I’ve been revisiting anno 2205, infamously the ugly duckling of the Anno series of RTS games. I don’t mind so much the fact that it’s different, lacks customisation and random map generation - I’m bothered because the game is so slow to progress through on challenge settings, and it feels like a game designed just to artificially waste your time; in other anno games, you can always pull tricks to dig yourself out of economic crisis - selling off assets and surplus goods, completing quests for other parties, or taking loans. 2205 is very very confined in terms of what you can do to financially recover in the early game and forces you into a lot of military events.
TotK fixed some of those issues, but I’m not sure it would make it enjoyable in your eyes. It follows a similar pattern of getting all the runes in the tutorial area before opening up. Each boss fight now has a longer dungeon that does give more unique abilities (and some that sort of open new areas) but not in the way metroidvanias do. Also weapons last much much much longer in BotW.