The Ups and Downs of Link to the Past
Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past was annoying. It's a classic and it's beloved, I know, but good lord was it frustrating.
I'd be walking (or running) along, usually from guards intent on killing me, when suddenly these wavy lines would stop me in my tracks. But only sometimes. In some cases I could go right past them and be fine and sometimes Zelda would stubbornly refuse to move. They didn't look like the brick walls; they were just lines.
After ranting to my husband, he laughed and said, "Those are hills. You can't just walk up them." Um, what? Wavy lines are hills? And why on earth can't you "just walk up them"? Isn't that how they're traditionally conquered?
Apparently the times they stopped me was when I tried to go up; they let me by when I was going down. I couldn't tell which direction was which. I had the same problem with the dungeon. Am I at the bottom of a wall or the top? It was like a blind person who's recovered their sight in adulthood not able to tell which direction stairs go. My husband grew up playing video games, so this made sense to him. The visual shorthand of games is intuitive. That's one of the difficult bits of being introduced to games as an adult. Not everything makes sense. Those black things flying around the dungeon? Bats. The things that look like Daleks? Octopus. Those blue guards?They're different from the red ones.
I don't understand most of it, but I'm trying.
I'd be walking (or running) along, usually from guards intent on killing me, when suddenly these wavy lines would stop me in my tracks. But only sometimes. In some cases I could go right past them and be fine and sometimes Zelda would stubbornly refuse to move. They didn't look like the brick walls; they were just lines.
After ranting to my husband, he laughed and said, "Those are hills. You can't just walk up them." Um, what? Wavy lines are hills? And why on earth can't you "just walk up them"? Isn't that how they're traditionally conquered?
Apparently the times they stopped me was when I tried to go up; they let me by when I was going down. I couldn't tell which direction was which. I had the same problem with the dungeon. Am I at the bottom of a wall or the top? It was like a blind person who's recovered their sight in adulthood not able to tell which direction stairs go. My husband grew up playing video games, so this made sense to him. The visual shorthand of games is intuitive. That's one of the difficult bits of being introduced to games as an adult. Not everything makes sense. Those black things flying around the dungeon? Bats. The things that look like Daleks? Octopus. Those blue guards?They're different from the red ones.
I don't understand most of it, but I'm trying.
Comments
Post a Comment