I can TOTALLY see how you could feel this way, they weren't very innovative with the asset creation. I just think that the tech behind starting in OoA and trasferring to OoS for a different outcome is super awesome so I can look past the laziness here

Nooo, Adventure of Link is great. It's the only Legend of Zelda that was more mechanically an RPG since there were experience points and you could level up and stuff like that. Do not play this game though to be blown away (would be difficult for a NES game to achieve this in 2019), more like a research project to see where the Legend of Zelda series came from and you won't be disappointed. There is even the Palace theme, which they used in Smash as well, and it's an amazing song. If you find it too difficult, then use cheat codes, but please play it!