Basically what the other users said. To contribute my own 2¢, it turns the game into a different sort of puzzle. There is a bit of assuming that you have some prior knowledge of the game to know what the various tools you get allow you to do, but it basically boils down to "What can I do right now with the tools I have?"

Getting some later game items allows you to sorta "sequence break", where you can go and do things a bit earlier than expected. Maybe you don't have a bow yet, so you can't beat Forest Temple, but you do have the Mirror Shield and all of the keys for Spirit Temple, so maybe you go there first to do as much as you can. And if you're lucky, maybe one of the chests in Spirit Temple will have your bow.