MTZehvor said:
I don't want to drag an off topic conversation out too much longer, but the fact that you don't feel pressure is, to me, quite telling. The story is designed around the concept of pressure; consistently telling the player that they need to hurry or else humanity will die out. With a central narrative based around enforcing a sense of urgency, the gameplay should, ideally, set up in such a way to allow the player to play as if they are really in the story. While I wouldn't advocate an actual time limit (I'm more than aware of how the countdown works) that drops down like in Majora's Mask, I think the complete opposite end of the spectrum simply disconnects people from the main story. To illustrate with an example, take something like the final bit of Skyward Sword, where Ghirahim has captured Zelda and is going to drain her soul (or whatever he does) to resurrect Demise. Now imagine that the game, instead of encouraging you to chase after him, forced you to go save someone's cat or paint someone's house. You'd probably reasonably assume, as the player, that Zelda couldn't be in that much trouble if you've got the time to go save cats or paint houses. It's the same sort of deal here. I'm all for games heavily based around exploration; some of my favorite games of all time, such as Super Metroid and Wind Waker, require a ton of exploration. Where the game starts to lose me is when a disconnect appears between narrative and gameplay. On one hand, the game implements a story that is based around creating a sense of urgency. On the other hand, the game implements mission design that requires a deep level of exploration. That disconnect is what I'm interested in knowing if you care about. |
1) Zelda is intended to be a linear game. Yes, in recent ones, there have been side quests but they aren't really anything special or character developing like the affinity missions or quests you stumble upon in X.
2) I HATED Majoras mask time thing so much that I want nothing to do with any game even remotely like that. That was so stressful. I'm not saying it was a bad game or that people can't enjoy it, but it's not my type of game. My type of game is like X, where there is no stress. Yes, they occassionally make you think about the lifehold deadline (it isn't even that often), but afterwords they bring up random little things, implying that you as a gamer shouldn't be stressed playing this game. It is meant to be enjoyed.
3) Zelda, despite it's linear storyline and lack of major side quests that have nothing to do with that major storyline, does offer plenty of things to do, especially in recent games, that have nothing to do with the story; fishing, for example.
