Our story begins in the dark and murky caverns of the Northern Kremisphere when, late last year, I decided to replay (and finally complete) the timeless Donkey Kong Country trilogy on the Nintendo Switch’s Super NES Online service. It’s actually a vintage Rare platformer that initiated my revelatory disdain for the mechanic of which I speak. But what were the four games in question and why do I so despise this ploy that is found in everything from the long-forgotten Playstation action-RPG, Brave Fencer Musashi, to the Nintendo 64 classic platformer, Banjo-Kazooie?
I could have easily called this article–and most assuredly considered doing so–‘”Simon Says” Tropes Are Lame,’ ‘These Stunts Suck,’ or ‘Memorization Challenges Annoy The #%$& Out of Me!’ but we aim to keep it family-friendly around here and I’m trying not to be overly dramatic about it all. As you can no doubt already tell, I wasn’t amused. I encountered this same lazy contrivance in no fewer than four games within the span of about five months recently. Pokémon Stadium’s Clefairy can kick rocks for all I care! …or, uh… Moon Stones… You watch or listen to a sequence of events on-screen, whether these involve a bunch of stupid dancing Gorons, using Yuna’s pistol to ‘calibrate towers’ (sounds like so much fun!), or the directives of a hammer-wielding, physically abusive, monster-masquerading-as-some-kind-of-cute-and-puffy-educator, and then follow suit by pressing the buttons on your controller that match the arrangement you’ve just witnessed, sometimes with the additional stress of a countdown timer.
You know what I’m talking about, yes? Those pesky unimaginative obstacles that developers too readily incorporate into their games at the behest of providing some unique hurdle to overcome, fraught with the one minor flaw that it’s a mechanic which is neither unique nor difficult so much as it is a major headache. Specifically, my ire is aimed at those little obnoxious tests of memorization that video games often throw at us in the form of ‘Simon Says’ challenges. In this confessional, while the stakes are less cataclysmic, they’re no less petty: my present grumblings are against a certain trope that once more extends far beyond the boundaries of our favorite genre. Last time around, I discussed my complete and utter apathy at the prospect of yet again saving the planet from existential ruin. In any case, I’m back with another RPG confession, so welcome! Good morning! Or… good afternoon, evening, or night! Wherever you happen to be on the globe as you’re reading this, hopefully it’s somewhere that isn’t too warm, this summer already having borne some devastating heat waves throughout the world.
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