Author Topic: [Game news] Metroid Prime 4 possibly in dev  (Read 2969 times)

The 2d metroids are really good

I played wind waker once and I hated everything about it except the dungeons. Even in wind waker they do some massive backtracking bullstuff endgame and at that point player's should just burn their game disk
i said botw, not wind waker :/

my point is that your stigma you attach to backtracking is from all the mistakes bad games have done with backtracking, not the core concept of backtracking. you keep treating bad design as an indication the whole concept is bad when there are clearly many examples of games who have done it right or at least not nearly as terribly as you make it out to be.

I've never played a single game that did backtracking right. In open world games it's different because you can easily backtrack on a different route because you're not bound by long hallways and linear map design

I've never played a single game that did backtracking right. In open world games it's different because you can easily backtrack on a different route because you're not bound by long hallways and linear map design
its still backtracking though? if not, what is it? and again you're conflating stuffty linear map design with the core concept being flawed. what about luigi's mansion?

>New Metroid Game is announced
>Phant0s: eh...
>*war noises*

its still backtracking though? if not, what is it? and again you're conflating stuffty design with the core concept being flawed.
its not backtracking. You're simply going back to a previous location. Backtracking is going back the exact same route as before with no variations?

What is this talk about stuffty signs and gore lawn love? Speak English conan.

Also Luigi's Mansion is a goddamn nightmare. Same with resident evil. Anything that involves navigating a Mansion deserves none of my love
« Last Edit: February 09, 2018, 03:39:54 PM by PhantOS »

christ im trying to have an actual discussion with you and you meme me instead. please dont - theres a time and place for memes and sarcasm and its not in the middle of a debate.

by that definition, sure, backtracking has no positive outcomes other than spacing out the time to do things. if you define it to be bad then its going to be bad

but the fact you unconsciously used the word "backtrack" to describe going back to prior areas kinda indicates that you do recognize its not just that. my definition of backtrack is revisiting old areas, not necessarily the exact same. your definition is specifically "same path, same environment, no new stuff", which doesnt lend itself to much discussion or debate. i intentionally chose a slightly more open definition and mentioned it multiple times in my last few posts but it seems like you dont want to discuss that definition of it.

in that case then yeah, i dont see excessive backtracking as useful. sometimes you need time gap to give players a sense of permanency and location but too much is just slog.

No I actually have no idea what you mean by stuffty design and core concept. I'm pretty stupid irl

No I actually have no idea what you mean by stuffty design and core concept. I'm pretty stupid irl
backtracking (in my eyes) is purely the act of going back through already-visited areas to revisit an old area. for example, in RAGE when you revisit the starting gas station a few times to talk to some old npc's for new quests.

good backtracking imo gives people a good reason to go back (something more than flip a switch, eg explore a new section that opened up back there and obtain a needed item), doesnt require a lot of time to get to, and introduces new elements to the environment - maybe just purely visual - just to show that things have changed since you last were there.

some other ways to make backtracking not boring is to make the process of backtracking interesting. using RAGE as an example again, driving your car back allowed you to practice doing some stunts while on the way, or some enemy cars would show up and you'd have to fight them. or you could stop by halfway to the backtrack location and do a quest you put off earlier.

stuffty design would lack some or all of these ways to make the process boring. doubly worse if it takes a long time.

Yeah obviously that's the good type of backtracking, but it's so rare

agreed. but since im sure all game devs recognize that that makes backtracking good (as a non-professional like me can figure this stuff out), i hold out hope for them to do it right in this time and age.

if it doesn't happen, id bet its cause either funding or time issues that stopped them from being able to make it as good as it could be. we'll see what happens though. usually what i feel happens most is that shortcuts open as the game progresses so that backtracking doesnt take more than like, 5 minutes. not a solution, but prevents the requirement from being a big problem

the thing that i love about metroid games is being able to get new weapons and upgrades to be able to explore more of the world. it's a satisfying system of progression that always keeps things interesting, and makes backtracking in metroid games really isn't all that bad. while you're going from point a to b, there's a whole lot of things to do in between with your newfound abilities and weapons that makes things interesting. you find secret rooms, or rooms you couldn't go through before, and can now access. in the process, you find secret weapons or extra power-ups which you can use to further explore. it's wonderful lol i love that stuff

to me, the metroid series has always been all about the exploration. you want to explore in order to obtain more weapons, more powerups, so you can explore more of the world. thats always been the charm of metroid

There have been some lackluster titles (Prime 2)
take that back