Wherein I dissect old video games for no particular reason. This series is a blatant rip-off of Glass Knuckle’s “A Critical Look at Mega Man Stages” thread, which you should totally, totally read.
The premise of this series is to focus on how these games communicate to the player the rules of play through game design rather than overt instruction. If the list seems predominantly Nintendo-heavy, that’s because Nintendo used to be really good at it. If it seems predominantly retro in focus, that’s because hardly anyone bothers to design games this way anymore, leaning instead on mundane tutorials rather than effective stage construction and carefully considered game flow.
You can also buy an ever-growing number of these series as print books or PDFs:
Bionic Commando
Castlevania
- Part One: Simon Belmont
- Part Two: Stages 01-03
- Part Three: Stages 04-06
- Part Four: Stages 07-09
- Part Five: Stages 10-12
- Part Six: Stages 13-15
- Part Seven: Stages 16-18
- Part Eight: More on Castlevania
Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest
- Part One: Basic Design
- Part Two: Interesting Mechanics
- Part Three: Towns
- Part Four: Mansions
- Part Five: NPCs
- Part Six: The World
- Part Seven: The Enemies
- Part Eight: Castlevania
- Part One: Beginning
- Part Two: Block 1-01 to 1-03
- Part Three: Block 2-01 to 2-06
- Part Four: Block 3-00 to 3-04
- – SYPHA ROUTE –
- Part Five: Block 4-0A to 4-0E
- Part Six: Block 5-0A to 5-0C
- Part Seven: Block 6-0A to 6-0C
- Part Seven: Block 7-0A to 7-0D
- – ALUCARD ROUTE –
- Part Eight: Block 4-01 to 4-03
- Part Nine: Block 5-01 to 5-06
- Part Ten: Block 5-07
- Part Eleven: The Gang’s All Here
- Part Twelve: Block 6-01 to 6-02 [Castle Route]
- Part Thirteen: Block 6-01 to 6-05 [Ruins Route]
- Part Fourteen: Block 7-01 to 7-07
- – CASTLEVANIA –
- Part Fifteen: Block 8-01 to 8-03
- Part Sixteen: Block 9-01 to 9-04
- Part Seventeen: Block A-01 to A-03
- Part Eighteen: Trilogy afterthoughts
The Legend of Zelda
- Part I: The Overworld, Take One
- Part II: Eagle
- Part III: Moon
- Part IV: Manji/Snake
- Part V: ALL OF TREASURES
- Part VI: Lizard
- Part VII: Dragon
- Part VIII: Demon
- Part IX: The Overworld, Take Two
- Part X: Lion
- Part XI: Death Mountain
- Part XII: Overworld Enemies
- Part XIII: Underworld Enemies
- Part XIV: Second Quest
- Part I: Genre Shift
- Part II: Parapa
- Part III: Link’s (Dragon) Quest
- Part IV: Swamped
- Part V: Homecoming
- Part VI: Pixie Dust
- Part VII: Combat
- Part VIII: Pear-shaped
- Part IX: Gonna meikyuu sweat
- Part X: The seaward
- Part XI: One final nuisance
- Part XII: The Great Palace
- Part XIII: Into the Breach
- Part XIV: In Conclusion
- I. Welcome to Zebes
- II. Shafted
- III. Set up us the Bomb
- IV. Ugh, wrong way, slick
- V. Frozen assets
- VI. The six-billion dollar woman
- VII. Norfair’s secret
- VIII. The hard stuff
- IX. Eponymous
- X. Mother do you think she’s dangerous
- XI. Shafted again
- XII. Breaking badly
