Re: No mention of Tears of the Kingdom?
Get on it, it's responsible for the singular best gaming experience I've had in the last four decades..
I'm a big Zelda fan, ever since playing A Link To The Past at a friends as a young teen, playing till you die and passing over, conjecturing together about wild theories of what to do next, it was a great game, topped by Ocarina of Time, which itself was feld by Breath of the Wild.
Picked up a switch and a copy on launch day thanks to a bonus bit of birthday money (thanks Mom, honestly, I am over forty) and played it solidly, so much that after twenty-six hours the joycons had run flat and I needed to pop them in to the side of the console to finish up..
But the exploration was unbelievable, just looking at something in the distance and heading there and there's stuff to do, rewarding your curiosity. My favourite experience being at a very low level and just going off where I shouldn't, I'd paraglided to a peninsula, using a precious potion to top up my stamina as I did, to die now would mean I wouldn't be coming back for a long while until I found another. Atop of the peninsula though was a shrine, activating it would provide a fast travel location to come back, only problem, between me and it is a not insubstantial Bokoblin nest.
Slowly, I creep up hiding the best I can in the long grass, along the edge of the clifftop, hoping my best to hide and it's going well ... up until I'm about alongside the base and I hear a horn being blown, the whole camp is now awake and heading in my direction, no need to be stealthy now I lurch forward at full speed, mashing the run button and a keen eye on my stamina meter, to run out and slow down will be insta-death with such an overpowered enemy for my three little hearts to take.
As I dash towards the shrine of my salvation my heart was literally in my mouth, I could feel the blood pump through my veins as I realise I'm sat to attention making this dash - as I opened with, no game has elicited such a visceral feeling in nearly a half century of gaming.
Tears of the Kingdom is my game of 2024 though, poured hours in to it after a turn-around. When I first started I was a little jaded, the world is changed from the last game, to an extent, but not vastly, the additional sky kingdoms felt small and the new abilities a downgrade or at best a sidestep on the previous, the new machine mechanics felt like a tacked on fad to check "crafting" as a feature list (above the previous cooking/potions).
But once I found the subterrain area that all changed, the sense of wonder of exploration was back, scrabbling around in the dark (quite literally at times as I pointless tried to preserve my lighblooms only to make bank by selling off a max 999 to a store and soon replacing them) the whole experience was amazing.
Again, creeping in to areas the game felt like the were cordoning off for later but my ingenuity let me get through was often rewarded with a "we knew you'd do this, here you go" and other times, here's a big ass boss that'll insta-kill you, come back later you cheeky chap. The pointless crafting became ingenious fun as you build machines to aid, the familiar overworld still a place to explore to find the new cave systems and the rewards within.
I wouldn't say I played it to excess, there were certainly no twenty-six hour stints this time around, though, my partner did complain about being second fiddle to the nintendo and never seeing me, so, not that reserved either..