The entire point of Zelda 1 was exploring the unknown and figuring out how to progress on your own.
No, the entire point was to figure out the
correct way to progress through a clearly defined world.
It is an early example of a non-linear game and can be completed without ever touching the sword.
It is literally impossible to beat the game without the sword. You can get to Ganon, but he requires the sword to kill.
To say Breath of the Wild has nothing in common with this core concept that is the very foundation for the series has got to be some of the most disingenuous sh*t I've ever read to try to discredit BotW from being a "real" Zelda game.
BotW has plenty in common with the concept you claim to be the core of Zelda 1. The problem is that your “core concept” is a vague at best description that could be applied to literally any non-level based game ever. “Non-linearity” isnt a core concept. It’s a buzzword that’s thrown around by people who know nothing about even the most basic of game design philosophy as well as the higherups who want to market their games to the former.
Zelda 1 is a notoriously difficult and cryptic game and therefore, the series became more and more structured with obvious paths and solutions.
The difficulty and cryptic nature has literally nothing to do with structure. Zelda 1 still had plenty of moments that actively locked the player out, forcing them to find an item or figure out a puzzle to progress. This aspect is noticeable just by playing the game.
This formula proved to be a success and little by little, non-linear exploration and progression became less prevalent while other aspects were given more attention.
this implies that the formula was somehow not a part of Zelda 1 when in reality literally every single aspect of the formula started there. That’s not to say that there wasn’t an overall series shift but the fact that it still followed the same formula that Zelda 1 did while BotW doesn’t alone is enough to prove your entire rant wrong.
It wasn't until Breath of the Wild when they finally realized that they could do so much more now than they were able to then that could better realize the very idea of The Legend of Zelda without abiding to arbitrary conventions that have long stagnated the franchise.
News flash: video games are arbitrary. That’s kind of the entire point. If there aren’t arbitrary restrictions on the player, then it’s by definition not a game.
Furthermore, nothing about BotW’s deviation is something that couldn’t have been done in previous games. Item gating was and always has been the absolute focal point of Zelda as a series, and this is provable just by acknowledging the simple fact that it is always harder to implement something than it is to not implement it. If the ability to go anywhere you wanted from the start was always intended then they wouldn’t have forced you to get half of the items. It would have been easy to not include the raft, but they went out of their way to program it in because their entire vision required them to lock out the player. Literally nothing about adhering to this basic design concept is “stagnation,” it’s evolving a formula, something that literally every single series ever is supposed to strive to do.
It's why the overworld in Zelda games have been long criticized for being big empty spaces to make traversal from point a to point b feel more grand, like the Great Sea in Wind Waker and Hyrule Field in Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess. Kinda makes it clear why Skyward Sword went the direction it did with its dungeon-like overworld.
You mean like how BotWs overworld is constantly criticized for being a big empty space to make traversal from point a to point b feel more grand? Not that it matters because that has literally nothing to do with the shift in formula.
But a simple re-examination of one tiny aspect of the franchise could have easily remedied this problem and it's one of the better aspects introduced in Breath of the Wild, cooking. Why have hearts randomly drop from enemies and cut grass to replinish your health when you can add a whole new layer to the experience by foraging the land for ingredients and hunting animals so you can experiment with different recipes that grants various amounts of health and player buffs? Just like that, the overworld has become more interesting because it now serves a purpose to the player and it could just as easily be applied to past entries to make up for their shortcomings. But of course, that will be breaking a long established convention that matters so much for some reason.
Literally nobody is complaining that a crafting system doesn’t belong in Zelda. I mean for ****s sake, SS had one too. I tend to complain that crafting systems are rarely particularly well implemented, but that’s completely independent of me thinking that it doesn’t belong in Zelda.
People are complaining that core mechanics that have been the foundation of
every single Zelda prior to BotW barring none have been removed and replaced with a radically different system of progression. Removing the strict gating mechanics that completely redefined gaming and replacing it with a half-assed stat system as the sole method of player progression is a distinct separation between BotW and the rest of the series.
Non-linear exploration, world interaction, and player ingenuity were all important concepts when The Legend of Zelda was being developed on NES and through the years, these elements have either disappeared, been dumb down, or remained stagnant while emphasis was placed on point a to point b exploration, lock and key progression, and item specific puzzle solutions. Yet somehow these games are considered "real" Zelda games while Breath of the Wild is not, despite taking a lot of these elements to new heights by simply re-examining and reapplying them.
Once again, everything that you listed are vague at best examples. “Player ingenuity” in the way you’re arguing especially is just blatantly wrong. There is a specific path to follow in Zelda 1, and it’s up to the player to figure that out. Any sort of player ingenuity in Zelda 1 existed on a macro scale alone, figuring out what the best path to take based on the restrictions was absolutely a defining characteristic of Zelda 1, and while the series did drop that off, BotW dropped off even more without even attempting to regain what was actually lost.
