tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post4140333473504918939..comments2024-02-25T05:24:24.948-05:00Comments on Beyond Easy: Secret of Mana & memoryPatrick Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02410016566636603639noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-75466800460887492172015-09-13T02:59:38.368-04:002015-09-13T02:59:38.368-04:00Actually, I reread the whole Chronicles of Narnia ...Actually, I reread the whole Chronicles of Narnia not too long ago. C.S. Lewis and I might have irreconcilable philosophical differences, but he writes excellent, excellent fantasy books. (Although this time around I was a bit more sensitive to his, shall we say, quaint views about gender differences and non-Christian cultures.)<br /><br />Well. On seeing "the whole naked thing." What we must remind ourselves about this world is that we know a lot less about it than we might believe—and perhaps less than our anthropized spaces give us cause to wonder at. Patrick Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02410016566636603639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-60389779526348649642015-09-13T02:50:40.132-04:002015-09-13T02:50:40.132-04:00Yup. Secret of Mana is like, I don't know, let...Yup. Secret of Mana is like, I don't know, let me do a Google search for "movies that haven't aged well." Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze? Right, let's go with that. YOU JUST HAD TO HAVE BEEN THERE. IT'S TOO LATE NOW. Whereas Super Metroid is more like Die Hard. You could show that film to someone who wasn't even born within a decade of Die Hard's release, and they'll still be blown away. Same goes for Super Metroid.<br /><br />I never really liked Seiken Densetsu III, actually—I think I only completed the first playthrough, and then stopped midway through the second, third, and fourth attempts. At least Secret of Mana made the attempt to be an adventure game in which how you maneuvered your character made a difference. In Seiken Densetsu III, combat really is just mashing buttons. But man, is it ever pretty.Patrick Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02410016566636603639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-10886561871824056372015-09-13T02:36:54.982-04:002015-09-13T02:36:54.982-04:00Sorry for not answering sooner. Let me think: it c...Sorry for not answering sooner. Let me think: it could help explain why game worlds kept getting bigger. Game developers were probably thrilled to be working with progressively larger canvases in the SNES and PSX eras, yes—but when words like "massive" and "big" become words of praise in adventure and role-playing game reviews, the incentive is to keep doing bigger and vaster, beyond the point where it's pretty much impossible for a player to <i>ever</i> explore the entire game world.<br /><br />I'm sure I'd have more to say about this if I'd ever played the Elder Scrolls games. Hrm.<br /><br />"Tight level design" is an interesting way of putting it. A game with elaborate environments that more directly and regularly influence what's happening pretty much has to be relatively small—you can procedurally generate a basic map with monsters, walls, and treasures if you're and end up with something that's workable in most scenarios if you're doing a roguelike, and you can just draw a big map and add textures in a game like Final Fantasy XII. But in a game like Portal or, I don't know, Jet Set Radio, you basically need human beings designing every inch of the environment.Patrick Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02410016566636603639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-55499918804816778102015-09-05T15:25:50.675-04:002015-09-05T15:25:50.675-04:00I'd like to use this as an opportunity to ask ...I'd like to use this as an opportunity to ask why you think video games these days are so obsessed with having the most massive worlds -- see GTAV's whole ad campaign -- and eschewing the tight level design of old for them. Do you think in some way it speaks to the human urge for exploration in a world where directions are a click of the phone away?Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11714769320154653358noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-67157387852159327682015-08-30T09:30:37.745-04:002015-08-30T09:30:37.745-04:00I experienced a very similar dissatisfaction with ...I experienced a very similar dissatisfaction with the world at that age when compared to a childhood-forming fantasy world, but in my case it was Narnia (lame as it may sound.) The adventure, the worlds-within-worlds, the lavish description of feasts and wondrous sights, it was all stuff that made normal life mortifying, especially since C.S. Lewis made many of his characters kids that found real life mortifying and longed to be in Narnia instead. Video games with a story would come later as a very intentional escape from this Narnia-less reality.<br /><br />After reading this, I was left pondering about that transition you briefly mention, growing up to accept reality for what it is. I've arrived to this: when we're young and possess only a limited understanding of the world, it is as though reality is this poorly lit scene from which we're only able to see the most salient features as they're the ones closer to us. What our fathers do, the things they tell you, the grind of year after year of school, the lack of autonomy and being forced to do what others tell you to do or meet their expectations... I believe that from very young we can already make out from those twilight forms the shape of reality as a grey, uninteresting and dreary rut. However, all the places left in darkness, all the nooks and crannies and dark corners that our lack of experience or knowledge leave in the scene are endlessly promising. Reality cannot be /just/ what we've experience so far, right? No, for sure those dark spots conceal passages out of here, or those who are adventurous and daring enough. There must be another level, another layer, another world.<br /><br />Growing up and learning represent adding new sources of light to this twilight panorama. Some of those only lit up once we've approached the dark corners in hopes of finding that concealed exit, only to find that it is populated by those who'd take advantage of us or hurt us. However, eventually, we have managed to shed enough light on the whole scene from several different sources until we are seeing at the whole naked thing. Perhaps a few areas of shadow remain, but their very shape and our previous experience is enough to satisfactorily guess what is in there. And when we are seeing the whole thing, we have no choice but to accept it. It is pointless to disbelief what we see, almost as much as it suddenly seems believing in that which very apparently is not there. Pretty sure that is the reason why kids take so easily to religion and then quickly come to question it in their teens: is not so much that their parents indoctrinate them and the development of critical thinking brought it all down, but rather, that religion was yet another magical dimension to their word on which they wanted to believe, and which is easily discarded -along with the belief in other magic realms- when they grow disillusioned with the world.Maokunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15459710218366288832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-63611572438515909582015-08-30T04:19:45.112-04:002015-08-30T04:19:45.112-04:00Yeah, I was seven in 1994 and wouldn't get int...Yeah, I was seven in 1994 and wouldn't get into Final Fantasy III (as I knew it back then) for another four or five years and finding SNES classics was already difficult by 1999. I didn't play Secret of Mana until I'd already played its sequel, and I still haven't finished Secret of Mana; I have it on the Wii Virtual Console and if I started it up, I'd have no idea where I was supposed to be going. It's pretty much the only SNES that will appear on a top ten games list for the system that I haven't finished and don't really enjoy all that much. I know I didn't play the game at the right time, but I also think that if the game were better, there wouldn't really be a "right" time to play it. I didn't give Super Metroid a real shot until 2004 or so and my lateness didn't stop it from being a great experience for me. Unfortunately, I can relate more easily to your experiences of growing distant from childhood friends over time than having great times with Secret of Mana.<br /><br />Also, you sort of wrote a giant essay on Secret of Mana in the midst of reminiscences. In spite of that, I'd agree that the series doesn't lend itself well to long retrospection. I've been replaying Seiken Densetsu 3, and I just can't stop thinking how it might be my favourite SNES game if it actually had a great story (and if its hit detection wasn't so sloppy).Adam E.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15301656119538410691noreply@blogger.com