Are You Experienced?
In the second part of my ongoing Zelda: Breath Of The Wild review, I talked about how one of the big differences between it and the vast majority of open-world games is a lack of experience points and leveling up. This is a huge boon, in my eyes, because it makes hitting the road and seeing the world more important than cashing in favors and watching numbers increase. Down in the comments, myrandomnickname recognized the series’ (almost) lifelong deviation from those role-playing norms:
One thing I’ve always liked about the Zelda games is how neatly they manage to sidestep the whole level-grinding process. You can’t get by a boss or make a dungeon easier by simply wandering around killing things for a while, and there’s a definite cap to how many hearts you can have at any point of the game. But if you’re playing thoughtfully, you usually don’t need a ton of extra hearts. Figuring out how a particular monster is most effectively handled is generally sufficient.
Wolfman Jew played off a personal anecdote to get a little deeper into this issue:
I’ve got a friend who’s a huge JRPG guy. When we were in high school, I remember talking with him about Zelda sometime after Twilight Princess was released. He asked why Nintendo didn’t have an experience system like other action-RPG games, saying it’d be better for it. After all, that would give the combat a more “clear” reward, and it’s fun in other games, so why not?
At the time, I didn’t have a real answer—and I was worried I was only going to justify it with a plea to nostalgia and dismissing Zelda II—but I think I know the reason why, and you really hit the nail on the head. Nintendo gauges your experience by your experience. I mean, they do have actual RPGs with leveling mechanics (and Zelda has always had stronger weapons and various kinds of upgrading), but for them, you can only progress through learning the way it works, not exploiting a system of points. It’s why, some power-ups aside, Mario will probably never learn moves like in Banjo-Kazooie, and why the basic gun in Splatoon can still be used competitively. Not having that kind of leveling in place means the onus has to be on the player for learning things.
Who Has The Time?
I took some time this week to weigh in on my experience with the Nintendo Switch, which I’ve had for almost two weeks at this point and am absolutely loving, despite some weird little issues. Instead of a real deep dive into its pros and cons, I decided to draw up a more personal reflection on what the console means to at this point in my life, as someone who once rabidly ate up nearly everything that came out and now can’t find the time to finish a damn thing. (Other than the occasional game I’m reviewing.) In the comments, DrFlimFlam laid out a relatable response:
Becoming an adult, then a partner, then a parent—these things drag on the time you spend alone, because huge swaths of time alone don’t really build relationships (a shocker, I know). So we try to find ways to cram our hobbies into our adult lives. We play co-op games and consider it an acceptable compromise. We watch TV shows and films with others, imposed by or on ourselves. We read on our lunch breaks or for a bit before bed on our phones, soft white lettering on a black background so as not to wake our partners.