If I'm honest, I've been critical of the video game industry for a while, now. In a world of day one patches and buggy releases, it's hard not to be just a little bit cynical. Even good decisions, like Hajime Tabata postponing Final Fantasy XV by two months, became a huge slap in the face when they still released, in my opinion, an unfinished game. I mean, sure, the game-play was ok, but that story? I'd rather read The Hungry Caterpillar.
I'm becoming increasingly despondent when it comes to new releases. I was this close, this close, to buying Nioh today. Samurai Souls. Pretty widely critically acclaimed, from what I can tell. What could possibly go wrong? The only reason I didn't in the end was because the only retailer in New Zealand that seems to understand what a "Release Date" is was EB Games, aka Gamestop. Not only does EB Games whack on an extra 20-30 dollars to encourage buying something pre-owned, but the sheer desperation I feel when I enter that store makes me physically ill. "Is there anything you'd like to pre-order today? Please? Please?".
I began to reflect on the reasoning for my despondence on the drive home. It probably doesn't help that I'm trying to save for a Masters with the money from a full-time job that I don't actually have yet. Money is tight, is what I'm getting at. And sure, there's been games I've played in the past which I just didn't like, but I wasn't critical about why I disliked them. I hated Final Fantasy XII with a passion. I'm a big fan of the Final Fantasy series, but XII... nah. This isn't to say that I thought the game was bad. It was more like if you told a die-hard Sonic fan to play a Mario game. They probably wouldn't like it, because it wasn't Sonic.
This is where The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword comes in, a game from another series I'm extremely fond of. The difference between Zelda and Final Fantasy, though, is that Final Fantasy always tries to quite drastically mix things up between games. It's expected. Not so with the Zelda series, which adds things that vitally contribute to a rock-solid formula. Majora's Mask built on Ocarina of Time by giving us a taste of the other races in the game, as well interesting use of time and space. Wind Waker gave us a visual style that will never age. Twilight Princess made clever use of the Wii's motion sensing remotes.
The problem with Skyward Sword is it took the extra motion controls of the Wiimote Plus and didn't vitally add to the experience, but inundated us with it. It tried so hard to be clever that it ended up tripping over it's own feet. I actually failed one of the first tutorials in the game, the one where you learnt how to use Link's Loftwing bird. "What?" I thought. "This is a tutorial for a Zelda game! How on Earth did that happen?!" Part of the charm of a Zelda game is its casual familiarity. Every other series to date I'd been able to pick up and play, fitting into a comfortable and familiar groove. The Zelda series was an old friend, but what was in front of me was becoming strange and unusual.
I totally, totally understand the appeal of using the wii-remote plus' capabilities for things like boss fights. I think there was some moblin (or something) with metal arms, where you had to slice through the gaps he left open using the extra motion controls. That was cool. That was a good idea. There was also small trees you had to cut down that blocked certain paths in the game. This is nothing new to the Zelda series. What was new, however, is you could no longer simply chop them down and move on. You had to cut them in a specific way in order to progress. That was stupid. A perfect example of the game trying to be too clever. Now it's been a long-arsed time since I play this game, so I apologize if I'm wrong here, and would really appreciate it if someone could correct me. That said, if I remember correctly you also couldn't just hold up your shield anymore either. You had to actively parry incoming attacks to deflect them. This made even the most basic of fights an utter chore to play. Imagine if you had to parry every attack in Dark Souls, instead of just holding up a shield. Totally not fun.
Then there's Fi, Skyward Sword's Navi. Fi was atrociously bad. Instead of saying "this is/isn't the right way", Fi would give you some random percentage. What I didn't know at the time was that these percentages were scripted, not an actual indication of progress. I'd wander aimlessly for ages trying to find a trigger for the the "right" route, the higher percentage. Bad idea. I'd trade Fi in for Navi in a heartbeat. Skyward Sword made me realise that, I should never underestimate people's capacity to mess up. Not even Zelda is safe.
Being more critical is something that is more of a curse in gaming. There's the obvious examples, like Assassin's Creed Unity and Batman Arkham Knight. Even Final Fantasy XV, a game that is generally well received, is having a whole chapter of the game revised because of how appalling it is. More personal to my heart is Tales of Zestiria, another series I love, whose skill system was a convoluted but necessary evil in order to play the game. Another example of developers over-reaching. I could forgive Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain's crap story because of it's otherwise solid gameplay. Then Chapter 2 happened, where I was made to play missions I'd actually already played in mostly the same way I already played them. Then there's that one mission, where a staple mechanic in the game (being able to abort, do other things, and come back later) is inexplicably taken away from you for no reason. This is a game that had, up until now, even made the effort to interrupt the story, giving me the opportunity to go and do something else in-game if I wanted to.
Once I've stumbled across such a critique, it's so much harder to forgive a game, even if it gets so much right before I found that critique. I yearn for an earlier time, where you knew that you could literally buy the thing, plug it in, and play. Where developer's didn't have internet access to patch over the cracks they left. Where they made damn sure the game was ready to ship, because once it did, that was the end of it. I miss demo's, where I could play the game to see if I liked it before parting with my cold hard cash to find out the hard way. But that's enough of that. I'm hungry. And you wouldn't like me when I'm hungry.
