I think the decision to make Ganondorf a flat evil villain in TOTK was to the story's direct detriment. Flat evil villains can work very well in the right story, but TOTK's story does not benefit from it.
Arguably the central theme of TOTK is the duty of kings (or leaders in general). Rauru and Ganondorf are clearly intended to be direct contrasts, Rauru with a philosophy where kingship means protection and Ganondorf with a philosophy where kingship means domination. Zelda follows in Rauru's footsteps. And that's about where the examination ends. Great game everyone hit the showers.
This 'examination' on the duty of kings is, to put it mildly, extremely shallow. There is no examination on what protection and domination mean, on how both kings arrived to their conclusions, what this materially meant for their subjects, etc. With Rauru, you could at least pick up on story details and cobble together a reasonable backstory for his motives and beliefs; the implied disaster faced by the Zonai people that led Rauru and Mineru to be the last remaining Zonai lends a decent foundation for Rauru's prioritization of protecting his people. While never properly explored, Rauru's beliefs are logical and can reasonably be ascribed to life experience by extrapolating from canon details.
Ganondorf on the other hand... yeah. Not so much.
Ganondorf is evil because he is Ganondorf. He believes that kingship means domination because he is Ganondorf. He wants power because he is Ganondorf. None of his motives make any kind of logical sense. Why does he want to cover the world in darkness? What purpose does this serve for him? What does he stand to gain from ruling over a world cast in night? Before the final boss fight, Ganondorf has a long, important-sounding speech where he waffles between talking about wanting to dominate and wanting to cast the world in night. I listened to it, deeply confused, and mostly wondered 'Is he stupid?' Seriously, why would he want any of this?
This is kind of the problem with cartoonishly evil villains: their motivations make no sense. Nobody sets out to destroy the world, because, y'know, they live on it. What is Ganondorf planning to rule over here, exactly? A world with nothing but his own created monsters? What is he dominating then? Why is reshaping the world so important to him, when he could just conquer it?
And of course: why does Ganondorf think that kingship means domination in the first place? What was different about him and Rauru for them to arrive at such polar opposite conclusions on their duty?
As far as the story is concerned, the fundamental difference is that Ganondorf was born evil. Ganondorf has no reasons for doing what he does, beside his lust for power, because he's evil. Even if Rauru has his reasons for believing what he does, this means nothing if his views are contrasted by a guy who's doing this because he was just born evil. No productive conversation regarding the nature of kingship can come from pitting a character against a strawman, and thus it means nothing when Zelda follows in Rauru's footsteps and makes protection her duty. Zelda isn't born evil, so literally why would she ever have done anything different?
Ganondorf has enough charisma to feel like a good character, but when you actually pay attention to what he's saying it becomes very clear very quickly he has all the depth of a cartoon villain. He might as well be cackling evil and promising to drown the world in pollution or something. His motives are non-existent and his actions nonsensical, and thus his views on kingship add nothing of thematic value to the story.
It is not terribly difficult to ascribe Ganondorf motivations based on TOTK's imperialist overtones, but such a reading clearly goes blatantly against the text. When you need to read against the text in order to add a modicum of thematic depth to the story, that's not great.
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