I think many action-oriented games are just as guilty of this. Instead of leveling up your character, the skilling-up mechanism is memorizing the hazards in the

I think many action-oriented games are just as guilty of this. Instead of leveling up your character, the skilling-up mechanism is memorizing the hazards in the levels; with enough patience the player memorizes the pattern and repeats back the appropriate response and wins. While this may teach a "pocket-simon" memory skill, it still rewards patience over strategy or reflexes or whatever else might be developed.