From: foolmor0n | #055
Imagine if DX:HR had just one wall you could punch through, or just vents in one mission of the game. Or if Okami only had one tree to bloom, one wall to bomb open, etc.
I think maybe part of this is due to Zelda getting too caught up in the "each dungeon has an item which you need to finish this dungeon" formula. Maybe it would be better-served if it went to a more back-to-basics approach. Focus on just a few items for puzzle-solving, maybe giving them multiple uses. Some dungeons you can just get an item that's useful in combat but not necessary for interacting with a special kind of block that only shows up five times in the entire game, like how in Zelda 1 in some dungeons you just got the bow or the magic rod. Deus Ex has its "four pillars" of gameplay, and that works because there's only four of them so they can give each the attention they need to make it feel like it's always useful. There are terminals to hack, walls to punch, and vents to explore everywhere, but that's because there aren't six or eight other things they have to cram into the game world.
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Black Turtle spilled my diet soda!