Here's my simple take: SV's Open World elements neither add nor take away anything significant for me in terms of progression. Being able to just quick travel and roam around to catch Pokemon is cool, but only insofar as it lets me play with certain Pokemon sooner in the adventure than more limiting games (like running into Level 35+ territory to evolve my Gallade before Iono).
SV is arguably my favorite game with an Open World design SPECIFICALLY because it doesn't design around it in a significant manner. You know what happens when you make an Open World with a bunch of borderline procedural tasks comprising most of the content? You gut any replay value and the game loses its long-lasting appeal when most players won't have any inclination to revisit it while chewing through the next 100+ hour game in a franchise. BOTW doesn't offer me anything on this front because if I want a short Zelda game I'll rerun ALttP, and if I want a longer playthrough I could get more out of marathoning Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, and/or Twilight Princess than hunting Korok Seeds and Shrines until I remember those aren't fun in the Open Games.
Part of this is also me being bitter because I resent the Zelda OW games for their impact on the franchise as much as gaming at large. It took 11 years to get a new traditional styled Zelda game (between LBW in 2013 and Echoes of Wisdom in 2024). As of this post we are now further removed from the most recent Linear 3D Zelda (Skwyward Sword in November 2011) than it was from the FIRST 3D Zelda (OoT in Nov 1998), and than OoT was from the inception of the franchise (February 1986). It's also not helped by the fact that these games are turning into a small "sub-series" with a direct sequel using the same world (OoT and MM shared chronology but were in totally different settings, as were the Toon Link games. Only ALBW fits the bill up to this point) and two Musou spin-offs that just cover events mentioned-but-not-depicted to fill in the lackluster narrative (vs the original Hyrule Warriors being an outside-mainline Crossover spectacle). To draw a comparison, it's like when Final Fantasy 13 came out, proved divisive at best... and then Square gave it 2 sequels and tried tying it into other verse projects like Type-0 and Versus 13 (before that became 15). I am well aware my critical perception is probably a minority, but it's the same feeling of "I can't stand this iteration but it won't go away," probably made worse KNOWING that popularity instead of creator stubbornness is ensuring that (vs, say, the divisive newer Paper Mario games).
I get the Wild games were huge sellers, but I have absolutely no enthusiasm for their style and their existence is now starting to feel like it actively infringes on one that I DO care about since it's the Dev team putting work into a game that does not retain any of the design or "vibes" that I got invested in the IP for. SV can debate quality but I have no hesitation saying they fit right in as mainline Pokemon games, which is not something I can give to "better" Open World games like BOTW or TOTK. I wish people would stop focusing on how SV are good or bad Open World games, especially because I'm not convinved a "good" one of those even exists past the year of 2013-2015 with GTA 5 in general, or Xenoblade Chronicles X in a Nintendo specific context, and instead "Open World or not, does this design gel with the IP or is the name slapped on to sell a different idea?"
tl;dr Open World Zelda is worse than Open World Pokemon.
