I don’t think so many characters knew who Link was. He tended to just introduce himself as “a traveler”, and he has good reason to conceal his identity consider there’s a cult trying to murder him.
“If your good mood was ruined because you got into an accident with a car...”
There are still many NP Cs that remember Link, which I like. However, I’m pissed that almost no one in Hateno or Tarrey Town remember Link, even though he bought a house in the former and CREATED the latter!
I appreciate the areas where Link is well known, like Lookout Landing and Zora's Domain (which is also what made it one of the more interesting locales in Bot W), but it's frustrating to see a lot of minor character not recognize him even though he could've completed sidequests for them in the previous game. It feels the strangest in Kakariko and Hateno villages, since those locations are part of Bot W's on-ramping process and the locations where you're most encouraged to interact with the NP Cs. Like, Fort Hateno is literally where Link died. It's not a difficult solution, either — just have the NP Cs greet him by name.
I think the reason why they didn\'t do this was because said interactions happen in side-quests, so not every player might have done them, ergo, it would be weird if said NP Cs knew Link even when they shouldn\'t because the player skipped their side-quests. This could have been solved by porting the save over so that the game will take into account what the player did in the prior game, but maybe Nintendo couldn\'t do this for some reason.
It\'s still frustrating, because some side-quest characters remember Link, but others don\'t. In Tarrey Town, Hudson and Rhondson both remember Link, but no one else does, even though Link made their new careers.
I agree a lot with your review. I was going to actually write one of my own, but you boiled down what I was feeling nearly to a T. If I end up doing a review, I will focus on the storytelling aspects. Its nearly frustrating how a lot of potential was wasted.
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There's more to Quality than Quality of Life
I don't know if I'd call Tot K ambitious per se given how much of Bot W's ground it literally retreads, but it is the first time a mainline Zelda title has received a direct sequel since 1987 (not a gaiden game or handheld title). That has to count for something. It promises a bigger everything — two-and-a-half times the map size, thousands of possible weapons, a wholly superior powerset, and a grand, aeons-sweeping narrative — but it's as much (if not moreso) a step backwards as it is forwards.
The new runes are the single greatest departure from Bot W. With near-universal applicability compared to Bot W's runes, the Zonai powers allow for vastly more creativity and flexibility. Even so, Tot K's shrines, dungeons, and ambient puzzles never expect anything even approaching those powers' potential. A handful of dominant strategies (hoverbikes, rocket shields, ascension + recall cheese, and even just bomb arrows) can trivialize most puzzles. There's never a point where Tot K even comes close to demanding that the player fully utilize the breadth of their devices and abilities, much less the depth of those mechanics. The new Temples suffer especially, aesthetic overhaul be damned. Most of them end up feeling more like a set of easily-circumvented, loosely connected puzzles than genuine themed locations the way the Divine Beasts did. The gesture towards reintroducing key items in the form of Sage abilities is left largely underdeveloped, as the abilities themselves serve as little more than keys for barely disguised locks. Outside of the dungeon bosses and Lightning Temple, you never actually use their abilities to solve puzzles. The Water Temple in particular feels like four different open world shrines, not an actual dungeon, and you can complete the Fire Temple without so much as boarding a minecart. Whenever you're actually expected to use devices to proceed (e.g. to retrieve the sky island shrine crystals), the game almost always provides them for you. You're rarely if ever challenged to come up with your own solution. Even the Spirit Temple, the device-themed dungeon, gives you exactly what you need to progress through each depot. It feels like the designers are trying to have their cake and eat it, presenting you with "open-ended" puzzles that still include ready-made solutions, all so you don't actually have to solve them yourself.
As far as the story is concerned, Bot W's minimalistic, character-driven storytelling meshes perfectly with its open-ended, do-as-you-like progression mechanics.That same approach strains under the weight of Tot K's much heavier narrative. It's easy to spoil the plot of Tot K within the game itself, leaving you stuck conducting an investigation you've long since solved. Yet despite being a direct sequel, the game does little to explore the narrative continuity between Tot K and Bot W. The disappearance of the Sheikah Shrines (and most Sheikah tech), the connection between Calamity Ganon and Demon King Ganondorf, the fate of the Divine Beasts, etc. are all relegated to a single line of dialogue or an item description, if even that. Most characters have either forgotten who Link is or believe that he's simply a look-alike of the real hero.
For all the fun I had completing most of the game (all Shrines and Dungeons + fully upgraded sages), I don't think I'll be revisiting Tot K nearly as often as I revisit Bot W. It relies far too much on its prequel's structure without fully understanding why that structure worked so well in the first place. Limitations breed creativity, and Bot W makes breaking those limitations a much more engaging, rewarding process.