>>54199796>RegressingHistorically, games used to be more non-linear. Whether it was one of Pokemon's direct inspiration Dragon Quest, the first few Pokemon games themselves, or even something completely unrelated like the first Legend of Zelda, there's a lot of classic examples. However, developers decided that making specifically crafted more linear experiences was the more correct decision, although in some games exploration as optional content is still viable. Off the top of my head FF5, Pokemon BW, and OoT this structure fairly well for their genres, let alone something like Chrono Trigger which is a very good JRPG pretty much because it was linear and deliberately paced. However, modern games have regressed even further than classic non-linear titles and have very little limiting progress in any way. BotW is arguably one of the worse examples, even if it's fun mechanically there's not really anything challenging to use it on. RPGs are seriously negatively impacted by it, despite how popular Skyrim is the level scaling is a nightmare, and if you don't have level scaling you instead end up with something like SV. I think the ideal video game is one that presents the players with a solid number of options to solve a specific problem, and the worst period for video games was probably the mid-2010's since every game was overly linear while also not providing any mechanical fun. I don't like the current state of video games much, but at least I can fuck around which is better than not being able to do even that.
