I’ve played a couple of non Zelda Zelda-likes over the years. Here’s a list of some of them.
Anodyne
Blossom Tales
Hyper Light Drifter
Tunic
Ittle Dew
Lenna’s Inception
Ocean’s Heart
Tunic
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion
World to the West
I might have forgotten or misremember facets of them by now. Some of them have sequels now, some are more of the same and other more experimental.
Anodyne and Ittle Dew were the most puzzle focused of the bunch from my memory.
Tunic is kinda vague, it tries to capture the feeling of playing a retro game with a missing manual. I remember it having more secrets rather than puzzles. I kinda got the same vague feeling from Hyper Light Drifter too. The vagueness might not be for everyone.
Blossom Tales and Ocean’s Heart felt much like copies of Zelda games. I remember feeling kinda underwhelmed with Ocean’s Heart.
Lenna’s Inception at first glance look a loot like the Gameboy era Zelda, but it does some wired storytelling and also randomly generated worlds.
Hyper Light Drifter was probably the most action focused of them.
Ittle Dew and Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion got a lot of humor. Check their store pages or reviews if it’s your style before going in.
World to the West used a bunch of character switching to solve puzzles around a whole world map. Not so much classical go save to world story and setting, but I remember having a decent time solving some of the puzzles.
Anodyne, Lenna’s Inception and Hyper Light Drifter had kinda bleak stories. Most Zelda games are pretty cozy, at least initially. If you’re not prepared for the tone, that might be off-putting.
Someone named CrossCode, while I don’t really think it’s a Zelda like it’s a great game nonetheless. While definitely not a Zelda like, Toki Tori 2 is a pretty cool mix of metroidvania and puzzles. You only got a few abilities and have to figure out how they interact with the world and it’s critters to progress.
Here are two 3D platformers I haven’t really heard a lot of but still had very fun with last year.
Demon Turf - 335 Reviews What pulled me in initially was the art syle, the games looks a bit like the cartoons from my childhood. This one got combat, exploration, bosses, collectables. A bit of a problem is that the game tried to do a lot of things at the same time, resulting in a bit uneven quality overall. There are also leaderboards if you into speedrunning.
Demon Turf: Neon Splash - 105 Reviews Some kind of standalone DLC/spinoff to the first game. In this game everything is more streamlined and the design feels more focused. Combat have been cut in order to give the platforming more time to shine and a reason to simplify the controls. The focus is on repeating the same levels for better a time on the leaderboard. Speedrunning is not really my thing but I still found enjoyment in the game. Much cheaper and short than Demon Turf.