When I saw this month's musing theme the
very first thing that popped into my head was 'The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker'. Don't get me wrong... I
LOVED 80% of the game, but once you got to the part where you had to find 8 maps , AND then find enough rupees to get these maps "deciphered" by Tingle,
AND THEN you had to go get the pieces by poking around in the sea with your claw... well, at this point I was pulling my hair out! These kinds of fetch quests drive me absolutely insane. Some other examples include: Finding the Artifacts in Metroid Prime, recollecting your team in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I could easily write a paragraph for each of these instances, but I'm ready to move on.
I'm not a fan of being forced to collect things in games. This is why I've never seen the appeal of Mario 64. Many gamers hail it as the beginning of 'doing it right' in 3D platforming, but I can't agree with that at all. The biggest problem that I had with Mario 64, and most other 3D platformers* for that matter, is that they
force you to collect things before you can move on to the next 'world', and I'm not happy with all of the 'worlds' in these games. Sometimes I just want to run through a level so I can get to something that interests me... like fighting Bowser. The fact that I have to go into the shitty desert world not once, but up to 7 times pisses me right the fuck off.
After all this ranting and raging, I feel it's only appropriate to point out the games that do fetch quests right. I don't mind having to get 8 magical items... as long as it will help me out later, and it's not mandatory. God of War is a good example of "fetch quests" done right. You can scour the game looking for hidden caches of red orbs so that you can level up all of your weapons and abilities, or you can just go through the game, open the chests you come across, and still have a decent chance of beating the game... the choice is yours.
Another example of this would be the golden bugs in LOZ: Twilight Princess and to a lesser extent the COGs in Gears of War.
Well now... we've vented over tedious collections of trinkets, doodads, and gizmos; told 3D platformers to fuck off; and wrapped it all up by praising those who do it right. After a long journey like this, don't you feel we all deserve a delicious ice cream cone.
Enjoy!
P.S. I started a job where there is NO internet access, so blogging has become infinitely more difficult. The PAX Dtoid panel has inspired to start blogging again though, so you should see some more updates from me some time soon. I've got a pretty big ketchup blog in mind.
*
I love Super Mario Galaxy. Yes, you have to collect stars in the same world, but each challenge presents the level in an almost brand new light.
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OMG, that ice cream looks amazing!
Yeah, forced collection is lame. "fetch me this for this" quests, though, I still pretty hot, imo. Couple that with a big world and a little bit of true exploration and you've got yourself a stew.
What pendelton said. Also, fetch Quests never really have been high on my list of pet peeves, but there have been games with some especially obnoxious ones over the years.
I really need to do a monthly musing this month, before my idea gets taken.
The level of effort put into a fetch quest can make me not hate it as much. I didn't mind Bioshock's fetch quest because they felt like shorthand to have me have other interesting experiences. Like bringing the forest back to life or assembling the Big Daddy suit. The specifics of the things I was fetching and the events I had to go through to get them made the fetching more palatable.
Contrariwise, Animal Crossing felt like Fetch Quest: The Game where I just delivered furniture to people or went around looking for someone's comic book. Horrifically boring.
I know what your saying, but I despise a type of quest/mission much more...
...the escort mission
@Clockwork
I thought about doing the escort mission, but decided to go with my gut, and do the fetch quests thing.
I don't mind fetch quests, but I absolutely dispise the escort ones. Hell, I have a hard enough time keeping my own character in one piece during the course of a game.
I agree with Bed. Some fetch quests are constructed to where they don't feel like fetch quests. But the vast majority of fetching you do in games just seems like it was thrown for no other purpose than to waste your time.
(Actually, I liked Animal Crossing though. I was pretty addicted to it for about six straight months.)
The only escort mission that sticks out in my mind is this one in Phantasy Star Online where you had to beat the level boss while protecting this fucker that was about 20 levels below you. That and Dead Rising... the entire game.
Zelda is the worst offender. It's great when you're actually solving puzzles and riddles and you get a kick ass item for it (Biggoron's Sword, for example) but when you're just randomly running around handing off items from one dude to the next and you get a useless item (magic armour in WW, extra protection for a game in which YOU CAN'T DIE) then it's just retarded.
I agree completely. It seems that collect-a-thon quests are how the majority of game publishers decide they'll add longevity or replay value to a game. When they tell you it will take you "40 hours" to beat it's really just 10 hours of gameplay and 30 hours of other crap.
I think Banjo Kazooie had a nice split between collecting musical notes (which were all in your path of travel usually), Jinjos and Puzzle Pieces. You didn't have to get them ALL to proceed to the next level. It's cool to collect them for completion's sake but in games like Wind Waker I actually never BEAT it because I got to the collect the map pieces and got so annoyed I *stopped playing*