Riding the Zelda short bus

Third-person action/adventure games - the most derivative of all game genres. No matter how good/unique your game is, critics and the public will all declare it "like Zelda." It seems like the only way to escape the Zelda stigma is to include guns in your game (Ratchet & Clank).

Example: Okami. PS2's answer to Zelda. You got to be a wolf, there was a silent protagonist, you ran errands for villagers, you explored dungeons. Sounds like Zelda. Sure, there was a painting mechanic, and a cool art-style, but nobody cared except the critics. This game single-handedly closed Clover Studios.

Example: Beyond Good and Evil. Third-person adventure, hit bad guys with a stick, similar controls, pretty female protagonist (HA take that, Link!). The setting was unique, and the story was interesting, and the characters had... character. But the game felt like Zelda, even though there were no dungeons to explore or princesses to rescue. The photography aspect was cool too. Nobody played this game either.

More examples: Malice, Haven: Call of the King, Jak and Daxter, Dark Cloud, Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, Psychonauts, Fable. All of these games have aspects that help separate themselves from Zelda's shadow, but many feel like that's all they do. Zelda with a hammer, Zelda with psychic powers, Zelda with experience points, Zelda with farts. Zelda wasn't the first, but it did it the best. I don't know if it will ever be topped by cookie-cutter games.

One thing's for sure, however: when (if?) a unique game comes along that turns the Zelda gameplay on its ear, I'll be the first in line to pick it up. With so many "me too" games flooding the market, I could really go for a breath of fresh air.

Tipping the Scale

Scale has always been a strange technical issue in video games. You're limited by the size of the character, and the camera angle, and the hardware. In old NES games like Zelda 2, Link was the same size on the world map as an entire village. Once he was actually in the village, the buildings were bigger, yet the inside dimensions never seemed to match the outside, like that magical car from Harry Potter that could seat seven comfortably in the back seat while appearing to be a standard size from the outside. Later (much later), Final Fantasy VIII graced the PS1, and towns were finally getting a sense of scale. Sure, Squall still appeared to be as tall as the buildings while outside the city limits, but at least they weren't the same dimensions anymore. I just think it was the hardware. The one game I can think of in that entire console generation that had an entire world set to scale was Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. If you wanted to walk somewhere, it took you as long as it would in real life. It was improved even farther in Oblivion, and we now had a living, breathing world that resembled our own, if our own world had goblins lurking behind the registers at Wal-Mart.

Come to think of it, first-person-perspecitve games were always in scale. But the scope of the levels was always so constrained. Remember the first TimeSplitters that debuted with the PS2? The one where you didn't even have to look up or down, a la Doom? The levels, especially compared to sprawling RPG's like anything Square produced, were miniscule. Luckily, technology and game budgets nowadays are so out of control that even low-impact games can have a sense of scale and verisimilitude. Unless its Nintendo, then you're still doomed to be stuck with the kawaii big head, little feet, Pep Boys look. Hope you sprites have been working out your neck muscles! You're going to need them.