First off let me say the game is brilliant. I loved my time with it overall. As someone who isn't really a fan of open world games, Nintendo delivered the best open world (as in the world itself) I've ever played. No other open world game for me has ever evoked that sense of wonder, freedom, adventure and exploration. Not even close. Just the thought of playing other games of that type (even those I loved like Witcher III) makes me feel limited before I even put them on. I had been planning on playing Horizon after it, but not wanting to get open world fatigue and a desire not to feel restrained coming off Zelda, I decided to play Gravity Rush 2 instead (which was good, but let down by poor side mission design) as a buffer. It also had the positive of being one of the few games where traversal gives you even more freedom than Zelda 
One of the reasons I'm not usually a fan of open world games is that I'm usually quite OCD as a gamer. I don't like having sections on the map with an area I haven't explored, an icon that I haven't triggered, or a loot marker I haven't picked up. So invariably when I played my last Assassin's Creed game (Black Flag), Shadows of Mordor and Infamous Second Son, before I do main or side missions, I feel compelled to go around getting all the 'Towers' and revealing the map as much as I can before I can bring myself to actually play the game properly if that makes sense. That gets really tiresome and old quick. While I know it's my own fault for playing like that, I can't help it since I'm the type who feels the need to do all the side stuff before moving on. One of the reasons I probably liked Witcher III so much is that it didn't have any of that nonsense (and I hear Horizon has little to thankfully.
But despite the fact Zelda has the standard fare Ubisoft Towers in the game all over, for some reason the usual fatigue didn't kick in. I followed the main story up to Kakariko, talked to who I needed to there, went to Hateno, returned to Kakariko and was given the 4 main objectives, and then started exploring. For the next several days all I did was go in an absolute massive circle around the map hitting all the Towers, yet it never felt old or tiring. The freedom of traversal and exploration go along way towards that, with all the mountain climbing, gliding, cliff scaling shield surfing and more. And crucially unlike the aforementioned games, the Towers put no Icons on the maps. So when you came across a random Shrine, Village, Stable it felt organic and rewarding to explore and find. You can see little parts of the landscapes that look slightly different, go there and find a Korok puzzle, Talus, Hinux or Lynel to kill, or even potentially a random Great Fairy. Yes you can disable Icons in other games, but just knowing they are there takes part of the wonder of exploration away. And in Zelda once you do the main mission in the NW traversal and exploration becomes even more fun. Unless it rains. Seriously I hate the rain
Zelda does still suffer from other usual open world problems though, one that I feel is systemic in the genre. By giving the player freedom to do whatever they want, that also gives the player the choice to not do any of the main missions at all. What this does is remove and and all sense of urgency and purpose throughout the game. The pacing is completely off kilter and even games which have fantastic overall stories like Witcher III suffer from this. Like nothing in this game felt as eventful as say times during Wind Waker when rescuing Aryll, and the case of Midna's Lament after the Water temple in Twilight Princess. It's also one of the reason why i like to clear the map and do side stuff first, because once I do main missions, I like to do them back to back and feel that purpose.
I was kinda worried about how the dungeon design would end up (and even kind of made a small topic about it a while ago) and unfortunately my worries held true. Shrines can be fun, but they aren't a replacement for proper dungeons, especially when the dungeons that do exist are so easy and subpar, along with their bosses. There were some good shrines. Some were longer and more fleshed out like on in death Mountain near the cart track, another SW of Central Hyrule. NW of Great Plateau which had Diamond in. Then there were the occasional Shrine that was effectively on the over world like Eventide Isle (which was awesome), the mazes and a few others.
They could have done a lot better with their use of shortcuts on the controls. This is the first Zelda i can recall that won't give you Hearts in random grass, pots or whatever. That in itself isn't an issue. But this Zelda also makes it so for once i can't set a healing item on a shortcut, so each time you have to open the menu and eat something. That was kinda annoying, and more often than not I just didn't bother to do so. Just let myself nearly die and eventually use the ability
when available. It's not just healing though. A lot of different areas have gear requirements just for being there, and constantly needing to open the menu to switch gear did my head in. While I wouldn't expect this exact solution, I would have added more options when using the Dpad definitely. As it is pressing the Dpad Right + Right Analog left or right cycled between melee weapons (and Bows if holding ZR). I would have moved Shields to up and down on right stick while left or right would have remained weapons. That would have freed up Dpad Left which instead of Shields now i'd maybe have left/right on Right Analog be Food, and up/down be gear sets. For the food and gear sets you'd have to pre assign them in the menu, and they'd also require Korok Seeds to allocate or expand the space. As it is there's far too much menu management for gear switching or healing.
Now the topics that may be a bit more controversial. Durability and Heart/Stamina Pieces.
Let me say straight up I don't like Durability. I can't think of a single game I've played where I've found it useful. If I'm in danger of actually losing something really good, I tend to hoard it for when I need it. I did that with a story given 3 shot Bow which was really good and I barely used, which was pointless since I later got so many Savage Lynel bows that were more powerful and even x5. Yes I know this mentality is what leads to 99 unused Elixirs at the end of the game just in case, but it's once that's hard to shake. In games like FFXIV or Souls the effect is so low that after playing for an hour or so you'd just go repair in like 10 seconds for minimal cost. If that's the case then why even bother having it? I remember then Nioh demo where you'd be constantly switching weapons because they broke. yes you had plenty of weapons to switch to, but it was annoying. In the full release they addressed it
Zelda's case is more like Nioh in the first demo. I remember reading a line from several places from reviews, post and other random places that defended durability. It was usually something like this, and I'm actually very surprised how I saw practically the exact phrase word for word in so many places "Durability in Zelda makes combat more dynamic by requiring players to adjust on the fly to different situations." I don't see how this is true. Just like it was in the Nioh demo, when a weapon broke, the flow of combat barely changed. Zelda throws so many weapons at you that they're very easily disposable. All you did was switch to the next weapon and carry on fighting as normal. And that's my issue with it in combat, it's just unnecessary busy work. Yes it's quick going to another weapon, but it's still something that constantly pauses the combat for little perceivable benefit. It's annoying.
But my main issue with durability is not even with the actual combat. It's how it affects the rest of the game outside of it, and this also ties in with my disappointment of there being no Heart Pieces. Since the durability is so low and since the game throws so many weapon at you, it practically devalues weapons completely. I'd say around a third of weapons, maybe even more one i progressed more in the game weren't lost to being broken. they were lost to me throwing them away in order to pick up another weapon from a random chest. I went through a Shrine to the north of the map called the Forgotten Temple. The place was littered with Guardians and while it took a little time to get through, it was easy enough (Parry is OP). And my reward? A random fire weapon that made me throw away a weapon to pick up to mark the chest as collected, and then immediately throw away said fire weapon in order to pick up the other weapon again. There's no desire or reward in getting a lot of these chests since more often than not it's gonna be some weapon I don't want that forces to throw another away. Since durability is a thing, the game compensates by giving you more weapons. But the way it does so makes chests largely worthless
It's a similar thing for Hearts Pieces. I'm not advocating the removal of the Shrine Orbs and Goddess Statues. I like choosing between health and stamina to a degree (stamina all the way!). However the issue with this is since the upgrades are tied to Shrines, it means there's Heart Pieces in the world, so as the player you know if all you want is upgrades, you won't find them elsewhere. My issue here is this ruins sidequests. Quite early in the game at Kakariko you have the usual finding the Cucoo quest, and I did it naturally. I can't recall what the reward was, but it obviously wasn't a Heart Piece and it immediately made me think. By and large unless the quest was a Shrine Quest, the reward for doing said quest was usually worthless, and as a player you knew that since the upgrades were tied to shrines. yes there's the occasional good one like the Tarrey Town questline, the Gerudo stuff, unlocking the Shrine Quest in Kakariko, Kass and a few others that gave gear. But most quests were useless since I knew I wouldn't get anything of value out of them, and I skipped the ones that seemed incidental. If you still had the Shrines for upgrades and additional Hearts Pieces for side quests, that would have given enough of a reason to make doing said side quests worthwhile.
So yeah by choosing to have Durability and removing Heart Pieces, I feel Nintendo devalued treasure chests and side quests because you knew they wouldn't give anything of note. No heart piece to find or some random weapon you don't need that gives you extra busy work in order to mark as collected by throwing other stuff away first.
So yeah Zelda Breath of the Wild is an amazing game. It has it's own spin on open world and absolutely delivers on it in a way that put a lot of other games in the same style to shame. The sense of freedom and exploration is fantastic and second to none. Just little things like the poor story and pacing, unnecessary extra menu usage, and in the case of durability and heart pieces, more how it affects the other systems and designs in the game indirectly rather than their immediate combat issues.
One of the reasons I'm not usually a fan of open world games is that I'm usually quite OCD as a gamer. I don't like having sections on the map with an area I haven't explored, an icon that I haven't triggered, or a loot marker I haven't picked up. So invariably when I played my last Assassin's Creed game (Black Flag), Shadows of Mordor and Infamous Second Son, before I do main or side missions, I feel compelled to go around getting all the 'Towers' and revealing the map as much as I can before I can bring myself to actually play the game properly if that makes sense. That gets really tiresome and old quick. While I know it's my own fault for playing like that, I can't help it since I'm the type who feels the need to do all the side stuff before moving on. One of the reasons I probably liked Witcher III so much is that it didn't have any of that nonsense (and I hear Horizon has little to thankfully.
But despite the fact Zelda has the standard fare Ubisoft Towers in the game all over, for some reason the usual fatigue didn't kick in. I followed the main story up to Kakariko, talked to who I needed to there, went to Hateno, returned to Kakariko and was given the 4 main objectives, and then started exploring. For the next several days all I did was go in an absolute massive circle around the map hitting all the Towers, yet it never felt old or tiring. The freedom of traversal and exploration go along way towards that, with all the mountain climbing, gliding, cliff scaling shield surfing and more. And crucially unlike the aforementioned games, the Towers put no Icons on the maps. So when you came across a random Shrine, Village, Stable it felt organic and rewarding to explore and find. You can see little parts of the landscapes that look slightly different, go there and find a Korok puzzle, Talus, Hinux or Lynel to kill, or even potentially a random Great Fairy. Yes you can disable Icons in other games, but just knowing they are there takes part of the wonder of exploration away. And in Zelda once you do the main mission in the NW traversal and exploration becomes even more fun. Unless it rains. Seriously I hate the rain
Zelda does still suffer from other usual open world problems though, one that I feel is systemic in the genre. By giving the player freedom to do whatever they want, that also gives the player the choice to not do any of the main missions at all. What this does is remove and and all sense of urgency and purpose throughout the game. The pacing is completely off kilter and even games which have fantastic overall stories like Witcher III suffer from this. Like nothing in this game felt as eventful as say times during Wind Waker when rescuing Aryll, and the case of Midna's Lament after the Water temple in Twilight Princess. It's also one of the reason why i like to clear the map and do side stuff first, because once I do main missions, I like to do them back to back and feel that purpose.
I was kinda worried about how the dungeon design would end up (and even kind of made a small topic about it a while ago) and unfortunately my worries held true. Shrines can be fun, but they aren't a replacement for proper dungeons, especially when the dungeons that do exist are so easy and subpar, along with their bosses. There were some good shrines. Some were longer and more fleshed out like on in death Mountain near the cart track, another SW of Central Hyrule. NW of Great Plateau which had Diamond in. Then there were the occasional Shrine that was effectively on the over world like Eventide Isle (which was awesome), the mazes and a few others.
They could have done a lot better with their use of shortcuts on the controls. This is the first Zelda i can recall that won't give you Hearts in random grass, pots or whatever. That in itself isn't an issue. But this Zelda also makes it so for once i can't set a healing item on a shortcut, so each time you have to open the menu and eat something. That was kinda annoying, and more often than not I just didn't bother to do so. Just let myself nearly die and eventually use the ability
Mipha gives you
Now the topics that may be a bit more controversial. Durability and Heart/Stamina Pieces.
Let me say straight up I don't like Durability. I can't think of a single game I've played where I've found it useful. If I'm in danger of actually losing something really good, I tend to hoard it for when I need it. I did that with a story given 3 shot Bow which was really good and I barely used, which was pointless since I later got so many Savage Lynel bows that were more powerful and even x5. Yes I know this mentality is what leads to 99 unused Elixirs at the end of the game just in case, but it's once that's hard to shake. In games like FFXIV or Souls the effect is so low that after playing for an hour or so you'd just go repair in like 10 seconds for minimal cost. If that's the case then why even bother having it? I remember then Nioh demo where you'd be constantly switching weapons because they broke. yes you had plenty of weapons to switch to, but it was annoying. In the full release they addressed it
Zelda's case is more like Nioh in the first demo. I remember reading a line from several places from reviews, post and other random places that defended durability. It was usually something like this, and I'm actually very surprised how I saw practically the exact phrase word for word in so many places "Durability in Zelda makes combat more dynamic by requiring players to adjust on the fly to different situations." I don't see how this is true. Just like it was in the Nioh demo, when a weapon broke, the flow of combat barely changed. Zelda throws so many weapons at you that they're very easily disposable. All you did was switch to the next weapon and carry on fighting as normal. And that's my issue with it in combat, it's just unnecessary busy work. Yes it's quick going to another weapon, but it's still something that constantly pauses the combat for little perceivable benefit. It's annoying.
But my main issue with durability is not even with the actual combat. It's how it affects the rest of the game outside of it, and this also ties in with my disappointment of there being no Heart Pieces. Since the durability is so low and since the game throws so many weapon at you, it practically devalues weapons completely. I'd say around a third of weapons, maybe even more one i progressed more in the game weren't lost to being broken. they were lost to me throwing them away in order to pick up another weapon from a random chest. I went through a Shrine to the north of the map called the Forgotten Temple. The place was littered with Guardians and while it took a little time to get through, it was easy enough (Parry is OP). And my reward? A random fire weapon that made me throw away a weapon to pick up to mark the chest as collected, and then immediately throw away said fire weapon in order to pick up the other weapon again. There's no desire or reward in getting a lot of these chests since more often than not it's gonna be some weapon I don't want that forces to throw another away. Since durability is a thing, the game compensates by giving you more weapons. But the way it does so makes chests largely worthless
It's a similar thing for Hearts Pieces. I'm not advocating the removal of the Shrine Orbs and Goddess Statues. I like choosing between health and stamina to a degree (stamina all the way!). However the issue with this is since the upgrades are tied to Shrines, it means there's Heart Pieces in the world, so as the player you know if all you want is upgrades, you won't find them elsewhere. My issue here is this ruins sidequests. Quite early in the game at Kakariko you have the usual finding the Cucoo quest, and I did it naturally. I can't recall what the reward was, but it obviously wasn't a Heart Piece and it immediately made me think. By and large unless the quest was a Shrine Quest, the reward for doing said quest was usually worthless, and as a player you knew that since the upgrades were tied to shrines. yes there's the occasional good one like the Tarrey Town questline, the Gerudo stuff, unlocking the Shrine Quest in Kakariko, Kass and a few others that gave gear. But most quests were useless since I knew I wouldn't get anything of value out of them, and I skipped the ones that seemed incidental. If you still had the Shrines for upgrades and additional Hearts Pieces for side quests, that would have given enough of a reason to make doing said side quests worthwhile.
So yeah by choosing to have Durability and removing Heart Pieces, I feel Nintendo devalued treasure chests and side quests because you knew they wouldn't give anything of note. No heart piece to find or some random weapon you don't need that gives you extra busy work in order to mark as collected by throwing other stuff away first.
So yeah Zelda Breath of the Wild is an amazing game. It has it's own spin on open world and absolutely delivers on it in a way that put a lot of other games in the same style to shame. The sense of freedom and exploration is fantastic and second to none. Just little things like the poor story and pacing, unnecessary extra menu usage, and in the case of durability and heart pieces, more how it affects the other systems and designs in the game indirectly rather than their immediate combat issues.