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[Alec S.]

After a long hiatus:

Part 19: Familiar and Unfamiliar Space

[Tuba]

Nice text.

Since you talked about A Link to The Past, there are some sequels that use the fact that the player played the first game to create familiar and unfamiliar spaces. A Link Between Worlds does that a lot with some parts of the map being exactly like they were in A Link to The Past, some being completely different and some being very similar, but with some sort of twist to surprise the player.

[Alec S.]

Yeah, that's something I've always been interested in.  When I was a kid, I always wanted game sequels to contain bits of identical level design to previous games, and it felt weird that most didn't.  Link Between Worlds did a really good job of doing that, and playing with the expectations of people who had played LttP.  

And the subversion of that is interesting too, and is something I'd like to see more often:  Having an area that was familiar in the previous game, but in the sequel (which takes place decades or even centuries later, with you playing as a different character) it's now a dangerous, unfamiliar place.  Hyrule Castle in Wind Waker, for example (I remember being really disappointed that I couldn't explore underwater Hyrule in that game).

[Irock]

Dark Souls spoiler: In Dark Souls I got to the undead parish church place and it was the most unfamiliar and nerve wracking place I'd been in the game, and I was running from enemies when I found an elevator, and I took the elevator to escape the enemies, and it took me to firelink shrine, the most familiar and safest spot in the game. I really liked the contrast between those two places. It was a great feeling

Nice article