Zelda Game Design Talk
Something completely different: my take on the game design of ‘The Legend of Zelda’. On the most basic level this is a game in which the player is presented with a game world to interact with. The goal is symbolic growth through new ways to interact with the game world. In other words: collecting and using new items.
The great thing about action-adventures like Zelda is designers can always come up with new obstacles and abilities to overcome them. A random thought: wouldn’t it be nice if the game would show Link’s symbolic growth with the character getting slightly more mature after each incremental item upgrade?
Lately I’ve been thinking about some of the hurdles the series has to overcome. My girlfriend, the archetypical non-gamer, has recently completed ‘A Link to the Past’. It was her first game of this type and it took her quite a while — according to the credits, she died more than 300 times.
This reminded me of just how complex games have become and how the experts tend to forget this. My girlfriend had to take a huge leap before she got comfortable with the game mechanics and understood the type of thinking the puzzles require. Attacking a one-hit enemy or bombing a wall are basics I’ve been taking for granted, but they form a major hurdle for newcomers.
Somehow this got me going about something that annoys me. It comes down to this: when I acquire a new object, I experiment with its uses. I suddenly remember a lot of places where I can do something new. For example swinging from one side of a hole in the ground to the other with a handy rope. These are peak moments in each Zelda game.
My problem is the next time I want to reach the other side of the hole, I have to once again choose my rope from the menu, switch to target view, target, and swing. The second and third time I can handle this. The fourth or fifth time it becomes a bit of an annoyance. The sixth or seventh time I start to theorize: I already solved this puzzle, right? So why can’t the game throw the rope for me now? Or at least let me use a context-sensitive button?
‘The Wind Waker’ had a game balance problem. The creators seemingly skipped some some previously planned dungeons, using the collecting of Triforce parts as filler material. It’s not hard to fix this problem in the next episode — Nintendo could make the game more compact, or obviously fill it with more content.
To solve my problem Eiji Aonuma and his team have to take a bigger risk. Starting with ‘Ocarina of Time’ for Nintendo 64 the series has been bogged down by constantly having players re-invent the wheel with already-solved puzzles. But knowing the way people think, these players probably got attached to this.
The problem of novices having trouble getting into modern games even if they really want to is of course much bigger. Both Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto have made it clear that they know this problem exists — at the same time comforting and worrying. Comforting because they’re apparently still in touch with their potential audience, and worrying because I wouldn’t want my beloved Zelda series to change. Well, not too much anyway.
April 22, 2004
Comments
oh my. i never have seen such intelligent postings before about zelda. it really brings tears to my eyes. do you ever feel like zelda is going to evolve into something no one has yet imagined.
norebonomis – 04-22-04
Your story reminds me of another annoyance while playing the Wind Waker (I still have to finish it BTW :)).
The game does a fine job of allowing you to set up the action buttons to define your 'command list'. But why do I need to change my button assignment every time I want to post a letter, or use an item I don't regularly use. They should have made a 'use instantly' option while browsing through the inventory. Or perhaps a mailbox that will ask you which item you want to post when you approach it.
It's not that hard right? :)
Collo – 04-22-04
Wind Waker also bogs down the items-menu with stuff that's entirely too similar. Is there any reason why we need the sail, for example, an item which can only be used on the ship and then is almost mandatory? And if you must have a seperate sailing item, why not use the Deku leaf (similarly to how the rope has a seperate ship-function)? Why have the rope *and* the hookshot? The latter adds virtually nothing to the much cooler new swinging-and-climbing dynamic.
I could go into more detail and address some of Niels' points, which are well-made -- and there was a time when I had a whole 'where Wind Waker went wrong' diatribe at the ready -- but then I stumbled across an online review (almost a year old now) that eloquently laid out most of my problems and then some (although it's slightly too long and verbose even for my tastes, and the psychology 101 on Eiji Aonuma is a bit much), which you can find here: http://www.insertcredit.com/reviews/windwaker/windwaker1.html
It's long, but well worth reading if you're interested in this type of thought on game design
Boersma2000 – 04-22-04
Quote: "A random thought: wouldn't it be nice if the game would show Link's symbolic growth with the character getting slightly more mature after each incremental item upgrade?"
In Wind Waker i constantly had the feeling Link was growing mentally. In my opinion the game is about maturing, Link learns about life by being confronted with it. So i think your random thought might not be so random at all, maybe you just hadn't noticed or realised it.
FRANK* – 04-22-04
A nice read! The game balance problems the Wind Waker suffered are always nice to reflect upon.
However, I can't agree on the whole swinging matter you highlight. Replacing repetitive occurances of the same puzzle by a context-sensitive operation? Wouldn't that destroy what little feeling of vastness of the world we had left on the small islands of the Wind Waker? We climbed the highest mountain, Dragon Roost, utilizing our most clever swinging-skills and recognizing every spot we could cling our hook to; but the next time we do it we can just press A. That wouldn't work for me, just as it wouldn't work for Samus - browsing through the depths of Zebes she as well keeps improving her 'swinging skills'.
Maybe we should instead look forward to the complete opposite: a grappling hook that's slightly more difficult to operate, but after constant training delivers quicker action on-screen.
On the other hand I could just ask and out-debate myself about why warp songs never bothered me before...
Jelle – 04-22-04
How do you think about character development in Metroid (the 'space Zelda')? In most adventures Samus stays slighty mysterious, so much for mental development. :-(
But on the other side, the abilities in Metroid feel far more balanced than in Zelda, maybe because Metroid abilities don't have to be assigned to a button. Maybe if Zelda had a context sensitive button for items it would be a lot faster to play, but on the other hand the item selection does let you experiment on how to defeat certain enemies (items aren't only used for puzzles)
Steve – 04-23-04
I think Steve's right about the difference in control between Wind Waker and Prime. I would even go so far as to suggest that Prime's perfectly implemented control scheme hints at a better game-design. Especially since too many of Wind Waker's items were too limited to offer any real idea of enhancing player abilities. Only the Deku leaf and the grappling hook really struck me as similarly awesome and, for lack of a better word, 'empowering' as Prime's power-ups -- and even the grappling hook needs special grappling points (as it does, of course, in Prime). The best items enhance your movement- or attack-options everywhere and often it won't be immediatly obvious that this is one of those ideal Deku-floating spots (for instance). As Eric-jon points out in the article I linked, too many of Wind Waker's items feel like special versions of keys, cluttering up the inventory once their window of useage has expired, to be used only once or twice more on specially-tailored optional islands.
To an extent, this has always been a trait of the Zelda games, though it was less problematic in Ocarina and Majora and pretty much non-problematic in the 2D installments, mostly because those games *did* continue to present new and innovative ways to use old items -- and come up with plenty of original new ones, as well (take the Magnetic gloves from Oracle of Seasons -- an item which I hope will soon show up in a 3D Zelda). So I'm not sure if I agree with Eric-jon on the issue of whether or not this is a case of a design principle being adhered to too stictly -- the concept could still work, as long as the items (and their counterpart puzzles) are better designed than in Wind Waker.
[I don't hate Wind Waker, by the way, in case you're wondering. :) Plenty of good stuff in it as well, which I hope I'll get to in a later post. :)]
Boersma2000 – 04-23-04
I don't like the zelda serie and I don't know why :(
Drew – 04-24-04