Took 5 hours 49 minutes, enjoyed every second of it! Played with a friend and 100% completed.
I never beat it. Didn’t even try though. Just tipped my toe in the water for a couple of screens before being fed up with the octoroks ^^. As someone who completed it, would you say that, structurally, it’s more akin to BotW in its openess than the “normal” mainline zelda games before they went open world with BotW? That’'s what i heard at least.
EDIT: changed “after” to “before”
Huge jump between the original and later titles. This game really does feel huge and the dungeons might be better that BoTW. More secrets than later games and a ton of different areas. It feels super good to get acquainted with the map and actually figure out where you’re going without a guide. Combat is pretty good too, although the knockback is somewhat broken with certain enemies (looking at you, gibdo). Planning order of operations is a big one for me too (i.e “first I’ll get the heart piece, then stick up on bombs, then hit dungeon 5”) and makes the game a real challenge. Just use a guide for the later sections of the overworld. Getting to 5 is pretty much impossible without a hint. It’s worth picking back up again if you have the time.
