I grew up playing the original Zelda on the NES and the ones up until about Skyward Sword which I thought was one of the worst games I've played and I haven't touched the series since. I think I stopped because it become so ridicously easy and there wasn't a lot of point in exploring to buy bullshit stuff. I heard these new Switch Zelda's are kind of like Deus Ex and play it your way? Are they Codex approved or what?
There haven't been a lot of games since Skyward Sword: there were A Link Between Worlds (more or less A Link to the Past 2), a remake of Link's Awakening to allow you to play the game with more than two buttons, a pair of Dynasty Warriors spinoffs, Breath of the Wild and now Tears of the Kingdom.
Comparing Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom to Deus Ex just because you can play it your way is like comparing Age of Empires to Heroes of Might and Magic because you build towns and command knights in both games. Later games in the Zelda series became more linear, but the two new ones are closer to the first few games in the series. Compare them to A Link to the Past: the game puts a marker on your map to tell you where your next objective is, but leaves it up to you how, when and if you get there. Breath of the Wild starts in a semi-controlled environment that's a fraction of the open world, but once you're done you're given a paraglider so you can leave the opening plateau that's in the middle of the map from just about any point you want. The game also directly tells you "Yeah, Ganon's in Hyrule Castle and you could go there right now but you're going to get your dick bitten off, so try exploring first", and you can turn on the map marker that points you to the final boss at any time.
From what I've played Tears of the Kingdom has a sort of similar structure: there's no pointer to the final boss yet, but there's a lot of stuff to do for the main quest that you can tackle in any order you want. You start in a controlled environment on a sky island, and when you're done you jump into a lake from such a height where the clouds are underneath you without dying.
The biggest contrast is how the items work between the games. Instead of collecting the hookshots, boomerang, bow, bombs, hammer and what have you, you are given a small set of tools early on in the game and you're sent out to go forth and do hero shit. Sure you can still find bows and magic wands and rock smashing hammers and the like, but they all decay and break so you keep picking up new gear as the game progresses, and the more hearts you find the better gear you find. It's not a 1:1 scaling with the enemies, so you will become stronger as the game progresses. Tears of the Kingdom dials this up even more: the weapons you find aren't that great, but you have an ability that lets you glue stuff onto your weapons to make them better. Add sharper bits onto your sword, infuse them with elemental properties, create impromptu hammers or create a smoke cloud when your shield gets hit.
Oh, and the games are voiced now. Link is still mute, Zelda is voiced by a Bri'ish woman and Ganondorf is voiced by the man who ruined D&D.
