It has become the family game in my house. Between the four of us, we have put in 1,000 hours on it. On normal mode, my wife's save looks like a big green mess on hero's path! But as lockdown hit, we all started to get back into the game pretty hard. Three of us now have managed to lick Master Mode including the Champion's Ballad DLC, to the place where Master Mode is now our standard chill way of playing - we belt around there as casually as normal.
The game just clicked for us all. I'm the only Zelda vet in the family, but I completely understood how the game works and how it is structured, why it is how it is and why it needs to to be the way it is. So weapons being a disposable resource - fine, giving Link all the toys at the start in order to create a complete free structure - fine, understanding that the success of the open world and joyful traversal is the reason why Link isn't confined in rooms and holes like other games - yep, the way that the game doesn't reward you with some sort of notification or chest for simply "going somewhere" and that it is your own motivation and self-fulfilment that drives you to go to every crack - sure, the experience of just existing is absolutely everything, and how the game's soundtrack is a masterclass in audio.
So yeah, this is Zelda for me now. The absolute benchmark. If we ever go back to being hemmed into zones, walled off behind progression gates, not allowed the freedom to tackle whatever scenario in any way we see fit - I'm going to be quite disappointed. I still enjoy booting the game up to enjoy it - clambering around the environment, stocking up on materials, plotting a course through Hyrule and going for a drive. Simply experiencing the extreme cold and snow, being caught in a huge downpour or lightning storm, is absolute life to me. I used to be someone who took a Yakuza Stinger in GTA3 for a drive up in the hills to listen to MSX FM, watch the weather roll about, so the extension into another world is a big appeal.
It has also ruined other open world games for me. I struggle to go off and play Skyrim on Switch now.