Rise of the Action Adventure

In another post I outlined why combat in the third-person view was the most sensible design choice given the limited technology in 1978. Up to that point the most popular arcade games had been micromanagement ball & paddle games like Pinball and Breakout. Taito's strategy was to give the player more control over the world, and also advance the world itself as to avoid making the game simply about moving the turret let and right to shoot defenceless aliens.  The Invaders were therefore given ammunition of their own, and an emergency cover system combined with gameplay speed progression meant that the difficulty ramp moved upwards (not not unfairly) as the game progressed. This ultra combo of camera perspective, added controls, environmental design and enemy A.I combined with deliberate pacing became the staple of Japanese game design philosophy, with many new games after Space Invaders evolving their players abilities, enemy attack patterns and environmental design while keeping their camera perspectives and difficulty curves relatively the same. Thats not to say that every developer embraced this formula though, and even well into the 80's many developers chose to create shorter level-based games such as Bubble Bobble or Bombjack, or even long form scrolling shooters like 1942 and Ikari Warriors. The popularity of these games shows that there was a market for games that deviated from this formula, but more importantly it also showed that innovation could happen outside of the formula (something which I should remind myself).

Action Adventure

This post is about action adventure games though, and 1985 represented the breakthrough of action adventure games. This was a result of a single developer starting to experiment more with dynamic difficulty curves and non-combat oriented game design. Super Mario Bros., a game which many in Nintendo weren't anticipating to be such a big success. A game which also in spite of its lesser expensive controls utilized more nuanced player mechanics than almost any action game at the time, and still managed to work those mechanics into interesting multi-path levels that did not revolve around combat. Mario didn't just evolve the scrolling beat-em up like Fujiwaras masterpiece Ghosts n Goblins, but totally restructured the idea of action in gaming. Namcos master mascot Pac-Man it seems, had been overshadowed by sheer virtue of platform, which probably left Namco regretting they never made Pac-Land a console game to begin with. It was Mario therefore, that brought many to a realization of what home consoles could mean for game worlds, bringing together the benefits of both arcades and consoles. Mario was just an appetizer though, and it was Zelda and Metroid that would firmly plant the roots of the action adventure and uncover the design possibilities of the genre in 2D form. These games didn't need to numerous boss fights of their arcade cousins, because their worlds were compensated with other interesting mechanics, such as 1) secrets, and 2) cartography. This explains Zelda II's abandoning of a map system, and also why games like Wolfenstein 3D rose to prominence, even without numeroud boss fights, power ups or platforming. Simply finding ones way was a challenge in itself, and combined with survival elements and a new perspective made for an immersive experience in both games. I just wonder though, did these games lack something special compared to their on-rails cousins such as Contra III and Ninja Gaiden? Or was it linear games that were lacking the special elements that made open-world games so attractive? If you were given a choice between the first Zelda, Mega-Man, Ninja Gaiden or Punch-Out, which would you choose? Each game follows a slightly different philosophy, and came out around the same time. This separate approach is what makes them all so well known, but more importantly they are very deep games in terms of how they can be played/the worlds they craft. When you throw in Super Mario Bros. 3 it becomes an even tougher analysis. It would be fine and well if we were comparing shades of color and technical specs, but these games are works of human ingenuity, and thats why its so important to see the human picture behind these games.