So much of what he laments as being lost in the recent Zelda games such as mystery, exploration, and difficulty are spot on assessments of what make these games

So much of what he laments as being lost in the recent Zelda games such as mystery, exploration, and difficulty are spot on assessments of what make these games, and I think games in general these days, less compelling to a certain type of player. I can only think of a few games that I feel do these things right, with the most recent notable example being the Souls series of games (Demon Souls, Dark Souls 1 & 2, Bloodborne). In a Souls game the "story" is not fed to you in bursts of out-of-place exposition but instead is found in the layout of the environment, the description of items, and the types and placement of certain enemies. Hidden areas and items abound, and without a guide you would be hard-pressed to find everything available in the game in a singe play through. You are not generally kept out of areas that are too difficult to you. In fact, some of the more difficult parts of the game are readily accessible from quite early on. So you die. You die a lot. Which brings us to difficulty. While I don't think these games are as hard as they are sometimes made out to be (you can out-level much of the difficulty if you want to spend the time doing so), the learning curve at the beginning is steeper than I have seen in a series in a long time. Games now have almost conditioned you to expect the developers to give you a break in the form of a special item or by restoring your health to full before a difficult section like a boss battle. This is not the case in the Souls series. I kind of checked out of Zelda games after Ocarina of Time as I found the series less and less interesting as I grew older, though I still remember the old games fondly. While the characteristics of these older games are harder to find in newer titles these days, they are still rewarding and being used to good effect outside of the Zelda universe.