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They tried to stop doing that in FFXIII and people got mad about it

no, i might miss something

Back in the old days they had the decency to fill them with random encounters that happen every 5 feet

The nioh experience of going down a corridor, opening a chest, getting six drops and all of them are actively worthless (its peak)

Dungeon Man tried to avoid this.....

The quintessential ff16 video to me is that one streamer unlocking a bunch of sidequests, laughing, and going “imagine doing these”

Sometimes I wonder if I'm too harsh on FF16 when I rank it as maybe one of my least favorite FF experiences I've ever played (including spinoffs), but then I remember every moment like this and feel secure in my opinion that I'd rather replay basically any other game in the series through over it.

The “Trinket Ultimatum” bit from Tim Rogers’ FF7 Remake review bounces in my head _constantly_ now whenever I play a game like it. Octopath is incredibly guilty of this too, the paths aren’t worth it dawg!!

Too overleveled to be worth RPG random-battling it, enemies too training-dummy to be worth fighting for fun, character too OP to even bother wailing on them for the love of the game, sasuga Squenix.

Thank you Mr. Yoshida for the gil. I wasn't interested in doing anything else today, sir.

Then like, one or two of them (in the entire game) have something actually worthwhile, so I spent the entire fucking playthrough feeling like I needed to investigate them all.

And in octopath when you enter a new map and the level pops up and your way under it but you see a treasure that's sooooo close you could totally get it before the random encounter happens *mwah* that's good game

Particularly in the shift towards real time action combat over turn-based. Why need consumables when you can just outskill the generally too-easy combat?

the first thing gamers want to remove at all points is friction but friction is the only thing that makes most games work

all the damn time

I replayed the original No More Heroes recently and still can't believe how much I love that half the "dungeons" in that game are basically tunnels with five fights so you can get warmed up before the boss fight. I don't need an "open-world" or "exploration" in every game.

also that fucking moving platform maze in ffx with nothing but dead ends and NO loot. i hope whoever designed that died badly

*Sometimes* they've got a useful materia or something... but even then basically they become loot boxes with an infinitely low success rate And they *know* some of us can't resist going down all the branches :(

DQ7 Reimagined. They removed all resource management. I was losing my mind by the end. It was more a test of endurance to avoid the dead-ends.

souls gets away with it until elden ring. the open world completely destroys the tension key to exploring in souls games

oh yeah i mean usually in rpgs a) money is also tight so what you buy from the shops is valuable anyway and b) you will not find 4 Ingots you wiill find like. an actual armor piece better than what was in the last shop. it makes way more sense in its original context

its okay to just let the dead ends be part of the exploration process of solving the maze and finding the best route for your actual "beats the dungeon" attempt

you know i'm saving that magicked ash for later

Dragon quest ONE was doing this kind of stuff as a PRANK

Getting into the designer’s headspace to try and learn which path looks like the “correct” one to avoid it and go chase those 1% upgrades

fucking nooooo i like going down the deadend hallways that lead to like one potion

Guardians of the Galaxy 2021 made fun of that kind of level design lmao. RIP Eidos Montreal youtu.be/c-9erybREVA

In many games it also turns into - both paths are obvious, but you have to flip a tail to choose the 'alternate' path. And if you guess wrong, you get caught in the next cutscene, can't go back, and miss a pickup. And it's just like... why do we need to do this

Twenty years ago, those pockets had items that ranged from okay to actually worth it.

i dont get it. just make the straight line of combat arenas if thats what your game is. this isn't exploration, its just an annoying obligation that everyone finds tiring

Oooh, okay, that makes more sense - thank you.

Unless you go down the dead end that has a Chromatic enemy, that's actually worth it most of the time for getting weapons worth a damn