Rumor: Strider 3/HD?
Aug 22, 2009 13:27:58 GMT -5
Post by wyrdwad on Aug 22, 2009 13:27:58 GMT -5
Kitten: I'll concede that Castlevania II is a little overly obtuse, and I would want a BIT more hand-holding if that game were to be remade (figuring out to duck at the cliffside with Dracula's heart equipped, for example, goes beyond what ANYONE would logically be able to deduce from the clues given)... but I actually thought Zelda II and Legacy of the Wizard, and other games like them, were pretty much PERFECT the way they were.
Zelda II just sort of had you wander the world without direction, true, yet I beat the game without a guide, because I always knew where to go based on where I hadn't yet been. Getting the hammer from Death Mountain is a good example: It became obvious that I needed the hammer in order to continue with the game, and the only place I hadn't yet looked for it was Death Mountain... which was also the most difficult and confusing place I'd yet been to in the entire game. So, I continued fighting through Death Mountain, KNOWING there HAD to be a hammer waiting for me at the end... and when I finally found it, and got it, I literally shouted with glee. That was an amazingly satisfying accomplishment, and one that would've lost a lot of its "punch" if the game had actually TOLD me where the hammer was located. Half the joy of getting it was figuring out that that's where it was, then learning that I had guessed correctly. It was like two accomplishments in one: figuring out where to go, and succeeding. Nowadays, that's generally just reduced to succeeding, which feels like only half the accomplishment.
And Kyouki: I hadn't considered that RPGs do tend to do this as well, but you're right. Old-school RPGs did not hold your hand, whereas most newer ones (with some exceptions) do. I don't actually mind it in the case of RPGs, however, as the story a game tells you has become a lot more central to what makes a good RPG than it was back in the day, and most of the time (again, with some exceptions), the more freedom and the less hand-holding you offer the player, the less depth you can give to your story. It's almost a trade-off: are you making a story-driven RPG, or a gameplay-driven RPG? Very rarely do the two mesh together well, with the only really good recent example I can think of being Opoona.
-Tom
Zelda II just sort of had you wander the world without direction, true, yet I beat the game without a guide, because I always knew where to go based on where I hadn't yet been. Getting the hammer from Death Mountain is a good example: It became obvious that I needed the hammer in order to continue with the game, and the only place I hadn't yet looked for it was Death Mountain... which was also the most difficult and confusing place I'd yet been to in the entire game. So, I continued fighting through Death Mountain, KNOWING there HAD to be a hammer waiting for me at the end... and when I finally found it, and got it, I literally shouted with glee. That was an amazingly satisfying accomplishment, and one that would've lost a lot of its "punch" if the game had actually TOLD me where the hammer was located. Half the joy of getting it was figuring out that that's where it was, then learning that I had guessed correctly. It was like two accomplishments in one: figuring out where to go, and succeeding. Nowadays, that's generally just reduced to succeeding, which feels like only half the accomplishment.
And Kyouki: I hadn't considered that RPGs do tend to do this as well, but you're right. Old-school RPGs did not hold your hand, whereas most newer ones (with some exceptions) do. I don't actually mind it in the case of RPGs, however, as the story a game tells you has become a lot more central to what makes a good RPG than it was back in the day, and most of the time (again, with some exceptions), the more freedom and the less hand-holding you offer the player, the less depth you can give to your story. It's almost a trade-off: are you making a story-driven RPG, or a gameplay-driven RPG? Very rarely do the two mesh together well, with the only really good recent example I can think of being Opoona.
-Tom
