I didn’t play any Zelda since Ocarina of Time which I loved. I was expecting to have the same feeling in BOTW but I just can’t get into it.
After a few time into it I feel lost. I know that I have to go to some dungeon in the mountains but I just can’t because the character is freezing to death. I cannot afford spending hours randomly exploring the map, relying on luck to discover which mechanic protects agains the cold. There is no guidance except for the fact that there is a dungeon to explore.
I looted a nice sword but after very few encounters it broke in the middle of a fight. Weapons being so fragile just do not make sense, maybe some people appreciate that but knowing that whatever looted is going to be destroyed just make me want to stop playing.
If anyone felt the same, did it click at some point into the game ?
BotW and TotK are a very different type of game from OoT. As others have pointed out, there are a lot of environmental mechanics to learn as well as how to find and use different types of weapons due to weapon durability. It’s a much more open ended game than OoT where exploration is much more of a focus, whereas OoT is more story focused and has a more specific order to do things (which isn’t 100% set in stone, as the whole Spirit vs Shadow Temple debate proves) that’s still more straightforward than the newer games. I like both types of games, especially for both OoT and BotW/TotK being gaming masterpieces for their time, and the three of them are my top 3 Zelda games for sure. But if you don’t like one or more of them that’s perfectly fine. Not every game will appeal to everyone.
Fun fact, Spirit and Shadow aren’t the only temples in that game you can do out of order. You can do the Fire Temple first, as there is only one chest that requires arrows and it doesn’t have anything crazy important in it. Water Temple can also be cleared without arrows, but you do have to get a bit more creative with some non-intuitive jumps and either saving and resetting or using a warp song to go back to the dungeon entrance without raising the water level in order to do that. Spirit Temple does require arrows but nothing else from the other dungeons is required so you could do it as early as your second dungeon. Even then I think you can abuse invincibility frames to skip an eye switch and I can’t remember anything else that required arrows in there. Shadow Temple is the most restrictive, but only because you have to clear Forest, Fire, and Water in order to gain access to it. Once you’re actually in the dungeon you’ll find that arrows are the only item from the other dungeons you actually have to use to beat it.