/vr/ - Retro Games

>>10716030

>>10035153
combat definitely isn't a main focus. it's extremely basic and more of a nuisance than anything

>>8960385
>'Gamey' things like this add to the experience
in other games they might, but Ueda's design approach is 'design by subtraction' wherein anything not directly related to the game's story at hand is removed or toned down drastically, which means cutting down on extraneous and often 'gamey' things; elements like the HUD only distract from the experience since they're unnecessary, they pull you out rather than in and remind you you're playing a game rather than experiencing the game fully in its purest form
Ico is a cinematic platformer at heart, it follows after Another World (of which Ueda is a massive fan) where animations are deliberate and realistic, and SotC is similar in that vein
Ueda originally wanted there to be no HUD in SotC but Sony stepped in and said that all games have a HUD now and that SotC wouldn't sell as a result of not having once, which is as ridiculous as it is untrue but there's not much to be done about it now, although it does tell us that Ueda still holds true to the ideal of wanting to do away with gamey things
as for you finding the focus on realistic integrity odd in a Ueda game, I'm not sure what's so strange about it, the games are about as grounded as they get (besides the obvious fantasy settings), you're not juggling enemies because it's physically impossible, you're not double-jumping, you can't fast-travel
even when you ride Agro you're not actually controlling the horse itself like in every other game with a horse, you're controlling Wander controlling Agro, which again shows a great attention to realism that could be seen as unnecessary, but it helps the game feel that more real and the relationship that much more alive
pulling arrows from thin air infinitely is one of those things where it's game design first, realism second, which makes perfect sense and I get that it might've been hard to design fights without that toolkit, but I just see it as a knock against a game that strives so hard to be realistic