Poll: Recycled Levels - Thoughts

[Terramax]

Hi there,

I've read a review for Shinobido 2 which has got me thinking. The guy pretty much slates the game for reusing the same 12 or so levels.

And yet, I generally PREFER this in videogames. Perhaps it's because I'm a fan of arcade games, but if there's something I dislike, it's when you come across a visually stunning location, with so much potential for various activities, events, etc, and then you only stay there for 30 seconds and never see all that effort the devs spent weeks on ever again (Final Fantasy XIII comes to mind here).

On the contrary, I prefer racers, actions games, etc, with reused levels, but those levels being unique, great to look at, and creative so that it's always fun coming back to them. The original Halo did this right.

But what do you guys 'generally' feel about recycled locations?

 

[Sixcess]

Sometimes it's justified or at least a necessary evil - no MMO could live without it, though the good ones do try to disguise it. WoW is pretty bad for it, with minor locations starting to repeat pretty early on.

On the other hand I hate it in single player games when it's pure padding - almost ALL of Mass Effect's side missions being a particularly blatant example - or when it really does feel like laziness - Halo: CE comes to mind. Oblivion too.

So yeah, in single player games I'd rather have a shorter game in interesting environments than 50 hours in the same 3 caves/complexes.

 

[veloper]

The poll options are reversed.

Also too limited. I don't mind recycled tilesets, but I do mind copy/pasted layouts.

 

[Lieju]

I'm a big fan of having different versions of the same location, be it different time-periods, or before and after a huge event, or alternative worlds.

Also having another character use the same location in a way that radically changes the way you play, and what you can do.

But obviously, if it's over-used and more of the same, with no real difference, it's just padding and lazy.
Yeah, this location is pretty, but I'd rather have two pretty locations instead of one.

 

[GiantRaven]

I feel that if you're going to recycle the same area, make sure there is an in-game reason for doing so. Dragon Age 2 irritated me in that regard since they reused the same cave/sewer/whatever in different places and expected us to treat them as different locations. That I can't forgive. Only having a single city area as a central location for a game, however, I can get behind because there was an explanation for it.

 

[baddude1337]

I don't mind it in racing games. Reversed and mirror tracks are a great way to double up on the amount of tracks.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Depends on the game. If map knowledge is a thing that matters, sure. If the point of the map is mostly scenery, it can get annoying. If the game has a heavy exploration component, I'd prefer either a huge amount of map content (Morrowind, some Zelda games) or procedural generation (Alpha Centauri, Brogue.)

 

[Glover09]

I wouldn't call simply going back to any in game location recycling, and that by itself I have no problem with. As a racer, I do enjoy going back to different tracks again and again, but the difference is that in a good racer there is always something different each event, so recycling isn't really an issue.

More to the point though, Kingdom Hearts 2 did this, sending you back and forth across town, using the same locations to bore you out of playing, and from my understanding Silent Hill 4 and Devil May Cry 4 both took you through a set of rooms and locations just to have you do an about face and go back where you came from.

In short, reuse is fine, but there needs to be a really good reason to recycle.

 

[Dryk]

If there's a good reason to go back to the same place, and the gameplay is different enough the second time then yeah, I don't mind it.

 

[Starik20X6]

I depends how they do it I suppose. If it's revisiting an old area that's changed since you were last there, or as a throwback to an earlier level or earlier game, that's pretty neat. If it's just 'slog through this same area over and over for hours' then I'll get sick of it.

I suppose it's worth noting that every level of the original Pac Man is identical...

 

[Smooth Operator]

You do know that the question and answers don't match up?

OT unless it's a persistent world then it is supreme lazyness, it was cool in the olden days because you were just very limited on hardware resources but now it's just an excuse for not doing your job.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

I like re-visting areas if there is actually a reason for it, but if it's like DA2 and they just didn't make any more levels, I hate it. I enjoyed Halo:CE's revisiting for example. The only level of that game I hate is the library.

 

[Yopaz]

It all depends on how. Is it more like revisiting a place where you did something earlier in the game or just the same place with different paint over an over?

Tales of Symphonia and Tales of The Abyss often made me revisit places I had already been. However they don't portray it as a new location. You have knowledge that there's something on those locations that you need to do that you didn't know of or need the first time you were there.

Then there's Just Cause 2 and the 3 different missions for every group that are exact copies of each other. Even the cut-scenes that introduce the missions are more or less the same. As much fun as that game is, the recycling gets boring when you're over your first giggles over the conversations playing out the same.

 

[Zhukov]

Depends on how it's done.

I have no problem with revisiting locations and I like it when a game brings me to an old location that has changed since I was last there.

However, I'm not impressed when they copy-paste a level and try to present it as a new location as in Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 1.

 

[Sion_Barzahd]

Recycled levels are usually a sign of lazy level designers. However games with lots of replayability tend to need levels that are generated rather than designed to give them a little of life.

 

[Rack]

For me it kills replay value. On the other hand something that takes advantage of this to offer more replayability, such as Etna mode in Disgaea PSP is great.