I don't think it's that weird. The 2D games and the 3D games differ in subtle but important ways. There are lots of reasons you might like one style and not the other. For example, the 2D games tend to have sparser stories. The focus is much more squarely on the gameplay, and the story mostly exists to provide context. Furthermore, the 2D games tend to have more item-gates whereas the 3D games are story-gates. In a typical 2D game, large parts of the map are gated behind obstacles that you need dungeon items to overcome. In a typical 3D game, new areas don't open up until you hit particular story beats. In general, I find the 2D games more "video-gamey", whereas the 3D ones tend to be more narrative-heavy and cinematic.

Maybe you bounced off the 3D games because they were too story-heavy for you, and you wanted the story to get out of the way so you could just play the game. If that's true, it should be no surprise you were able to get into BotW - its sparse approach to narrative is much more akin to the old 2D games than the recent 3D offerings.