Breath of the Wild What is missing in BOTW?

[Spirit]

Okay...

Narrative, lore and plot depth.

Yes, I play Zelda for the story and yes, I know Zelda doesn't usually have a good story but IMO BotW crossed a line.

I cannot fathom how a game at the end of potentially every timeline in Zelda, with a 10,000+ year backstory and plot that spans 100 years can have so little to it!

The diaries of Zelda and the Champions have more character development there than they do in the entire (100 year) plot.
You can't play the shallow story excuse here when we had the wonderful Midna in TP and the brilliant bittersweet ending of WW years earlier!

The world annoys me too in terms of lore. Yes, 10,000+ years is a long time and a lot can change, especially after an apocalypse. But a lot of the names of places, in terms of Zelda lore, make no sense. Death Mountain and Spectacle Rock are all staples and are in a lot of games...
But other places like Owlan Bridge, DiggDogg and Rauru Hillside etc just make no sense. Why is the hillside named after Rauru?
In history places are named after people and events. But Hyrule in BotW seems to have no evidence of anything, most of the places just feel like they were named for the sake of reference.

As for the plot, NOTHING happens in the present, Link wakes up and smacks Ganon upside the head. He doesn't even need to take back the Beasts...

BotW's story feels like a pebble that was thrown into an ocean and expected to make a splash but it doesn't.

This is such a shame because the Creating a Champion book has so much detail about the world and the attack 100 years ago, such as the battle at the Akkala citadel, but this isn't in the game!

@TheBlueReptile made a good point about enemy variety and a few other elements of the game, I didn't notice that the enemy variety was a little lacking while playing because I was focused on the world and story. It wasn't until later that I began to realise the shortcomings of enemy variety.

I also think BotW was missing the excitement for exploration. I stopped raiding camps etc early on because I could find decent weapons just lying around and saw no point in breaking good weapons only to find something worse in chests after clearing out a camp.
This doesn't help when you only find two things in the world; Korok seeds and shrines... you're only ever going to find those and Korok seeds lose their usefulness really quick.

The amiibo situation is horrid too. I own every Zelda amiibo and so was able to get every rare drop.
But these should have been in the game too! I'd have raided many enemy camps and broken many weapons to get the Tunic of Time etc.

So narrative, plot and lore depth and exploration is what I think BotW was missing.

 

[GirKart64]

Missing these guys

 

[Sheikah_Witch]

Darknuts !!

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

Content

 

[Mellow Ezlo]

I think with traditional dungeons, more shrine variety (in terms of appearance and theme) and better Korok rewards, the game could have been near perfect. I didn't hate the lack of enemy variety; like others, I hardly noticed it while playing because fighting enemies of every kind is just fun in that game. I also didn't mind the subtlety of the music, I'm actually rather surprised nobody here has mentioned that. And I don't hate the lack of a traditional heart piece quest, though I definitely would have appreciated one.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the Divine Beasts. That being said, however, I would have preferred if the divine beasts were part of a traditional dungeon rather than being a dungeon in their own. Perhaps instead of finding a boss key, we had to solve the divine beast to fight the dungeon boss. More dungeons like Hyrule Castle would have been much appreciated, but unfortunately the game is lacking in that front. I like the focus on exploration - Zelda is an action-adventure series after all - but Zelda has always been more than just an overworld and the shrines don't make up for the lack of dungeons. In games like Majora's Mask, it works because that game has a ton of engaging and really fun sidequests. Same goes for The Wind Waker with the many islands to explore and the minidungeons making up for the lack of traditional dungeons (even though even that game still had several). Breath of the Wild, while it has a lot of side quests and shrine quests, misses the mark here because none of the side quests are really engaging and the rewards aren't usually very worth it. So it has very little to make up for what it lacks in dungeons. This is my biggest problem with the game, and is why I find the game difficult to replay.

I also wish there was more variety in the boss fights. The Final Trial boss is the best fight in the game, and even that uses mostly the same techniques as the other bosses. Sure Waterblight used Cryonis, Thunderblight used Magnesis, and Fireblight used the Remote Bombs, but the fights were still all too similar to each other. That being said, I enjoyed all the boss fights for what they were, I just wish there was more to them.

 

[Castle]

Meaning and a sense of purpose