> I'm pretty objective since I've beaten every Zelda and I can't agree. Their games just aren't at the same level as anything modern.
A lot of "modern" games come with rough edges. I'm not saying that they're not good games, but you can tell it was a bunch of people working to crank out features, exercising every new capability their engine provides.
There's a level of polish that a lot of Nintendo games have. They don't necessarily try to push technical boundaries. They'll take a simple concept or gameplay paradigm and then attempt to be fully immersive within the scope of they've defined.
Modern AAA games feel like summer blockbusters. Marvel superhero films.
Nintendo games feel like Miyazaki. Breath of the Wild legitimately felt like playing through one of his films.
Animal Crossing has huge problems? Like what? It's a simple game about managing friendship and an island. It does that perfectly. There was some issues with multiplayer, but even those where minor and are being fixed.
BOTW is empty????? Have you never played a large map game ever? It's absolutely amazing and one of the top rated games of all time.
You're just being an iconoclast for no reason but to get downvotes?
Botw is empty. Yes, large maps are common in 2020. Elder scrolls, assassin's Creed, and GTA come to mind as full but large worlds. Instead of walking to a destination, you'd often run into side quests.
I'm wondering if you've only Nintendo gamed and are just unaware.
>I'm wondering if you've only Nintendo gamed and are just unaware.
That is unnecessarily patronizing. Just because someone does not agree with your opinions does not mean they are ignorant.
And just to take the example I'm most familiar with from your list, sure you occasionally run across a side-quest in Skyrim, but most of the time the world is just populated with the same small set of spawning NPCs who exist to add the 12 or so big quests to your journal.
The sheer seriousness with which that series takes itself and how ridiculously cringey it ends up being, due to broken AI and a host of other problems, is something of a hilarious meme:
7 of the top 25 highest rated games are Nintendo. Of course whether or not you like a game is personal and subjective but only pointing out lots of people disagree with your assessment
For me BotW is my favorite game ever. Not saying it's a perfect game or that you should like it but for me personally I got 120 hours of pure joy from that game. Where as I didn't get into Witcher or Skyrim etc.. (not saying those are bad games, just didn't do it for me).
Nintendo is quite special. The Studio Ghibli of gaming.