I'm going to assume you've never played any other game in the series because it's been like this for a long time.
Combat has, and never will be the primary focus of Zelda. Exploration and puzzles has been. A lot of the older games are easy enough you could legit beat them with only 3 hearts and never take a hit.
Brought in new players because they completely overhauled how one interacts with and explores with the world they're in.
Chastising the new game for its art style while conveniently ignoring BOTW/TOTK having fairly cartoon-ish looking graphics/art design is also a great use of selective thinking
It's the game that got me into the series because of the exact reason people hated it; the art style. Remember back in the day, probably being about 9 or 10 years old going to the video store and seeing this game with a bunch of cartoon characters on the cover and being like "wait, this is Zelda? i thought it was medieval and stuff" (never been one for medieval fantasy inspired stuff)
Brought it home, fell in love with it. Then i borrowed my buddy's copy of OOT since i still had an N64. Been my favorite series ever since.