Hi Malstrom
It’s pretty rare to find a blog of yours, that does not have the word “puzzles” in it, as if puzzles were some sort of disease eating all of gaming alive.
So let me, a gamer who loves puzzle games, tell me what I think of it: Modern games have no puzzles to begin with. All they have are some show-off gimmicks, that make you waste your time and could be solved by a brainless zombie.
A puzzle is something you have to figure out and makes you think. Never in any Aonuma Zelda or 3D Mario did I have to think. Sometimes the puzzle was just “WTF am I supposed to do?”, but that does not qualify as thinking, it’s just taking wild guesses. All these artsy 2D platformers with big-headed childlike characters in a scary world with melancholic music are not about solving puzzles, but about showing off the developer’s great programming skills. The result is plain boring.
Good puzzle games (and I mean real puzzles, not Tetris-like action games) are hard to make. The puzzle has to make sense, it has to be challenging, yet solvable at the same time. The gameplay must all be about solving the puzzle, nothing else. No time must be wasted on walking back and forth unnecessarily or figuring the place out (which all these artsy platfomers get wrong). Here is an example of a good puzzle game, Toki Tori, on WiiWare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgazv9XDm5k
It is all about solving puzzles. No cutscenes, no story (not even an intro, though that would have been OK), you can zoom out any time, no walking from puzzle to puzzle. The fundamentals are all stong and in place, meaning you have set rules, which will never be changed (Toki cannot fly or jump, can only walk over gaps no bigger than half a square and dies immediately) and you have a limited amount of tools and nothing else. It is up to you to use these tools, not to the developer to give you some sort of magic device which can only be used to resolve this problem (which is what most of Zelda’s items have become).
But even with all these fundamentals there is one thing that separates a good puzzle game from a bad one: the puzzles. In a good puzzle game you always have to think. The puzzles actually tease your brain. A good puzzle will age just as well as a maze. Just like you can get lost in a maze like Zelda’s overworld time after time, you can forget the solution to a puzzle over time. And the puzzles will feel fresh again and again.
In contrast to this are gimmicks. Gimmicks revolve around some feature and are poorly implemented. They will only be interesting the first time, if at all. From then on, they will just be annoyances that waste your time over and over again. I dislike these gimmicks as much as everyone else. But gimmicks are far easier to make. Lock me in a room with only a pen and a sheet of paper and I can come up with enough gimmicks for three of these artsy platformers (and some unfortunate programmer will have to come up with ways to implement all this insanity) , but none of it will be mind-teasing.
People like puzzles. Why was Sudoku such a big deal? The rules are simple and it keep your mind active all the time. Crosswords can burn time like nothing. Everyone likes to have their mind stimulated. The real problem is when the simulation does not hit the right frequency. If a problem is simply unsolvable without taking wild guesses, it gets frustrating, because you don’t rely on your skill, but just on plain luck. If the puzzle is no challenge, you get bored.
The real challenge in making a puzzle game is in finding the proper balance.
I hope you can understand what I’m trying to say. Calling modern Zelda a puzzle game is an insult to all real puzzle games.
But I’m not the one who defines modern Zelda as a ‘puzzle game’. That would be Nintendo. Zelda is characterized by Nintendo as a ‘puzzle game’ and a ‘story game’. And Nintendo wonders why the Zelda franchise is in trouble.
What Zelda used to be was an arcade/ RPG hybrid game. This can instantly be seen when playing any of the older Zelda games. I would add a third element also to what made Zelda… Zelda. It would be a Vast World.
Compare any Zelda game to any other game of that generation and what stands out? Zelda has a vast, vast world. No other NES game comes close to the vast world in Legend of Zelda (which had TWO with the Second Quest). Even Zelda II mopped the floor with any other games in the vast game world. So did Link to the Past.
I think one of the reasons why Ocarina of Time was so popular was because it was such a vast world that obliterated any other type of game. Ocarina of Time’s world was extremely vast. However, this ‘vast world’ has been co-opted from games such as Grand Theft Auto 3, PC RPGs like Oblivion and World of Warcraft, and other games. The most common complaint about Zelda is that there is not a vast interesting world anymore. If anything, it seems as if Aonuma is trying to remove the overworld entirely.
When I say ‘puzzles’ (and when Nintendo says ‘puzzles’), I am referring to scripted gameplay. Or to be more precise, forced gameplay. It is the gameplay of you must use X item at Y spot in order to proceed. Once you use X item, you get a cutscene of the camera going in a spiral where developers try to show off their 3d skills. It is dull as mud. It is a reason why gaming feels like a waste of time.
‘Puzzle solving’ as meant generally is wonderful. The classic Mega Man games have ‘puzzle solving’ as in ‘what robot master power do I use that fits best for this situation?’ The Mario games have ‘puzzle solving’ such as ‘what is the best way to get past this part? Should I attack the enemy? Should I avoid? Should I use a power-up?” This is all good stuff.
But a ‘puzzle’ is a scripted sequence of a single forced gameplay. In Zelda, it would be to use your boomerang at the pillars in order to get the treasure chest. This allows no use of the player’s personality. The game feels like a chore. Not an exploration.
The reason why puzzles have been infesting all the Nintendo franchises from Zelda, Mario, and even Metroid is because they are easy to implement. It is EASY to plop a puzzle or a string of puzzles. It is EASY to make fetch quests. It is DIFFICULT to make a gameplay skeleton that revolves around the player’s personality. But that is what a game is.
A string of puzzles or scripted sequences do not even fit the definition of a ‘game’. They, instead, fit the definition of an obstacle course. BAM! Here is an obstacle. Only the right way can get you past it. That is not a game. And I do not feel like paying anyone money so I can go through obstacle courses.
To solve this dilemma, there is a carrot dangled in front of the player to go through these ridiculous chores. Often, the carrot is ‘THE STORY’ or ‘3d EFFECTS’. But the carrot was never a solution, it was always a bandaid to the problem. And the carrot no longer works. No one is interested in these ‘stories’ anymore because video game developers do not understand how to properly harness players’ imaginations. And 3d effects are not entertaining.
The chief cause of all these problems appear to be 3d technology. When 3d technology came on the scene, there was a rush to ram franchises into 3d games. There were still many problems. There was the problem of the camera. There was the problem that 3d worlds, because they were less abstract than 2d worlds, could not create the same sense in size of game universe. A franchise that became very successful in 2d often had its gameplay skeleton butchered and rearranged when it went to 3d. This is why oldschool gamers constantly complain about 3d. It is not that 3d is bad in itself. It is that if a gameplay skeleton cannot be done in 3d, it should not be done so. A great example of this would be 3d Mario adopting a radically different gameplay skeleton than 2d Mario.
With Zelda, 3d gave it a more interesting immersive world (provided if Nintendo actually doesn’t get lazy on it). But there were side-effects. It became much more difficult to create RPG style gameplay and arcade style combat within 3d.
Nintendo has completely given up trying. To fill in the void, they have replaced it with a string of puzzles. And since no one wants to play a string of puzzles, Nintendo tries to frame it all around ‘THE STORY’ hoping that the carrot is enough to get people through the ordeal.
Remember when Zelda used to be an RPG? Remember when you used to upgrade your sword so you could kill enemies easier? Remember when you used items to help combat enemies? Remember when you used to upgrade your armor so you could travel to more dangerous lands?
That is the Zelda I want to play. And judging from the sales results of other adventure games, it appears that is what other people want to play too.
But Nintendo has this insane obsession over 3d technology which is harming their core franchises. A good idea would be to cut back on the 3d technology and to shift focus on shoring up the weaker parts of Zelda’s gameplay skeleton. But we won’t get this.
Look at Minecraft for example. The game looks like shit. Yet, it is the other things in it that is greatly compelling for people. There is much ‘puzzle solving’ in Minecraft (such as how do I avoid that creeper or how do I get that diamond over the lava?). But there are no scripts. And the reason why a game like Minecraft is fun to watch people play is because you can see their personality emerge with their play.
I find it interesting to watch people play older Zelda games. But with the newer ones, it is snore-town. All they are doing is bring X item to Y location to trigger Z cutscene.
Just as a mirror reflects the physical form of Man, a game reflects the personality form of Man. Good games do this which is why they are fun to watch.
This appears to be the recipe for Modern Zelda:
1. Come up with gimmick. (Ex: trains)
2. Pump in as much 3d technology as possible. (Ex: Cell shaded art styles)
3. Like tofu, use puzzles to fill the void of where the meat should go. Try to use different spices to make the puzzles more interesting. Hire mathematicians and biologists to make more puzzles!
4. Wrap with a glaze of a story with excess fat and sugar, not unlike McDonald’s Big Macs, to make the food feel good going down. To make people feel they are not eating ‘fake meat’.
‘Puzzle’ games are ‘fast food games’. They tell me the developers are taking a lazy approach and are not interested in actually making a game. The reason why Zelda and Mario have increasingly been shifted to a puzzle-design philosophy is because Nintendo is sacrificing gameplay in order to play more and more with 3d technology. The puzzles are a symptom of developer motivations not being on the gameplay skeleton.
I don’t hate ‘puzzles’ generally. I really liked the Lolo games and games like Tori Tori. However, I do not think every game should be like Lolo. I do not think Zelda should be a 3d Lolo game. If Nintendo (or HAL) wants to make a 3d Lolo game, fine. But don’t tell me that a 3d Lolo game is Zelda because it is not Zelda. In the same way, don’t tell me that a sci-fi Metal Gear Solid is Metroid because it isn’t.
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