Where's the Adventure in that?

I consider myself a fan of the Zelda franchise.  I'd consider myself a bigger fan of the Metroid franchise, but why limit myself to just taking about intellectual property?  I'll say that I'm a fan of the adventure genre of game.  Adventure is sometimes used as a Swiss Army knife of genre definitions, being used to apply to lots of games even if they don't really capture the feel of an adventure.  When I think of an adventure game, I think of exploring an unusual world, surprised at the unique and sometimes bizarre creatures and tools that I find, and overall having this sense of discovery of something new and grand beyond this world.

However, all is not well on adventure island, the land of the new and unknown.  While games like Super Metroid and may have been a new and breathtaking experience at the time, the most recent poster boy for the Adventure genre, Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was received only lukewarmly by critics.  What I'd like to talk about this week is Nintendo's recently stated objective for the the next Zelda game being to bring back the feeling of adventure from the early entries in the series.  However, the real problem is that whenever the player is struggling, they can always jump on the internet and sort out problems by looking up an FAQ.  If I compare it to spoilers for a book or movie, then one can see how it drains away the defining aspects of the medium.

Before I ask "How can game designers reincorporate a sense of adventure into a culture that can easily find out how to solve their problems with no effort?" it may help to look back on how games accomplished this in the past: the original Legend of Zelda left a handful of clues lying around on how to find otherwise ridiculously well-hidden secrets, such as taking a certain path in a looping section of the map, or blowing up normal-looking walls.  Castlevania II: Simon's Quest gave even fewer clues and had non-player characters (NPC's) give cryptic hints or even outright lie to the player.  The problem with these games was that their tactics worked a little TOO well; if you've never played Simon's Quest before, I dare you to finish it without an FAQ or hints.

You probably won't beat Simon's Quest, but you'll remember this phrase for the rest of your life!

What's interesting is after the release of Skyward Sword, an essay called Saving Zelda became fairly widespread, explaining the fundamental differences between the fun in Zelda games of the past and today.  While I don't agree with everything (such as the suggestion that adding cracks to walls to make it more apparent what is and isn't a waste of time and energy attempting to break) but it raises some very good points, especially on the idea that newer Zelda games are too easy.  The N64 Zelda games, Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, eased back on being so vague and toned down the difficulty as well.  What resulted were battles and puzzles that - in my opinion - were too easy to accomplish and lots of your adventure being laid out for you.  How can you discover new and unusual things if you're being carted around like you're on a train track?

However!  Majora's Mask is easily my favorite Zelda game because the bulk of the adventure was focused on in the sidequests, most of which revolved around ordinary people.  The main strength of Majora's Mask was its unusual world and surreal, downbeat atmosphere.  If you're not familiar with the plot, it centers around Link's adventures in an parallel world called Termina that will be destroyed within three days by the falling moon.  This atmosphere of inevitable doom that hung over the entire game - literally, as the moon can be seen inching closer as the game's plot progresses - made even the mundane more interesting and exciting while simultaneously building a world with its own cultures.  Atmosphere can really make or break a game; look no further than survival-horror siblings Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill: Downpour respectively.

This harbinger of the apocalypse can be seen from any outdoor location in Majora's Mask.

Incidentally, I consider survival-horror games to be an adventure in and of themselves.  Even if I know what to do in a game like Resident Evil, it's overcoming the fear what lies beyond that feels truly rewarding to the player.  From my own personal experience I can say that one level in the Gamecube remake of Resident Evil (known affectionately as REmake) had such a depressing and sinister atmosphere that I had to retreat to the save room just to keep calm.  Rewarding a player by playing by the rules of the game is how an adventure game should work.

More recently, the emergence of "hardcore" role-playing games such as Demon's Souls and Dark Souls have emerged, whose mystery and adventure is shown through the difficulty.  The real challenge isn't finding clues and studying maps, it's in beating powerful monsters to be able to advance to the next area, which diminishes the effectiveness of an FAQ somewhat.  The difficulty makes it so getting to future areas may take a while, which allows tension for what the player may face in the future build.  Youtube content creator The Gaming Brit sums it up in a brilliant video where - not directly, I merely interpreted it this way - he compares the difficulty of a game to being a metaphor for the sense of discovery necessary in an adventure.

Neither of these takes on re-establishing adventure into our games are without their flaws, though.  With Majora's Mask the game is still too easy - again, in my opinion - and merciless difficulty in a game like Dark Souls will turn off all but the most dedicated and hardcore of players.  If one wants to win over a large playerbase, then soul-crushing difficulty is a less than savory option.

The adventure genre was one of the go-to genres before the rising popularity of shooters.  While it's by no means a dead genre, adventuring is in a tedious state.  What's important from here on is focusing on making the mechanics simple yet deep without holding onto the player's hand too much, like in Skyward Sword.  Straying too deep into the waters of high difficulty will alienate players.  It's a matter of balance.

Image Sources:
http://www.sydlexia.com/
http://operationrainfall.com/

Additional Reading:
Essay: Saving Zelda