To throw my own hat in the Zelda discussion that
@SSj_Ness (Yiffed) and
@NerdShamer are having....
You know what Zelda game did it right?
The original, on NES.
It often irritates me that people say BOTW is like a return to Zelda 1 style, because.... what Zelda 1 are those people playing? I would like for BOTW to be more like Zelda 1, actually.
Zelda 1 is still very much designed, with a suggested progression, and the "emergent gameplay" is just that the game gave you enough wiggle room that you could eventually discover (usually on replays) that "Oh hey I can get the white sword before going to any of the dungeons!" or "Actually I can go here early and get the unlimited-use candle."
That's another thing I miss--when upgrades were objectively
upgrades. The Book of Magic objectively makes the wand better, the Red Candle is objectively better than the blue candle, the Shout Factory DVD set is objectively better than the NCircle DVD set...
BOTW has an obsession with "game balance" that I think undermines the exploration. In games like this, part of the fun of exploring is wondering what that new doodad you found actually is good for. This is the joy of any sort of exploration-based game, getting a new things and realizing the possibilities it unlocks. But BOTW is afraid of that, so you instead get stupid shit like "this armor lets you climb slightly better," or worst of all, the ultimate armor you get from doing all the shrines--the classic Link outfit--actually sucks.
Take a key from Erdrick's Armor in the original Dragon Warrior: That thing is
broken as hell... AND IT SHOULD BE. It's the legendary armor worn by the ancient hero, and its also an endgame-level item. And if you rise to the challenge and actually do get it early, you
should be able to abuse it.
It's actually kinda like communism, in a way: BOTW exploration is boring because there's no incentive. From what I understand TOTK does give you some broken stuff, but it gives it to you right out of the gate so its not something you earned.
Hope this autistic ramble made sense, I had to type this while a cat was biting my legs.
I didn't feel like going through every one of your complaints one by one, but like half of them are you complaining about getting frustrated over something that you think is the game's fault and not your own, like not remembering how the controls work or thinking stuff was too obtuse to figure out or thinking the environmental challenges were too hard. But I didn't have any particular problem with any of those things, so I just declare you bad at the game and you're coping by making up strawman fanboys in your head who were so desperate for a new Metroid that they ignored these "obvious" flaws.
[shrug] Fair enough. Apparently people who are used to Bayonetta (which I've never played) didn't have an issue.
But that's just it... this stuff is just not what I play Metroid for. If I want to play Devil May Cry, I own the trilogy on both PS2 and Switch, I don't need elements of it in Metroid.
Also some stuff like all the shinespark challenges really do hurt the exploration. Why would I bother looking for secrets and trying to find things if, when I actually
do find them, there's some bullshit final test I have to pass?