The most effective way to put a message across to an audience is to tell them a story. Turning an idea or message into a story is an important part of writing, this is why similes and metaphors are the fist techniques to be taught in schools. Almost all famous books, poetry, music and plays feature heavy use of these techniques. All of the popular books etc. have a strong message they try to put across, George Orwell, Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Edgar Allen Poe are all good examples of this. Another way of making a message easier to understand is to somehow involve the audience, movies do this by using first person perspectives and objects in the real world to represent what characters are thinking. Books do this by simply telling you what characters are thinking, because they have no visual barriers. Games have the potential to for all of this.
Two of the side quests in Majora's Mask are good examples, the Anju and Kafei quest, and the Postman's quest. In the Anju and Kafei quest, Kafei is turned into a child, and has his wedding mask stolen, yet he beats this physically by getting his mask back, and mentally by marrying Anju despite being turned into a child. However, although the motivation for Kafei and Anju's actions are obvious, the only reason your character participates is to finish the game, not because you (the player) had a sudden burst of kind heartiness towards virtual characters. The quest fulfilled most areas, but it couldn’t offer a proper motivation for you to do it, it only punished you for not doing it. The postman's quest (the last part of it, anyway) involved the postman wanting to flee, but didn't dare, because he was obsessed with his job. But you could utilize this to set him free (by asking him to post the letter to the mayor's wife), who in turn told him that he could flee like everyone else. Once again, the game tried to give the player motivation to this by putting the postman in an unfortunate situation (wanting to leave, buy obsessed with his work, on the floor crying because of it), but people's emotions can't be aroused by virtual characters. If Majora's Mask was a movie, they could show Link shocked and distressed when he sees the postman, but because it is a game, and the player IS Link, they have to previously show that Link wants to help everyone he can, regardless of what they've done to him. In other words, because the game means little to the player, and the player controls the character, the character is emotionless; the only motivation that can be provided is a material reward at the end of a quest. If Nintendo could somehow show Link's emotion's in the next Zelda game, through some sort of notebook system where different characters get stamps or something overtime they are seen doing an act. Then games could be as deep as good books and poems, not as shallow as a lame action movie....
Topic: Wind Waker 2 (Read 47352 times)
