It's funny, I was thinking something similar recently. Not about Zelda, but about spending vast amounts of time on games, before there were online FAQs, and when you had to draw out your own maps. There's something rather romantic about being that submerged into a game.

hey john, it's gabe (WAY back from gamers -- long long ago). it's nice to know you enjoyed zelda to such a great degree -- it's like being a child again, with eyes wide open and an eagerness to explore. :)

Have to agree. I fired up the original Mega Man a couple nights ago just for the hell of it, and got so enthralled I didn't put it down till I beat it. I was pretty proud of myself, too, considering how tough that game is and how useless I've become at old-school games for some reason. There's just something about those old NES games.

Meanwhile, my shiny new Ninja Gaiden sits unopened...

There's a great essay by Denda Yuki in the "Level X" catalogue that talks about how in the days of the Famicon, designers had to make everything more stylised, even symbolic, in order for the player to understand it. The players, in turn, had to use their imagination to fill in the gaps left between the stylised graphics/sound they were presented with, and the hypothetical "real(ish) world" of the game. This meant that the games were much more engaging, because you were really interacting with them. In a sense, everyone was creating their own game experience. (This is a very similar argument to the one Scott McCloud makes in "Understanding Comics" (?) on why a simply-drawn cartoon face can be even more compelling than a photorealistic portrait.)

Nowadays graphics and sound are so good that, for example, you can have free 3D movement rather than a 32x32 grid viewed from the top. If a character drinks a potion, they don't just pose holding a flask as big as their head, then flash white and regain health (like they might in an older game) -- you can actually SEE their throat pulse and HEAR a sampled glug-glug. Players have to do a lot less work; the game comes to them.

I think games are becoming more passive as a result of this. Particularly with games that have a linear design, they're more like an interactive movie that you have to work your way through. That can still be a lot of fun -- I really love bashing my way through doors and throwing people around in "Hulk", even though I have no choice about which door to bash -- but it just doesn't suck you in the same way.

I don't see this as an argument that games are getting "worse", though, just "different". I also think that this is why gaming is getting more popular in general -- because games themselves are meeting the general pop audience halfway.

But there is room for both "simple, addictive games that go on forever" and "games that offer a 12-hour walk through an incredibly realised fantasy world" in the world. Everyone can get what they want.

Hey John. I thik I saw in one the pics in IGN about that Dragon Quest thing.
PS
Yep. Zelda is great. But the greatest of them all is still A Link to the Past.
PS
Say no to walkthroughs! There's no honor in that!

Love the "ending" screen. Man, publishers would get drawn&quartered if the ending of a long RPG was:
"You are great. You have an amazing wisdom and power."

Amazing how fluffed up games have become (unfortunately no so for that actual "gaming experience").

The whole world must be going map crazy this month. I’ve been off and on replaying Phantasy Star 1 and I recently found myself drawing maps again also. I definitely remember doing it for Bard’s Tale, Might and Magic and Dragon Warrior back in the day (and in the same way, replaying them feels so much more rewarding then the majority of my later generation collection).

You’ve tempted me to bust out the q-tips/alcohol, clean a few dirty NES edge connectors, and slap the old Zelda cart back into my little gray box. =)