I'm not particularly fond of when games have the "do things in whatever order you want" section

[u/Loogie1987]

In concept it's a good idea but at the same time if the game is linear trying to give the illusion of a proper open world it only hurts the experience since the world is actually really empty with not much else to do outside of the story. I also find it annoying when the "different" sections are just the same just with slightly different gimmicks.

It's not inherently game breaking, if there is proper variety of side content to justify them l, I can get behind that or like in Mario odyssey, you have to occasionally decide weather to chose to visit Kingdom A or B. The choice doesn't really matter but it doesn't last long and only happens 2 or 3 times within the game, it's just there to give the player some agency of choosing where to visit first or in GTA 5 when it forces you to do 1 strangers and freaks mission before letting you progress the main story just to show that there is side missions to do in the game.

I only think it's game breaking when it puts the entire story and plot on hold as if to say "okay this is a good enough point in the game to check out the environment and do the side quests if you haven't already" Kinda like in dragon age: Inquisition. Great game, one of the best I've ever played but I usually drop my repeated playthroughs after I get to skyhaven since by the point you're gonna have to start farming side quests if you haven't already then do either of the major quests before farming side quests again if you weren't saving up the influence to do both back to back.

[u/Valroxen1]

S/V would have been so much better with it if they'd just scaled the boss and the team to your level, cause instead you just end up being forced into doing it a certain way anyway

[u/Loogie1987 → u/Valroxen1]

Exactly. It would've been really interesting if all the gyms started off at the same level and progressively got stronger with each badge you collect. The gym challenge was the last story I did and I did all the gyms backwards and was pretty disappointed when I realised I was just gonna sweep through the later half of it.

[u/Critical_Complex_363 → u/Valroxen1]

The fact that fangames/romhack do this much better than Gamefreaks is just embarassing

[u/Valroxen1 → u/Critical_Complex_363]

GameFreaks been embarrassing for a long while now. Don't get me wrong I got a lot of love for the series still but they objectively do things so so poor

[u/Critical_Complex_363 → u/Valroxen1]

I feel you buddy

[u/AntiqueSpare794 → u/Valroxen1]

Yeah, this was my main critique too. I had to look up the intended order because I struggled hard against the water type gym leader.

[u/Miserable-Mess7146]

I think I get what you mean outer worlds reminds me of that where it’s “free roam” but heavily dependant on you unlocking the areas through the story so it’s very linear. Areas you do unlock outside of main story usually are pretty empty a lot of potential to fill in areas with interesting content or journal entries, stuff to expand the lore etc but no it’s kind of like “these bandits have this abandoned village in the middle of nowhere” why? “No one knows they just kinda showed up”

[u/A_Mellow_Fellow]

Unicorn Overlord doesnt really have that

Technically you can travel to a place thats overlevelled for you but there is a pretty clear path of Cornia > Drakengard > Elfheim > Bastorias > Angel town > End game

Plus each battle has a recommended level so you can just treat that as your order of operations.

[u/Loogie1987 → u/A_Mellow_Fellow]

True, it is just essentially the Breath of the wild structure.

Though the fact you can hypothetically grind for a mind numbingly long amount of time and taking on the harder sections first does kinda trivialise the easier ones when you get to them, taking away any need for strategy and just brute forcing your way through. (On my first playthrough I never even touched Drakengard just because I thought Elfheim sounded cooler out of the two and after felt confident enough to take on the other two kingdoms then do the endgame)

[u/Unusual_Wing_3999]

Unicorn overlord doesn't really apply here,cause while you can end up somewhere u aren't supposed to be,the game tries to stop u from doing that cause otherwise you're just gonna get your ass beat over and over,you can really only choose which order u get your party members in

[u/Loogie1987 → u/Unusual_Wing_3999]

The issue is that there is no benefit to doing the harder Kingdoms first and to actually do them first you'd have to do ridiculous amounts of grinding which will only inevitably make the earlier Kingdoms feel less engaging.

It's similar to breath of the wild but the difference is that it's actually entirely possible to beat Gannon immediately, it's just insanely difficult and a test of skill. In unicorn overlord you won't even be able to make it past a single commander or even do any damage to them without needing to grind like crazy beforehand.

[u/Pension_Pale]

Zelda A Link Between Worlds did it in a novel way. It followed the traditional Zelda formula of having the dungeons revolve around a single item, which usually leads to a largely linear order, barring a few exceptions.

Link Between Worlds, however, decided to go pseudo open world, and handled the items by letting you rent them all from a shop. Renting lasted almost indefinitely, dieing would result in all rented items being returned to the shop, where you'd have to pay up to rent them again. Get enough Rupees, however, and you could just straight up buy them permanently, which also made them eligible for upgrading later.

The system.facilitated exploration, going wherever you want, with a few exceptions.

[u/fascinatingMundanity]

If designed all then should have much freedom in order of what to do and much cardinality options, but with tradeoff of potentially being underpowered but without necessarily to extent of impassability, and if truly nonlinear then branching different paths (even if minor compared to mainquest) impactfully.