they tried the open world stuff with oot, tww, and tp, and succeeded and failed to various degrees with each game. i had a feeling they'd try for it with this game.
also i suppose it shouldn't be a surprise it's cel-shaded since they were exploring that with the wind waker hd.
Meh. The whole 'see that mountain in the distance, you can climb it' thing has been done so many times before. Hopefully they'll be able to do something interesting with it this time, rather than creating a huge, yet empty and boring world ala Skyrim.