I'll break up Gendo's monologuing with some of my own.
I played through TotK almost as much as possible without acquiring the Paraglider. I was motivated to do this by how I originally played BotW: You're directed toward Impa in Kakariko by Rhoam at the start of the game, and I wanted to find out if her dialogue was different if you completed all of the Divine Beasts before speaking with her. (Spoiler: It is).
Thus, in TotK, where Purah takes the place of the 'main quest-giver', I decided I would complete as much of the main quest as possible without speaking with her to see unique dialogue at the end. This has the unfortunate side-effect of locking me out of the Paraglider, but I found this made the game an absolute joy to play.
All 152 shrines can be completed without making use of glitches (some require bombs or rockets brought in fused to a shield, but at no point are glitches required).
Fall damage becomes a real and persistent threat (until you get the Glide armor and upgrade it to negate fall damage), and navigating sky islands, especially the lead-ups to the Water and Wind temples, requires more use of Zonai devices. I did the Water Temple first, prior to knowing about the elegant simplicity of the game-breaking hoverbike, and climbing up the low-gravity section was quite challenging. Also, the game puts Link into the glider automatically when reaching the top of a waterfall. Without the glider, Link instead goes into a fall state. Then, annoyingly, the 'R' button is mapped to both 'throw weapon' and 'enter skydiving mode', meaning that I ended up throwing a number of weapons while just trying to land on the platform Link swam up to.
But in spite of that, the lack of paraglider means you approach everything differently. The Fire Temple is still cheese-able, but requires more effort than just ascending to a high point and gliding into your room of choice, thus making it easier to actually just do the minecart puzzles.
Navigating the Wind Temple at times is also a suitable challenge, and the Colgera fight without a glider (and especially without rockets in your inventory) makes for a distinct challenge.
The sheer amount of separate progression tracks in this game is insane:
Shrines unlock stamina and hearts.
Koroks unlock inventory space
Finding a withered weapon aboveground unlocks the pristine version in the depths
Doing things in the depths unlock battery charges
The depths also house autobuild plans
Caves unlock bubblefrog gems, which unlock prizes
There are an absurd amount of quests around the map, many of which unlock amiibo costumes (which don’t do much, but are still kind of fun)
There are quests to unlock the great fairies now in order to upgrade equipment
Lightroots to find and fill out the depths map
And Sage’s Vows to upgrade your sage abilities.
I suppose there are also the new towers for unlocking map points, but I didn’t interact with those.
Now, my real issues with this game begin with the seemingly arbitrary list of things you cannot access without talking to Purah:
All of the runes that Robbie can unlock (Camera, Hero’s Path, Sensor, Travel Medallion).
As such, all quests that require the camera (these especially annoy me)
The ‘Crisis at Hyrule Castle’ event vs. phantom Ganons
The Ring Ruins leadup to the Dragonhead islands, (and also the lighting armor from the Zonai ruins, but I did glitch through those, and was able to clear out the thundercloud from the archipelago, this does NOT allow you to take Mineru’s mask, I had hoped it would set the quest flag to that point).
Unlocking any part of the map on the surface, any part of the sky map except the Great Sky Island.
Launching yourself out of any tower for faster transportation, or using them as teleport points.
I say this list seems arbitrary because of the sheer amount of things you CAN do without the glider (and without glitches)
All four main dungeons
Buy and build a House
Most sidequests
The entire Lucky Clover Gazette quest with Penn
Unlock all lightroots and fully map the depths
Collect all the equipment in Hyrule Castle (a few people guard several entrances, but you can still make it inside via alternate routes)
Acquire a bunch of Paraglider fabrics
Clear the first difficulty at the flight training grounds (second difficultly seems impossible lol)
Complete the diving challenges for the Glide Suit
Complete ALL shrines (and it is an absolute joy to puzzle through a few of them).
Collect all Sage’s Vows (but four remain in your inventory without Mineru)
Complete the Great Sky Island Temple of Time fire lighting ceremony
Get Autobuild and all except one schematic
Save the Korok Forest/do all quests there.
Complete the Typhlo Ruins quest (for clearing all four Regional Phenomena) to get the Dusk Claymore.
Get the Master Sword
Crawl through the Hyrule Castle tunnel to make it all the way to the bunker under Lookout Landing (which itself stays closed lol).
Complete all of the Yiga-related quests (fighting Kohga multiple times, completing the Yiga outfit, and doing the blademaster quest)
Beat Ganon
The biggest offender is, of course, the Spirit Temple. It is accessible the moment you launch yourself out of any one Sheikah tower, then follow-up by talking to Purah. (Well, technically accessible, most players will also need 10 hearts, you can ascend into the room to bypass the door, but very few would try this on their own). Otherwise, you're told to come back later. I would think that just opening the 10-heart door, demonstrating that you've earned at least 6 heart containers since leaving the Great Sky Island, would be sufficient, but no. It is arbitrarily locked behind having the glider and doing one tower launch. I would even forgive this if it required the player to fight the phantom Ganons at Hyrule Castle and do the full Ring Ruins quest, but no, you can do the Spirit Temple first if you are motivated to do so.
The game is about 90% perfect on every front, but also on every front has something lacking, even merely compared with Breath of the Wild.
Why must Link's house be green?
Why are there Hudson house modules used to build homes in Tarry and Hateno that Link can't used for his own home?
BotW's DLC included Hero's Path, Travel Medallion, dungeon boss rematches, and a 5th dungeon, all of which TotK has from the start.
But TotK lacks a Hero Mode, Master Sword upgrade, (and Horse Teleportation bridle, but no one uses horses anymore).
Amiibo got short-sticked too. I believe the only new amiibo items are the glider fabrics. While they added the amusing Link's Awakening set, the Link's Awakening amiibo no longer drops fish like it did in BotW. Why remove that cute feature? Toon Link from WW still drops fish! And why doesn't Skyward Sword Zelda have even one cute unique item?
Also, the DLC items in BotW weren't upgradeable, presumably just because of being late additions. Why aren't the identical items in TotK given upgrades?
And this is all before mentioning the many and varied problems with the story.
