Poll: Recycled Levels - Thoughts

[Vern5]

The amount of fun one gets from a recycled level lies in how the developer recycled.

The sloppiest form of recycling would be sending you back to a dungeon (or other equivalent area) that you have already explored just to find some random macguffin for no good reason. That is just blatant time-wasting.

On the other hand, if the developer recycled a level by changing even a few key parts of its construction, then you could (theoretically) be granted a new and fun experience. I think the best example of this would be to send you through a city to chase down some random something or other then send you back the way you came through that city only this time the city has been recently nuked into rubble. It's all about creative use of resources.

 

[LadyCenobia]

I don't mind having to go back if I have a new power or something like that to get to new places I couldn't before. But like in SSB:Brawl I HATED that w/e it was called. Where they were like "oh those levels you just did....do them again for no reason" -_-

 

[Aphantas]

I find that it really depends on how the area is recycled.

Skyward Sword got recycling right in my opinion as each time you revisited an area it was changed in a drastic way, such as plunging the entire area underwater.

Valley Without Wind however just endlessly cycled minor variations of the same 3-4 caves over and over again and it quickly became tedious. The world was massive but it was pretty much uniform throughout.
I find this is a common problem amongst games that use random generators to produce content.

I prefer games that have a small amount of areas that are highly refined, dynamic and filled with more crazy/awesome per polygon than a broader more sparse world.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I could go both ways on this, but I would say that I generally do not like recycled levels. If they are used well, such as when you get to take an altered path through the same basic area or when they are creatively used and you get to experience the same content through a different characters perspective, it's okay. In most cases, however, it's just reusing the same level to save work and pad out the game, which is not okay.

 

[Terramax]

Eh, late in the day, but I edited the question