memes

The shrines were a giant sticking point for me, because they totally missed the purpose of dungeons in previous Zelda games. I was a big fan of the “puzzle box” style dungeons in previous games, where changes you make in one room can affect things across the entire dungeon. And the shrines completely erased that, by being totally separate entities.

And sure, you could argue that the divine beasts were puzzle boxes, but that actually brings up my second complaint; All of the previous Zelda dungeons felt different. The forest temple felt dark and gloomy, like you were lost in a forest. The water temple was obviously made by the Zora and had distinct architecture. In BOTW, every single divine beast had the exact same architecture, the exact same theme, the exact same enemies. They didn’t feel like products of their environment, which made them feel very sterile.