10th March 2005, 4:05 PM
Yes, Zelda is about exploring. The very first one you spent half the time just burninating bushes and blowing up random rocks. Being the first one, that was enough to be amazing fun for me. Now though, they can take it a lot further. I'd like to walk along a dense forest and see a bunch of trees and thing "ya know, that one looks like I could climb up it a bit if I only...". And by that I mean, all puzzle elements shouldn't be immediatly recognizable as such. You know how like in some cartoons it's obvious that some item is about to be used because it's a different color than the rest of the same items in the scene? That's how it's been in Zelda. Some of that is still fine, but a more "hmm" attitude where you have to think a bit before you can even figure out if that tree, or that log, or whatever, IS puzzle related, would be awesome.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)