An image from the film this blog is named after.

An image from the film this blog is named after.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Video Game Corner: Fusion between mechanics and theme.

Ramblings about video games. 

Note: the following was a part of a conservation I was having about the Legend of Zelda series. It's in response to someone else praising Twilight Princess. My comment was a bit rough, but it elucidates an aspect of games I frequently mull over.

I don't know. The dark tone Nintendo went for feels very slapped-on. My brother played through the game for the first time recently and I watched a little. The look of the dark world does not hold up. It looks very messy and oversaturated. Like they didn't have a clear art direction for that part of the game.
As for the story... I'll have to explain my thoughts on what differentiates video games from other art forms to illustrate my point. Warning: this will get long and rambly.
I'm very against cut scenes and long, scrolly text boxes in games. They ape other art forms and pull you out of whatever state the game had been working to get you in. Whatever ideas, themes, or feelings you get from a game should come from its mechanics (i.e. how you play it). In Twilight Princess the majority of what you're doing is puzzle-solving and fighting creatures in a way that feels like a rehash of Ocarina of Time and A Link To The Past. I barely remember the story because it amounts to such a tiny percentage of the overall game and it's conveyed in a lazy (cutscene-heavy) way.
Contrast that with Majora's Mask. Every element of that game goes toward getting across this messed-up, dark-fairytale world, including the mechanics. The time-manipulation results in tragic situations where nothing you do is permanent and no one remembers the heroic, arduous tasks you've accomplished. The mask-system delves into disturbing body-horror where Link is transforms into other races. And the masks are typically acquired by helping other characters work through depressing situations, like accepting their own death. Those are all core mechanics and they all work toward expressing the vision I described earlier.
Twilight Princess lacks that synergy between mechanics and theme.

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