Just beat EoW. What a great little game.
It seems like they've addressed a lot of complaints people had about the BotW formula and created something that feels like the best of both worlds. It's a much more balanced experience than the two open world Zelda games on Switch even if it never reaches the heights of these two games.
My biggest issue with Botw/TotK was the enemy variety and it's fixed here in a brilliant way. Of course it was greatly helped by assets reuse from the LA remake but still it's so satisfying to fight against classic Zelda monsters again. They even added new ones too. Obviously the variety of enemies in the game is particularly important because they double as items, which is really genius. The echoes system is fantastic, constantly rewarding, tied to progression since you won't be able to use some powerful ones as long as Tri hasn't leveled up and versatile enough to encourage you to dabble in emergent gameplay but at the same time far more limited than Link's abilities in the most recent 3D games so you still have to think about your plan instead of doing whatever because you're so overpowered.
Puzzles are pretty good, nothing mindblowing but they're pretty varied and plentiful. The game is much more dense than previous entries with some sort of light traversal puzzle everywhere you go and even a mix of Korok hunting and Seashells foraging from LA, rewarding your observation. Speaking of traversal the 2D sections and the Rifts make this game the most platforming heavy Zelda since AoL on NES which is also something I enjoyed, especially since you have so many movement options with your echoes. I also didn't think I'd appreciate the return of heart pieces as much as I did. There's really nothing like finding these as a reward for exploration.
Which by association brings me to the best aspect of EoW, the return of more classic dungeons and minidungeons. I said last year that shrines were a fine experiment in BotW but that by the time of TotK they had already overstayed their welcome. What a pleasure it is to have genuine places to explore again in this game even if none of the dungeons are exceptional. Still at least two of them are very good, definitely top notch isometric Zelda dungeons. Bosses are for the most part mechanically fun to fight, following the BotW template of having multiple ways to deal with their relatively complex patterns (for Zelda standards).
On a more minor aspect I liked that narrative wise they didn't drop Link like the Resetera peanut gallery wanted and instead gave him a pretty important role still. They even did something pretty clever with his usual silent nature, which I enjoyed. As for Zelda it might be a bit of a missed opportunity to have her be mute as well but it doesn't bother me. If anything I liked that they managed to make the gameplay and story coherent by having her take tons of damage when she's hit by enemies since she's not a trained fighter.
If I had to list negatives outside of the obvious like the excessive menuing I'd say I didn't like the tone of the game which is probably the most childish it's ever been. I understand the artstyle and the fact Zelda is the playable character might have influenced the writing but it was too saccharine for me. Some of the bosses and NPCs also look genuinely lame, like cheap bootleg toys. I also didn't really understand the point of some of the systems like the horses and the Dampé's artefacts, felt very useless.
Overall I loved the game and hope the next big 3D entry takes inspiration from it. Bring back heartpieces, drop shrines, put in a bunch of dungeons and minidungeons and work on enemy variety while retaining BotW's exceptional mechanical depth and you pretty much have the perfect Zelda. In the meantime EoW is a fantastic new entry in the series and probably in my top 3 favorite isometric Zeldas.
Solid 8,5/10.
