I have to preface this by saying that I'm not very far into Skyward Sword, I've only just reached the door to the third dungeon. I'm likely to be updating this as I make progress, or I may not. No promises. But I do have a couple things to say about the latest 3D Zelda entry and modern game design.
There's something that plagues Zelda nowadays that honestly plagues most games unfortunately, especially Nintendo games. I first noticed it while I was playing Super Paper Mario, and it's just stuck with me since. There's a fairly ridiculous amount of hand-holding in Nintendo first-party games. I was two hours or so into Super Paper Mario, and it was still directing me when to use abilities, reminding me of what abilities I had, and how to use them. I felt as though I was being condescended to; it felt like a two hour tutorial. I'm not actually sure if the game ever got past that or not, because it was a rental from back in the days of Blockbuster [gods rest its soul], and I didn't have the patience to put up with the game telling me the obvious for a couple more hours.
But back to Squidward Sword. The problem I have is honestly one that's been with Zelda since the shift to 3D. Ocarina of Time had Navi, who would interrupt what you were doing in order to tell you inane details about things, and remind you of what you're supposed to be doing. Now, given that it was the first 3D Zelda game and most 3D games at that point were in their infancy, trying to find some common footing and alleviate the problems of such a drastic model shift, it's something that I'm willing to forgive. Ocarina of Time had several such problems that I'm willing to forgive on the same basis. But since Ocarina, we've had Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and finally Skyward Zord. And in that time, they've followed this odd inverse parabolic arc.
Navi -> Tatl -> King of Red Lions / Tetra -> Midna -> Fi
Now when I say Parabolic Arc, I mean in terms of overall helpfulness. Navi would regularly interrupt gameplay in order to give you information about things. It wasn't just annoying, it was frequently unnecessary. But as I mentioned before, it can be forgiven because they were trying to find their footing in a new dimension. Tatl followed up, and wasn't nearly as invasive as Navi, but served a similar purpose. It was fair enough, since it was the same game engine and had many reused assets. Then came the King of Red Lions, who occasionally popped in to give you advice, or you could use the Pirate's Charm to ask whoever was available at the time for advice on dealing with a situation or to set you on the right track.
Then came Midna. A little more invasive than "I'll fuck off and let you come to me if you need help," and personally I found her a bit grating, especially since the entire game seemed like Link was doing her a favor, and she couldn't suck it up for 5 minutes and cut the attitude. But I'm not here to discuss her character or Twilight Princess, I'm here to talk about helpers, and she was a fair helper, since the game was focused around her. She was exceedingly plot-important as the title character so her invasiveness was deserved, at least from a story perspective.
And then Fi. Who constantly interrupts the game in order to give you excessive advice and tell you things you ought have already figured out from the gameplay. Or who tells you things without even giving you the chance to experience them in gameplay. I don't mind her AI-esque personality, but it does have the unfortunate side-effect of making everything she says sound flat and uninteresting. If she doesn't seem to have an emotional stake in the outcome of her own dialog, why should I feel one? Fi just pours exposition on you, listing off phony percentiles and telling you what to do before you've got the chance to figure it out for yourself.
Worse yet, she even bothers you when your hearts are low. There's that annoying beeping sound of Fi wanting to notify you of something whenever you get low on health, which I wouldn't mind, except that it stacks with the already annoying beeping sound that naturally already notifies you that you're low on hearts. So in order to get rid of at least one of the sounds, you have to stop and sit through Fi's annoying unskippable dialog to notify you that you should probably go find some health.
Thanks. I was just thinking "man, I wish someone would tell me what to do when I'm low on health." Can you imagine if every time a Pokemon got low, it started squawking at you in addition to regular noise, until you selected >talk, at which point it turns around and notifies you "Hey trainer, I wanted to let you know in case you hadn't noticed, that I'm fairly low on health. I would appreciate it if you would give me a potion or use an Oran or Sitrus berry on me to restore my health. If you don't have either of these items, Potions can be found at your local PokeMart, and Berries can be found on trees!"
It would be fucking intolerable.
Fi bothering you about your health is intolerable. And worse yet, it serves no purpose from a gameplay standpoint. For old players, we already know, this isn't a new element, it's been in literally every major Zelda release. For new players it won't help much either, especially after the first notification. They will either lose their hearts and die [and learn from the experience, and "learning from experiences" will be another post on its own, later] or they will find hearts because they've realized they're low on health. The extra notification serves no purpose other than unnecessary handholding.
Which brings us back to that specific topic again. Handholding. When a game assumes that you're too stupid to analyze your surroundings and make an intelligent choice, or learn from your mistakes and correct them via punishment. The game assumes that you've got no common sense, no ability to figure things out from context clues. For this purpose they give you the ITEM FINDER. Er, the DOWSING ROD.
...Sword. Dowsing Sword. It allows you to wiggle your blade around as though it were a tree branch, and it will automatically direct you to wherever it is you need to go, or whatever it is you need to find. Gone are the days when exploration was encouraged and item-searching puzzles could be solved by thorough investigation. Rather than taking what seems like the natural path and being deterred from those paths you're not supposed to take yet when you encounter enemies beyond your capabilities and indications of required items you don't have, you are actively and frequently encouraged to just dowse and the indicator will show you the correct way to go! It sure is a good thing I couldn't figure out that I need the grappling hook in order to jump that huge pit, or that I couldn't assume hookshot points were an indication I'd have to come back later with a hookshot. Because if I could figure those obvious points out, then I sure wouldn't need this dowsing sword to show me that I have to walk along the only path available to me.
To be fair to the game though, I've yet to be deterred from a path I can't yet take. Because I've yet to encounter a path I can't yet take. The game follows a very obvious and linear trail so that it's impossible to get lost in any location. I haven't yet come across an area that leaves me feeling that I don't yet have the proper equipment to handle it. No grapple points, no hookshot points, no bombable areas without bomb flowers somewhere nearby. Nothing that would require further exploration beyond 5 minutes from the immediate present. It seems almost like the entire game was dumbed down to encourage younger players.
Except that I played Ocarina of Time on launch. I was nine years old at the time, and yes things proved to be challenging to me, but that's what video games are about. They're about challenging the players. I will always encourage video games making the players think in new ways, supporting players evolving their playstyles, and giving the player multiple options and solutions to a single problem. And I will always encourage games that force the players to stop and analyze their situations in order to come up with a solution. Because for what reason are you playing a video game, if not to feel accomplished at overcoming a difficult task?
It's much the same issue I had with Pokemon X and Y. But that's a different story, for potentially a different post. More to come on Skyward Sword later.
