Game Criticism Time Machine is a series of posts on this blog about, or linking to, videogame criticism pieces from more than a year ago. 

Everything about the Moblin’s movement also speaks to their abilities… or rather, their lack thereof. When you first encounter them patrolling the corridors of the Forsaken Fortress, they lead with their noses, sniffing the air, peering closely at the dark corners of their patrol. Their top heavy bodies swing massively as they walk, speaking of their power and lack of control. Their lower lips droop and bounce as they move, giving them a slack-jawed-yokel feel and giving them an unrefined and unintelligent apperence. Should they sense/hear the movement of a barrel (which Link is hiding under), they react with a large squeal and peer anxiously around, looking for the source of the disturbance. If you remain still, they quickly lose interest and go about their way. Later, when you find yourself in combat with them, they wind up for their powerful blows, there are no sudden and unexpected strikes, only well projected sweeps of their spears.

– Corvus Elrod, “Character Profile: Moblins“

I love analysis pieces that take the visual rhetoric of a character’s design and attempt to match it up with how that character operates in a game world. This is a short but really great example of that kind of work.