What's an adventure? What's a Quest?

[OB1]

Originally posted by A Black Falcon
Before we start, one prediction. OB1 will either ignore almost every point I make, or only respond to the points I make that he can "refute" (with "facts" that are either wrong or are opinions). As usual... and likely more likely when the post is long, like this one will be.

Do you have any idea how many stupidly long posts like these I've had to reply to during my long stay at Tendo City? Far more than you could reply to in a lifetime, my boy.

"Arguing" with OB1 gets really tiresome fast and is pointless. He will 1) never change his mind, no matter how many times he has been proven to be wrong; 2) insult you, which just makes him look stupid (colored by my personal opinions against swearing); 3) argue forever based on often flawed hypotheses that he takes as truths. Etc. Its annoying.

Uh-huh. Sounds like someone I know that goes by the name of a certain F-Zero character.

Oh come ON! Sure, I overall prefer PC games... but do you honestly think I dislike console games? I like them! Nintendo games are a lot of fun. If I didn't think that, I wouldn't be here, I'd be at a PC board. DO you think I like my favorite adventure game (that would be Grim Fandango) more than Zelda: OoT? Well, NO. Its close (both are in my top 10), but Zelda is definitely several notches higher... OoT is #3 on my best ever list, actually, right after Warcraft III and Starcraft.

I was kidding.

READ MY POSTS! I DO A LOT MORE THAN THAT! Better yet, click the links that prove my points!

Ugh, this is so tiresome. I'll do it this one last time.

This is a case in point. OB1, you have not come even CLOSE to "proving" that console action-adventure games were first. Actually, all you have done is said "console ones were first!" while ignoring the large amount of evidence, with links, that I've provided... you CANNOT deny that Adventure came out in 1972 and was a ADVENTURE GAME. If you deny that, you are saying that a game isn't a game... wait, you did that. Dislike a game/genre all you want... but don't deny its a genre or a game! That is just dumb and so blatantly wrong that arguing it is completely pointeless.

Wait, you mean your text-based adventure games? If you put those in the same category as regular PC and console games then you've proven how ignorant you are. You don't seriously consider those computer games, do you?

You also can't deny that Mystery House, the first graphic adventure, came out in 1980, WELL BEFORE ANY CONSOLE ACTION-ADVENTURE GAME. Or any other kind of console adventurish game. Oh, you can try... you just will be in the same place you are in now: with assertions you make that the facts prove wrong. Way to go.

Um.. "Adventure" for the Atari 2600 came out in 1978, two years before your PC "adventure" game. I've already stated this fact.

Oh... and if you think Zelda is an advenure game, you're saying Tomb Raider is one too... or Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, or a multitude of other Action-Adventures. None of them are. Fine, lets look at Zelda puzzles and quests. Lets see.. there's 'get key/item' (standard game puzzle, any genre); 'retrieve item for me (FedEx)' - standard RPG genre quest; and many puzzles using your weapons to activate things... 'jump over pit', 'use hookshot to cross thing', and the very common jumping puzzle, often with a timed element you activate somehow.

Wow, you've described Zelda to a "t"! Tell me more!

Are these, or other Zelda puzzles, really representative of an adventure game? No. Adventure games do use inventory puzzles, true, but not in the way Zelda does... Zelda does its inventory puzzles in the style of an RPG or Action-Adventure game, not a Adventure game.

Because... you say so? So are we going by real-world facts or Black Falcon "facts"?

Then, of course, theres combat. One hallmark of the adventure genre is that in almost every single adventure game, there is no combat at all. A few are exceptions, as I have said before, but one of those (Monkey Island 3) had it optional, while others like The Last Express, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and Full Throttle were considered as abnormal adventure games for including such large action elements... Full Throttle in some ways might even be considered a action-adventure. Same with Indy Fate's Fists path. Maybe not, because of the rest of the game clearly being a adventure game, but possibly. Zelda? It has LOTS of Action/RPG-style combat... LOTS. Also, while it definitely has lots of puzzles, they aren't generally the type you see in adventure games... they are the kind found in RPGs, action games, and action-adventure games, not adventure games. Given all of this, I just can't see any way Zelda is an adventure game.

That's because you are defining Zelda by your definition of the genre. I could say that pong is an extreme sports game and that since in Tony Hawk there is no ball bouncing between two paddles it cannot therefor be an extreme sports game! Of course this all makes logical sense to you; you're using your own magical encyclopedia of misinformation!

Well, in the loosest possible definition, it is... but yeah, when you use the definition of RPG as any game that calls itsself and RPG uses it, no, Mario isn't... it doesn't fit what the genre of RPG "really" is.

Exactly. You can't define a genre simply by its name. You define it by comparing it to the first game that defined the genre that it was based off of or resembles to a certain extent, which in this case is the Atari 2600 game "Adventure"... released in 1978.

One more thing about Zelda... its interesting that you call it an adventure game, because usually people erroneously refer to it as an RPG, not an Adventure... its no more a Adventure than it is an RPG-- it is influenced somewhat by the genre (less so than it was by RPGs, though, by any measure I can see), but isn't in it. It doesn't fit the real genre definition of either.

It's barely has any RPG elements. You're the only person that has called it an RPG.

Let me guess. You will now say that Zelda created some "console adventure game" genre which consists of Action-Adventure and Action-RPG-Adventure (yes, I do believe Zelda really does have a big RPG part in it...) games... either that or what you said most recently -- . That really doesn't work that way. Yes, there are many types of RPGs. Yes, they are sometimes categorized together. However, they all are definitely RPGs. That is just not true with your "broadly defined adventure-game genre".

*sigh* Do you even read the posts here? I made a post several hours ago about the first adventure game called "Adventure", which came out in 1978.

I will admit one thing. The classic, plain adventure genre is fading and is not nearly as strong as it once was. That weakness led to the rise of the Action-Adventure game. Action-Adventure games are now very, very common, and Adventure games are uncommon. On PC, this hasn't led to action-adventure games being all called adventures... it led to the action genre becoming one of the most dominant on the PC (along with strategy games as the biggest on the PC). Adventure games, however, are still adventure games. Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones don't compete for adventure game of the year... generally they fit better in action game of the year, given how action-adventure doesn't have its own category. Which, BTW, it should for consoles, given how few real adventure games there are on them and how many action-adventures or rpg-adventures that get shoved into the "adventure" category and don't fit it, for categorizing or awards purposes.

Nope, I'm trying to defend a struggling and embattled genre from being swallowed up by related- but not the same- genres that are now much bigger and more powerful. There is one kind, and a lot of offshoots that change that genre so much that they are, in fact, other genres that usually fit much better in another genre than the adventure one. Zelda sure isn't much like any adventure game I've ever played... its not meant to be. Its meant to be a (at its creation) unique game that doesn't exactly fit in any of the established genres, causing, im sure, headaches for people who try to lock it down in one category... given how awards aren't given for "hyphenated" genres.

[quote]

What you're trying to do is turn something very simple into something unecessarily complicated.

[quote]So... where DOES Zelda belong. Honestly, I don't know. It isn't an RPG, an Adventure game, or an Action game... it doesn't fit anywhere. Genre-bending games like it have that problem... and the solution isn't easy. You've got to put it in some genre which really doesn't fit it. That's what happened to Zelda, shoved into either the Adventure or RPG genres, depending who you ask when.

It's actually a lot like the first Adventure game (Adventure), which [i]is why people call it an adventure or action-adventure game[/b].

(from the next post, sorry if I repeat some of what I say above, but I can't help it...)

Repeating yourself, I see... Well, while the adventure game genre is broad, like any genre, it does have some rules that make games only borderline games in the genre at best, depending, usually, on who you ask. I just can't see how Zelda would even approach that line (Look at Diablo. I think its an Action-RPG... thats the genre its in. People can say it isn't an RPG, but it really is... watered down from the RPGs like Might & Magic or Baldur's Gate? Sure! But its still an RPG.) Zelda doesn't come even near close enough to being an adventure game to fit there... it has a few, vauge things in common with the genre, but not a whole lot unless you take the Adventure genre to be as broad as you said the RPG one wasn't (you know, when you said that Mario Sunshine wasn't an RPG.)... it just doesn't have many adventure-game features in it! If anything, its more like an Action-RPG... in Zelda, the action parts are very action-oriented. Much like an action game... with some RPG influences. Nothing at all like an adventure game. The puzzles are the same... much deeper than an action game, absolutely, and in many ways not a RPG (though, IMO, clearly strongly influenced by them), but NOT like any adventure game IVE ever played! I don't see how you see a huge connection here... well, maybe you don't and just want Zelda to be its own seperate kind of adventure game. You've said that. Sorry, that doesn't work, as I think I've said now THREE TIMES, at least. Real adventure games DO EXIST ON CONSOLES!!! I don't want to repeat myself, but you really seem to ignore most everything I say so I'm forced to. THEY ARE ON CONSOLES TOO. Not many of them, but they are there. And consoles also have some games that are MUCH closer to adventure games than Zelda... I don't know offhand, but I know that consoles have some games that could try to claim adventure status. Most aren't, but there are much better candidates than Zelda out there. I LOVE Zelda games, but don't see how they have much of anything to do with the adventure genre.

Like I said before, you are basing your whole argument on the simple assumption that your definition of the genre is the correct one.

Hmm. This post WAS very long... but worth it. I wanted to try to refute pretty much all of your points in that post. Still, it probably is a bit hard to read. When you combine a lot of 'stream-of-conciousness' typing with some attempts to go back and add stuff in later to flesh out my rebuttals of many points, I'm sure it isn't a very well written or organized post... especially at this length. But it took me a long time to write this much, and redoing the whole thing for readability and the removal of repetition would take way too long.

Oh, and sorry OB1, but the way you argue, it leaves almost no room to be nice... I try, but it is impossible when you are the way you are... [/B]

Hahaha, I bring out the fighter in people. Seriously though, this is an inane topic, but I'm not going to back off. I have to fight for the man that created the adventure genre, I refuse to let those graphic adventure games take over the genre that he spent months (I guess) creating!! I will defend... whatever his name is... until the bitter end!!!

BTW here's the boxart for "adventure":