Things That Ruin Video Games pt. 3: Obstructed View

You want to see me fucking lose it? Give me a game where you can’t see what the hell you’re doing.

Castlevania, hard as it could be, was always a personal favorite of mine. So when I got the chance to rent Castelvania 64, I jumped at it, and then immediately started jumping into canyons, creeks, and any number of endless pits.

Or sometimes you’d get a view like this:

So you’re walking towards the player, but three steps from here you might find yourself falling into a big pile of bullshit. Actually, that would be fine because you wouldn’t die and have to goddamn start over. You fall into a canyon.

The game was like playing Pitfall: Grand Canyon at Night Edition. You’d be walking around, then you would be falling. Just that fast. It’s like my nights. I’ll be sitting around, then I’ll be sitting around eating Flavor Blasted Goldfish, just like that. No transition, no warning.

This wasn’t an uncommon thing with the quick proliferation of 3D-ish games. Take this classic, for example:

You’re swinging Bowser by the tail, and you have to let go at just the right time so he flies into a bomb. Not too hard, except that half the time the camera pulls in tight like this and you have to guess where the bombs are.

There are occasions where fooling with the view is okay. If there’s darkness, smoke, or something that would affect one’s view, then it gets a pass. It’s still obnoxious, but it feels on purpose and you can hope that the environment is designed with the obstructed view in mind.

But what is bullshit is when you look at the character and think, If I were standing on that platform, I would be able to see where the fuck I was going. If I were walking in those woods, I definitely would have seen that gigantic canyon before I skipped along and then didn’t touch the ground. Nothing more embarrassing than having your last step off the lip of a canyon be a skipping step.

Making the view the main issue in a game is a little bit of Gotcha gameplaying, the type of game where there’s no amount of skill that can save you, only a repetition of play that gives you a Daredevil-esque sense of the digital world you’re occupying.

If you design a game that’s difficult because you can’t see shit, why not just send it to me with a goddamn blindfold? Or have blind payers test it out?

Figure it out, Nintendo of the late 90’s.