Any one else feel like TOTK is a Next-Gen Game?

The game is held back on visuals only, art-style still amazing. But damm, the physics sandbox is insane. You want to goto to the mountain, how about you build a plane and just go there. Weapon fuses with pretty much anything to create something fun, so do arrows. The endless creatives ways to kill your enemies.

I've only been vowed like this before since Metal Gear Solid 5. Curious to hear your thoughts.

https://vlc.onl/

My thought is as a sandbox game it is incredible, yes.

The game itself doesn't quite do it for me, either by it's story, it's puzzles, the fact that, it's largely the same world as before, the fact that you are basically handed 4 superpowers right from the start making link some sort of Superman from the get-go. The fact that it largely feels like BOTW Chapter 2 instead of it's own game. I'd say the world even feels more bare than BOTW.

Beating it is not high priority for me but I will get around to it eventually. It's fun just some aspects are a little disappointing in my opinion. It does remind me of MGS5 in the same way that MGS5 was an awesome sandbox! But story seemed kind of cheesy and not really like an MGS game usually is.

There have been games built around these ideas for years. There are many of them, and many of those are quite good.

Next gen, no. It feels like Breath of the Wild, but untethered from the Wii U's technical limitations. They're doing some crazy stuff with the Switch hardware, but that's also the problem. It's still the switch. Framerate hiccups and pop-in are regular reminders that it is running on 2015 hardware. If it were running at a solid 60fps and using the enhanced look present in the previous trailers, I'd be leaning toward agreeing with you on the next gen feel.

With that said, I really like the game. Certainly a lot more than Breath of the Wild. The world feels more alive, side quests are better, and the temples are great. It also feels like the realization of ideas that Nintendo has been trying to execute for over a decade. Skyward Sword attempted this whole multi-layered world thing back on the Wii, but the tech couldn't do what is happening in TOTK. TOTK makes the idea work while adding on another layer below the main world and it's phenomenal.

Yes, in the way as usually at the start of a new gen some players -my self included - ask for developers to use the new hardware for stuff other than graphics, but we usually get ignored.

Here we have a glimpse of what competent developers can accomplish when given creative freedom and a proper budget. Unfortunately it's not with powerful hardware but TotK pretty much shames every AAA game released in the last 10 years or more.

So I can agree, since the 360/PS3 we've been getting the same kind of games with more triangles and better lighting techniques but very little in terms of pushing the medium forward and TotK, even running on 360 level hardware, kinda feels like something new and forward thinking, regardless of the limited triangle budget.

Overall the game shows that's not really about the hardware but more about not being afraid to think outside the box. Not just for physics, but sound design and other stuff. And of course, the general quality of implementation is kind of insane.