gameslol

Maybe I’m weird for even spending a moment’s worth of thought on this, but I think the Ooccoo in Zelda is kind of lame.

Historically, Zelda games haven’t allowed proper saving within dungeons. That’s okay. I’d prefer to save anywhere, but I understand why I’m not allowed. What annoys me is that saving within dungeons actually is possible, albeit sort of half-assedly. If you use the Ooccoo to warp out of a dungeon, then save and come back later, then warp back in again, you’ll be right where you left. Hooray!

But what other purpose does the Ooccoo have besides allowing you to sneakily save in dungeons? I guess you could use her (wikipedia says it’s a she!) to go to a store and buy stuff, but I haven’t come across any situations where a required item isn’t already in your inventory or can be acquired in your immediate vicinity. Dungeons in Twilight Princess don’t have such dead-ends, at least not that I know of.

Ooccoos, of course, exist because the designers felt there needed to be an extra shortcut — probably to “give players more freedom” — and not because the Ooccoo really fits into the game’s fiction. I guess an Ooccoo just sits around and occasionally magically transports adventurers out of caves or temples. And then, somehow, she sends them a thank-you letter. (How could she write without hands? She probably dictated it to someone else, an assistant perhaps. I’m still working on this theory.)

I guess my point is that if you are using a metaphor as attention-grabbing as a surreal type of manchicken with a bodiless son for what is clearly a function that sits on top of the actual game itself, maybe that function should just be in the game’s menu.

Oh man. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is clearly awesome.

Update: Lawrence tells me there is “more to her than meets the eye”. At this point I’m in the Lakebed Temple so I guess I’ll find out later.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 21st, 2007 at 9:22 am and is filed under Game Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.