| RolStoppable said: Yes, you can buy ammo, but that takes longer (go to the bank, go in the shop, talk, buy). Heading straight out of town is faster and free. Doing that every couple of hours isn't a big deal because it's less than a minute where the player is still in control of what is happening (and it's a process that is also done in every other Zelda game, because you have to refill your stock at times), unlike the slow recuring texts in WW and SS that interrupt the flow of the games time and time again (TP had text popping up less frequently and allowed the player to click it away instantly, so it wasn't an issue in that game). Do you see the difference? What a lot of people don't like is if control is taken away from them and it's worse if they are spoonfed information that they have read dozens of times already. Slashing bushes to stock up on bombs, arrows, hearts, magic, that's a natural process in Zelda games. The same mechanic is found in countless other games where you destroy crates or whatever. MM's economy isn't any less balanced than any other 3D Zelda game. The difference is that MM actually gives you a reward for the mountains of money you accumulate over the course of the game while in all other games it has no use. Actually, in TP you can use your money for the Magic Armor. |
MM rewards you for your money? How? The one mask you buy? The maps you buy from Tingle which are nearly useless and ought to be a reward for exploring rather than a sink to flush your rupees down? -- you know, as they are in Link's Awakening, the Oracles, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess.
I'd much rather go to a shop and buy ammo, wasting a couple of real-life minutes, than go into the field and start cutting bushes, wasting both real-life time and in-game time.
Being in control of what's happening is no consolation when what's happening is tedious and boring. Cutting bushes has never been fun. It wasn't fun in A Link to the Past when it was introduced and it's never been fun since. You know what's fun to cut? Signs. Signs can be cut multiple different ways. They feel interactive. There's no expectation that you'll receive anything for cutting them, you do it because you want to or you don't do it at all. Cutting bushes feels like a chore. Every bush you cut that yields nothing (or a meager green rupee) feels like a waste of space and time.
It's not a natural process when the game artificially empties your inventory repeatedly. It wouldn't be natural for map rooms or save rooms in a Metroid game to take all of your missiles, super missiles, and power bombs away, forcing you to waste your time replenishing them. It wouldn't be natural for a Pikmin game to take away all of your sprays or nerf all of your Pikmin down to leaves every time you visit a new area. It's literally grinding, it's the definition of unnatural, pacing-breaking filler.
Again, I'd much rather go to the shop. I'd much rather a game presented me with some text I could passively mash my A button through rather than presenting me with a bunch of inanimate objects to run to, inconsistently replenishing my supplies piecemeal. You know what I can passively mash my A button through? All of those instances where control was supposedly taken away from me in other Zelda games, even though the game wasn't actually forcing me to do anything. It was basically just paused for a moment.
They are all poor design choices. They are such minor problems that focusing on any of them is nitpicking. I simply want Majora's Mask to be given equal treatment with other Zelda games.
