I still contend that there's a difference between a game's graphics and its framerate. Zelda: Breath of the Wild has a lot of style and a great art aesthetic (graphics), but its framerate and technical performance are lamentably bad to the point of adversely affecting gameplay. This isn't a "this game isn't in 4k and doesn't use HD Textures" thing and more a "the game is chugging on the system and I'm getting stutters that are screwing up my combat timing" thing. The former is a superficial complaint, and the latter definitely isn't.

I wasn't willing to write this kind of thing off for The Last Guardian, and I'm not here either. Frankly, I would have happily settled for a very nice ground grass-texture and a few clumps of moving grass here or there rather than these lush fields and their accompanying performance dips. A fair trade, really. Know your platform's limits and plan accordingly.

Oh, and I dislike the cooking system. Even World of Warcraft circa 2004 had a cooking interface. Recipes you learned would stay in your cookbook, and you could filter based on "recipes I have ingredients for" or "recipes I've learned" to see what you might cook. Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a huge, clunky step backward. Also, while I'm at it... the ability to drop an item from inventory to pick up items from a chest WITHOUT leaving the chest menu would be great.

Other than those things, I like this game. For Nintendo's first Ubisoft-style open world game, it works really well. I get the feeling that I've done this before... because I have, but it's neat to have a few survival elements added to the mix and the Zelda license bolted on as I climb towers to survey sites-of-interest and side-quests, wander around an open world, and tackle their decentralized main story.

It's worthy of the Zelda brand's name, but I wouldn't call it my Game of the Year. I've played other Ubisoft-style open worlds with the same basic activities, more intricate dungeons, less repetitive side dungeons (the shrines are so samey), better skinner box mechanics (though to Breath of the Wild's credit, combat is so fun that I don't mind getting absolutely nothing for doing it other than some monster fangs and bat wings), better technical performance, and much better draw distances with less pop-up. A good game? Absolutely, but a great game by the standards of the open-world genre? Eh. I've honestly seen better.

First of all I love this game. The immersion and all just has me hooked. Me and my friends talk about it almost every day. I can almost forgive all the things I don't like about it.

What I dislike:

• The weapons breaking. The most common issue.
• Climbing up then it starts raining.
• Wish there was a cookbook that fit into the compendium section. Every meal you learn or potion goes in there.
• Not enough storage space. Wish there was a place to store your goods.

There are too many test of strength shrines, they are boring as all hell.

As someone else said The last boss fight is awful, such a waste.

@toosweet: There's no need for a cookbook, just chuck anything in the pots and it becomes obvious what'll make decent meals and what won't. The system isn't complex to need a crafting page.

You know you can hold as many materials as you want, right? Clothing also has no inventory limit. Meals are limited to 3 pages, but that's more than enough. Weapons and shields are the main item that has a hard cap on your inventory space, but upgrading that inventory is part of the game's progression. You're also meant to constantly be using that stuff to the point of breaking and cycling in new things. You are also able to buy a house that allows to display 3 weapons, 3 bows, and 3 shields. Not a ton, but it's a limited way to save things for later without them taking up space in your inventory.

I think the inventory can certainly be unwieldy, especially when you're up to 6 pages of materials like I am, but complaining that the game doesn't have enough storage space seems odd to me.

Also, not to harp on you, but I feel like anyone wanting a cookbook doesn't yet realize how simple the cooking system is and how useless the more specific things you can make are. Sure, it's fun the first time you figure out how to make apple pie, but then realize all it does is heal you. You can get the same effect buy chucking 5 apples together.

Even the super beneficial things you can make require nothing more than reading the item description. Need something to raise your attack? Find anything with name "mighty" or "razor" and throw five of them together to get the most potent effect. Tossing 5 hearty radishes or 5 ironshell crabs into a pot will get you monumentally better results than any of the named dishes you can make.

I don't mean to pick on you, rather I hope understanding more about the things that are bothering you about the game can help you have a better time.

• Frame Rate
• Zelda and Mipha's voice acting
• The main dungeons while something different and unique, sadly leave so much to be desired and aren't as great as a full on "legit" dungeon would have been.
• Inventory management as a whole; from managing weapons to cooking, this is especially frustrating since I was playing on the Wii U which had a second screen mechanic, but was removed to be "on par" with the switch.
• While the ambient music helps you get immersed when out exploring, the lack of epic original score outside of that is a bit disappointing.
• The memories while interesting way to parse the story, still falls behind the cliche yet still entertaining stories of past Zelda games.

This has become part of my top 5 Zelda games, but in that list it falls short of LTTP, OOT and Wind Waker, had it not been for my gripes above it would have surpassed them.

I also want to start by saying i love the game. I really really like how big the world is and when you go up on towers or mountains and oversee the different landscapes, its really beautiful.

But as i play more i find it a bit weird how so many press outlets gave perfect scores. I feel if it didn't have the zelda theme it would be criticized far more. I haven't read many written reviews (except Dan's) but i assume most reviewers have some reverence for Zelda

Kind of want to touch upon some of my issues and explain my views on other's complaints

- Frame Rate: definitely an issue.

- Dungeons: I agree with a lot of people here. Compared to other games in the series they don't live up. My biggest gripe is how formulaic they are. Find map, find five terminals, fight boss. I don't mind doing the same thing but mask it some way to make it feel different. I feel this is where you keep the idea of learning a new mechanic in a dungeon and applying it, its a great concept and one that still works in the series.

- climbing during the rain: I get the complaint. I haven't hit it as much so far but i like that it makes sense in the world. Probably should be some way (new gear) to alleviate it

- cooking: I understand the complaint. My take is they were trying to borrow of the minecraft mechanic of forcing players to remember recipes. (please correct me if i'm wrong) I think they chose on purpose to force players to 1) remember the recipes and 2) force players to experiment and try different ingredients. Allowing players to make recipes in bulk would defeat the purpose.

- weapon storage - i agree with everyone on this aspect. Make it easier to throw away items when picking up new items. If they do patch the game, this is the one i expect them to fix.

- weapon durability: I understand the complaint and i think they should have some way to show how much durability a weapon has but i don't think durability is bad. It forces me to use different weapons far quickly. I felt this was on purpose by the devs and i like it.

- craft arrows: Someone pointed this out and omg yes! i totally agree. I want to use the bow a lot more! but i keep running out and when i buy from stores they only have a limited amount so i have to teleport to different places just to buy more arrows.

I have several issues with this game, but the rain isn't one of them. I understand the argument for rain-related gear and I think that would have been a cool addition, but for the people that dislike the raining, why not just fast travel and explore somewhere else?

I wasn't that bothered with the rain in the beginning when it didn't matter if you went west or east, or south or north. But later in the game I've been more focused at what I want to do. So rain can either force me to wait for the rain to stop, or fast travel / go somewhere else and sleep. Which takes time and feels limiting. Loading screens aren't that fun and I have read the tips and tricks 100 times each. A "Song of the Sun" or "Hat of Sunlight" wouldn't be a bad idea. Or perhaps cooking a sunflower or something into an elixir.

I wish the blood moon cutscene only happened once, the first time you see one.

@marvinpontiac: I agree, it is extremely obvious when it happens, I don't need Zelda to tell me everytime.

That and the voice acting, because for the most part it's terrible.

I love the game though not my favourite Zelda game as I feel it lacks too many classic Zelda features - some mentioned below. It feels more like an improved Skyrim to me.

My gripes after a very long playthrough:

-Graphics. I have always preferred the darker Twilight Princess style graphics.
-I like how it is so open but I find it crazy how you can go ‘anywhere’ from the get go with a few simple elixirs/meals. There should be areas that are inaccessible without certain items that are not got until later in the game forcing you to go back to areas to find new things.
-I like durability but ability to repair so you can keep favourite weapons would be great. Also upgrading durability, damage etc to existing weapons would be neat.
-Enough mentioned before me but ‘proper’ temples are sadly missing.
-Lack of bosses is unreal. I feel there are zero ‘proper’ bosses in the game.
-Special items. Especially ones that allow you to go to new areas.
-Difficult to be specific but side quests and NPC’s seemed dull. As did a lot of the main quest. Didn’t really get into much of the characters in the game and apart from house quest, very little stood out.
-Ending. Wanted to see a more from in game characters coming together. Instead was just presented with some stills.
-Cooking. So many missed opportunities. At the end of the day, for the purpose of health, meat skewers (or even better, cooking just one hearty food) was better than the proper meals making it pointless looking for good recipes.
-For a completionist, too many Koroks (or at least, not having tool obtained late game to seek them out).
-Divine beasts (and shrines for that matter) too easy and repetitive.
-Felt it needed a chest to keep stuff in (not enough storage in house). For someone who mostly explores I found myself having to throw too many good weapons away, many of which I had not even used.
-Didn’t feel the music was as catchy as previous Zelda games and I missed not having an instrument.
-Ganon was too easy and underwhelming (not to mention Hyrule Castle). His second form being worse than his first. It’s the first time I beat him first time in a Zelda game.
-Draw distance meant seeing things like rocks that Koroks may be under was not possible from even short distances.
-fighting was a bit dull, lacking some of the mechanics of Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword.

I personally didn't mind the rain mechanic (something that many seem to hate). Occasionally it was annoying but mostly it wasn't and even without climbing gear, using the right technique, one could still climb mountains in the rain.

As I say. Love the game and there are so many good things but the above are the main issues I had.

Aside from inventory management and voice acting. A couple of things that bother me are that none of the characters are awesome; they are all pretty lame. Also, the shrines get really boring after a while, there was no compelling reason to go in them after a while. At least in Skyrim, there was usually a cool story or something interesting that happened in the dungeon, the shrines in Zelda do not offer a great reason to continue.