Trial and Error Based Gameplay

[Sketchasaurus]

Consider for a moment what particular genre this person is speaking about for a moment; namely being "Adventure Games" within the context of The Monkey Island and similar franchises. Despite his praising of being "clever" or "careful and very observant" such games are laden with trial and error, not in the sense of death then try again, but a series of "try object x on area y, recieve positive/negative feedback, try object z on area y, ad infinitum" The genre of this game is in-effect, on life support and is only hanging on due to those paying homage to their nostalgia.

This article mainly amounts to one man's pretentious rambling about the design of games-now-gathering-dust; and it's idiotic to assume that every aspect of game design within a genre will translate wholly to any of the other genres. The article is being used more as a "confirmation bias" to which "general consensus" cannot be attributed, largely because the demographic, and topic, of the article in question is "Adventure games"
To assume that a singular source is sufficient to arrive to a general consensus is purely close-minded and idiotic.

When I used the word "random" it was in reference more to throwing all caution to the wind and having no conditions or reasoning behind the attack/movement choice. If a boss has 3 different attacks, they behave when different conditions are met, sometimes relative position to the player is often the main condition for attack/movement choices, and it has the Illusion of randomness. random attack patterns would be just that, entirely random, it could cause the boss to accidentally continue moving towards the player or even not attack, that is what I mean by random attack patterns. And actually, randomly moving around the room with different attacks, regardless of where the player is or what they're doing is just poor player/boss interaction.

But, you can manipulate these conditions and fight bosses in the same fashion after figuring out (via trial and error) what player moves prompt what kind of attack is acted out on behalf of the boss. The "random" actions only seem so, but that's due to the fact that every run through is never the exact same, not even memorization-based playthroughs.

What you're referring to is telegraphing attacks, which is a facet of pattern recognition, but also is part of a pre-defined pattern in itself. And the player quickly learns what these symbols mean through interacting with them, sometimes at the cost of HP or lives or whatever arbitrary system is used.

Consider the Red Koopas in Super Mario Bros: They telegraph their movement patterns through their palette; the game introduces the Green Koopas, which walk off of ledges, but you soon learn by observation that the red ones don't walk off of ledges, but the game doesn't outright state anywhere "Red Koopas won't walk off ledges" Instead, you have to observe and gather information. Part of this "trial" is observing the new information presented, an "error" would be assuming it to walk off the ledge and ignoring it (while standing on the same ledge), only to have it turn back around and inflict damage.

Or, take the Buzzy beetles for instance:
Imagine you've never read the manual or heard anything about them before encountering them in the game.
You have the Fire Flower, so far it's been the best weapon in your arsenal while dealing with baddies.
You see a new enemy: dark, smooth-shelled creatures scuttling along
you quickly, almost without thinking, try shooting a fireball at it while you're still sprinting along
But before you can stop, the fireball has no effect, and you accidentally run into it, losing the fire power.
You then try jumping on it, to find that it behaves like the Koopas do when you jump on it

you learn: Buzzy Beetles are fire-proof, but I can still jump on them.

You may have lost your fire flower, but you've still got a chance to try something else without starting the whole level over.

The game doesn't yell at you for messing up, it doesn't outright punish you for trying something that doesn't work, heck, maybe you jump on it in time to still have your fire flower, doesn't matter; people learn by trying things out, not by having things told to them (heck, you might learn from this entire block of text until you try any of this stuff out, and that's totally fine)

Memorization isn't inherently bad, it can be done well and it can be done poorly; the same is true of trial and error. As a simple reality of learning, the principle of trial and error is neither good nor bad.