LeonhartFour posted...
I generally don't think of Zelda as an open-ended adventure to begin with, so an added emphasis on the plot wouldn't really cause problems, but that's just me.
They've always had "suggested" paths, but even in Ocarina of Time you can go in whatever order you wanted. Hell even Majora's Mask only stopped you because of item necessities, whereas everything from then on had storyline events that halted progress.