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Bully vs. Harry Potter
Via the ever-enjoyable GameSetWatch, a post on a blog for the development house Surreal Game Design. Surreal is a Midway division, and it's interesting to see a company blog actually ponying up opinions on the work of other designers as they do in this discussion of the unlikeability of Bully's setting. They discuss the problems with setting the game in a boarding school, the protagonist's sniveling classmates, and the unfavorable comparisons between Bullworth Academy and the halls of Sunnydale High or Hogwarts. From the post: "A while ago I was talking to Director of Design Richard Rouse along with some of the other Midway studio creative directors about our experiences with Bully. In both our cases, we really, really wanted to like it, but only played a few hours before giving up. Since it was blessed with many high reviews, we were left wondering 'What were we missing?' ... Harvey Smith of Midway Austin (and Creative Director of Area 51: Blacksite) rightfully pointed out that high school has been a successful setting of great things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Ultimate Spiderman comics. Richard noted that the high school of Buffy was populated by attractive, always-witty teenagers that killed freakin' vampires. Those California high schools you see in TV and movies are probably some of the most idealized environments you'll ever see."
Actually, the fishing isn't boring, and only took me about 5 minutes to complete. However, I enjoyed it, so I kept on fishing for a little while afterwards. The people who are complaining about having to fish for half an hour must have done something wrong. I"ve found most of the stuff in Zelda to be quite interesting, and find the only complaints about it are from people who assume if they aren't killing something, then it's boring.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I think most likely a lot of commenter's didn't read the blog or missed the point. They don't seem to be discussing whether or not the game is good. They seem to be talking about how the setting was bad enough to turn them off. It's worth discussing because the game IS good. If a bad setting can turn off people from a game they normally would like then that's worth noting.
Actually, before you leave the village, you aren't even going on a quest. You're just some kid, hanging around in his small village. If you actually look at it from the character's (Link) point of view, then you'll see that what you're doing is just what any other person in that village would probably be doing. Helping the neighbour find the cat, rounding up some goats, sitting by the pond and fishing. The character doesn't know that he's going to go venturing into the forest and get attacked by creatures from some other dimension. The reason that Zelda doesn't interest you, is because you're not interested in that kind of game. That is, the kind of game that has a real story, and requires things that aren't just grabbing cats by the tail, or killing everything that moves. In the real world,, you can't just act like an idiot and bash down doors to get what you want, you have to help others, so that they will want to help you.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.