The Book of Revenant

Portrait of Ruin, the new Castlvania game, is fucking great. Dual character system allows for interesting puzzles and boss strategies. Segmented level design allows for some interesting locals while staying true to the game-play mechanics I’ve grown to love. And, surprisingly, some actually difficulty in a Castlevania game for the first time in years. A really great game. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.

But they’ll try.

In your travels along the bowels of the internet idiot barrel, you may come across some some who bitch about the music, say the stage design sucks or somewhat. Then you’ll get some fools who throw out the insult that the game is “too linear.”

‘squeeze me? (Oh, please baby.)

I have trouble calling a game linear when it gives me two options to move upon entering a room, and both lead different, long winding paths that I can retreat upon and try another if I decide.

Okay, but yes, there is one “main story” arc that you have to follow in a linear order to complete the game. Goddamn bureaucrats tellin’ me how ta play mah damn games!

But then the game dares to offer you quests, little side missions filled with objectives ranging from “find this item” to “master this skill”. Tasks that can range from a few seconds if you’ve happened to already complete it by chance (such as killing x number of monsters throughout the game) or a few hours if you can’t remember where that damn thing you swear you saw in this corner of the map but where the hell is it now. Fun stuff.

Anyway, this got me thinking. Since when is linearity bad, anyway?

Historians would probably point you to Grand Theft Auto 3, otherwise known as “when people started giving a shit about the GTA series”. But non-linear games have been available ever since people wanted to bring their Dungeons and Dragons adventures to the computing world. And no, I don’t recall any school yard bitchings about our adventures in video game land being too straight line based. We were too busy complaining about the Technodrome being too fucking hard to beat. So what’s the deal?

I don’t really know if I have an answer, unfortunately. If I had to guess, I’d link it to people wanting choices (and who doesn’t?) and feeling this game doesn’t give them the choices they’d like to see. Then again, I’ve been reading some stuff on how limited choices actually makes people happier, in some regards. So that might explain why my hobby of choice is filled with bitter fucks!

Mmm, how’s that for awkward. Me without a solid opinion.