Wind Waker and Expression | Critical Mode
Вставка
- Опубліковано 29 лип 2018
- The Wind Waker is my favorite Zelda game primarily because of how it depicts Link in a way none of the other games in the series have been able to do.
Critical Mode is a video essay series that offers an in-depth analysis of a particular game and uses those observations as a catalyst to examine a larger topic within the world of games.
Patreon: / selectscreen
Subscribe: / selectscreen
Twitter: / drew_type
Critical Mode: • Playlist - Ігри
“People don’t relate to blank slates, they relate to people.” I’m so glad someone did an essay on toon links face, this was amazing. You earned this sub man :)
Thanks, I usually have a hard time coming up with a good ending for these things, but I was actually pretty happy with that last line. Glad some else thoughts so as well.
Ayeee
This was really great! You made a really good explanation on why Toon Link is so good, because he's the closest to an actual person than any other links. I think a more important thing to do when making protagonists is to make them the player's partner, not a player insert.
I think that is another interesting solution to the problem, that unfortunately doesn't get used very often because it goes against conventional wisdom of what designers assume players want in a game. Hopefully as time goes on, developers will be more willing to experiment with this aspect of their games, and thanks for watching.
Came from Twitter. Great video. It sums up a lot of my feelings about silent protagonists.
Your channel deserves way more attention
I honestly never really think the mute blank slate protagonist have ever worked.
Well, maybe it worked as in it got the job done but it the game would probably have worked a lot better if they had instead given us an actual character to like.
Definitely one of those things that sounds good in theory, but is rarely as good in execution.
Great video!
Definitely an interesting subject. It seems to me like most games are trying to have their cake and eat it too to some capacity. Quite often you get a bit of freedom to roleplay, but then other parts of the character are set cause otherwise the game/story would fall apart, even if it completely contradicts the character you built. (I remember a lot of people being annoyed at the main story in Fallout 4 for example.) It's certainly a tricky line to walk.
I guess the completely blank slate 'characters' are well suited if the story isn't about that character at all, but if they're just a submarine that the player can use to dive into the game world and the whole focus is on the world/other characters, where you're not expected to relate to the player character at all. Skyrim comes to mind. (Yeah, there's a main story, whatever, still haven't visited the Greybeards lol.)
Good video!
I don't think Zelda gets enough credit in the games. In some, like Ocarina of Time, she's an active element dealing with political conspiracy and being involved in Ganondorf's defeat. Similarly with Breath of the Wild.
Thank you!
I can appreciate the perspective that Zelda certainly does have a part to play in many of the Zelda games, so as you say, she probably deserves credit for not being completely "damseled" in those cases. In that sense she's definitely an improvement over a character like Princess Peach, who outside of 1 or 2 instances, has literally nothing to do except be saved by Mario.
That being said, I could go on forever about how much Zelda's character in BotW deeply frustrates me. Maybe I'll get around to making a video about it some day.
True. I'm not the biggest fan of BOTW in general, and I do think that Zelda is a step back in terms of characterization.
aw man, I loved that game so much! great job!
Great vid! WW's Link is my fave link for this reason too, even if the game itself is not. :D
Yeah, it's too bad Toon Link has probably my least favorite set of Zelda games from a design perspective. But that little dude's cheeriness is enough to make me replay WW anytime I get the chance.
Great video! Much appreciated! Keep doing more of these so I can check them out :)
Thank you, that's the plan. The current schedule is a new video every other Monday.
Great video, well written and edited. I really enjoyed it.
I like how they wrote Zelda in BOTW. In many ways she was the true hero.
Thanks for watching!
And I completely agree about Zelda being the true hero in BotW, which is why I wish we could have played as her instead ;)
Sail Away, Come Sail Away! 🎶
Interesting video! Just a short question: What games/genre would you point towards as utilizing the blank slate aproach especially well and what specifically makes them work?
That is an interesting question. The only one that immediately jumps to mind for me is Shadow of the Colossus, but that also feels a bit like cheating, because to me that game is really a subversion of the "blank slate" style of story telling anyway.
I would argue that Shadow of the Colossus doesn't really employ a blank slate , considering that the game starts by showing you a preexisting realtionship of your avatar. I think we should make a seperation between "character you don't learn much about" and" blank slate". For the latter, I think more of something like the courier in fallout new vegas.
I would agree "blank slate" is, strictly speaking, not the most appropriate phrase, but I think that term gets used to include games like Zelda or Shadow of the Colossus, as well as a Bethesda game like you mentioned, or even an FPS like Half-Life or Halo, because they all come from the same idea of making your avatar more relatable by limiting how much you know about them. Sure, how much you know/get to invent about your character varies in all of those games, but usually what information is given is primarily to give the player a reason for action or adventure
With that being said, going back to your original question, from this perspective I don't know that I can think of any games that are necessarily made better by telling me less about the character I'm playing as. It is certainly less distracting the more gameplay oriented the game is, but I'm always going to relate to a character more if there is already something there for me to latch onto as opposed to me having to create that relationship from scratch.
Ok, good point. Perhaps we should call them something like blank charcters. Your video definetly showed how it is possible to make a character without dialogue or much background come across as an organic part of the story.
It's certainly a tricky thing anyway you look at it. Although I personally prefer my characters to be more fleshed out in the world of the game, that doesn't mean that is an easy thing to do. I can totally understand why a designer would want to go in the opposite direction in the name of not getting in the way of their player's immersion.
And since I didn't say it earlier, thanks for watching and glad you got something out of the video!
It's my favorite Zelda game and exactly for this reason.
hi, your content is all really, REALLY fucking great but the one thing that keeps irking me is how close you sound to your mic. i would strongly recommend (if you haven't done it already) either a pop filter or just talking into your mic at an angle, so all the air from your p's and t's doesn't blow directly into it. thanks!
Thanks, glad you enjoy the videos. I have a pop filter and have experimented with setting the mic distance at different lengths. Some people have said they like the way I process the audio, but others have had problems with it like you mentioned, so I'd like to get it to a place that everyone likes. I continually try to fine tune every aspect of the videos as I keep making them, so I'll keep trying to dial it in. Appreciate the feedback.
Never could get past the ugly character design.