Backtracking in Video Games - 'Outsmarting the Game' | Metroidvanias & Metroid Prime Remastered
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- Опубликовано: 6 фев 2025
- Backtracking in video games is quite difficult to get right. After recently playing Metroid Prime Remastered on Nintendo Switch, I have some thoughts on the elements of backtracking and how this ties into the larger gaming scene, specifically the metroidvania or search action genre.
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#metroidprime #metroidprimeremastered #metroidvania #metroiddread #hollowknight
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The game footage I captured of Metroid Prime is all from the first area of the game to avoid spoiling later areas for anyone that is yet to play it. Thank you for checking out my video ❤
I assure you that Metroid Prime backtracking becomes better on succesive playthroughs. I think that no one beats Prime backtracking because rhe skill cap is huge and brings a log of satysfaction when you are able to flawlessly get 100% of the items in half time or less than average player. You have to use your memory skills, orientation skills, pathfinding skills and have a layout of the entire map in your head to truly grasp the potential of this game's design. You can even reach a point where you don't even have to look at the map and that's intentional. I feel like the backtracking is actually the strongest part of metroid prime
@@WaveOfDestiny for real the back track feels inexistant when you know the way. There only back track when you head off in the wrong directions and/or just dont know what to look out for.
The way elevators link up is the biggest flaw in Prime's world design. The connections can feel pretty random. Lines on the map showing the links would've helped a lot. Also the fact that a lack of links in some places worsens the backtracking: People often complain about only being able to reach Phendrana via Magmoor.
I feel Prime 2 does this a lot better. It has a hub in the center with the three main areas circling it. Each main area has an elevator to the hub at the front and elevators to the other main areas at either side. This means each area connects to all others, and in a fairly intuitive way.
As many pointed out, a fast travel between save stations would have been a welcome addition. Every modern Metroidvania has some form of fast travel and I was surprised they didn't add it in the remaster. Most likely in Prime 4.
That’s what I disliked about this game the backtracking was bad that I actually forgot where to go
One of the reasons why rhe elevators work better in super is because you can see the map as a whole and know exactly where they lead you and how to get there. Where as in prime, each area maps are separated so it's hard to know for sure where the elevator leads to in the other area, especially when there are multiple elevators close by and all you have is cardinal directions.
So you and up constantly swaping fron one map to an other and spining the map around constantly figure out how to get from A to B.
fun fact, backtracking in the past was commonly used due to limitations at the time. however, backtracking today isn't all that great cause its considered lazy if not done properly.
It's funny because Prime 2 fixed that issue and only recently has it gotten the respect it deserves.
A few people have told me this now, so I’m really excited to give prime 2 a go
@@PastelPlanetoid it is very oppression at first however it is intentional once you achieve a certain power up that certain worry vanishes and it empowers you it's very liberating Prime 2 is a better design game and its entirety hopefully you'll enjoy it as well good luck also primehack exist just saying... also they're still in game fetch Quest I don't know why games of that era always had them
Fun fact Metroid Dread is an insanely open and non linear way if you sequence break. The developers intentionally included ways to complete break it. Even including hidden cutscenes for killing bosses with items you aren’t supposed to posses
Oh for sure, the first playthrough is very intentional and meticulously crafted but there’s so many different ways to progress on subsequent playthroughs if that’s what you’re into. Dread is phenomenal
I think a major thing that would help with the elevator issue in Prime would be if you could press a button on the map screen to follow an elevator to its destination.
I played metroid prime a few years ago on a GameCube. Very good game. It took me about 13 hours to play but it felt longer. It felt like a real journey and took me a while to figure out my way around the map and I did all of it without a guide. I was super happy when the game got remastered and I was able to go through the game even faster and get more secrets along my natural way. I think like 3 times I went out of my way to get something.
In Prime 2 they do a much better job at this. The world map flows better. But the end side quest is definitely annoying. If you thought the artifacts were bad the dark world stuff is even worst
Small hint not many people may notice on their first time, but i caught on it helped ALOT, the hints at the chozo ruins that tell you where they are will have part of the room name highlighted, so you know what room in what area you should be looking (ex. one of them says to look in phendrana, and that its at the edge, with the word "edge" highlighted, so that means you just need to search a single room instead an extensive part of the map). Really helps not making it feel like your trying to find a needle in a haystack imo lol, and it made it at worst tolerable to me lol
Metroid does a good job of using backtracking to provide the "power fantasy" after getting a new upgrade, whether it's melting enemies with your new power up that were giving you trouble 10 minutes prior or approaching a room from a different direction with new traversal options I always find the forced backtracking parts refreshing, it's usually designed in a way that never takes long and let's you play around with your new toy before getting difficult again. Except going back through the dark rooms when you get the thermal visor, screw attack that part
An excellent video!! I would have liked some more example cuts of metroidvanias / backtracking in the first half, but that's a non-issue, this was just great.
Great work, subscribed, can't wait to see what's next!
Thank you so so much, this is very kind! I did think this myself too, I think the second half is a little more engaging, I’ll keep this in mind for future videos :)
Honestly most of my gripes with Prime and now the Remastered version's backtracking is the lack of a true "hub" area. And honestly most of my issues with the backtracking would've been fixed had there just been an elevator from Chozo Ruins to Phendrana Drifts. The fact there isn't but instead two elevators in the Ruins right next to each other that just take you to the opposite sides of Talon is silly.
It's not that bad when you can not have to fight all the enemies. Also, a metroid prime trilogy is a gem if you can stick with the wimote. Echoes deserve higher praise imo.
Hell, the first two games had tank controls that never felt like that.
@doctorwhouse3881 true I played mp1 on the gc back in the day and loved it. 😍
100% about Echoes deserving higher praise. That game was incredible and had some amazing atmosphere.
I think they could fix backtracking in Metroid Prime games. Is by being able fast travel from any save point that you have used.🤔🙂🎮
Metroid Prime is my favorite console game of all time. The end game collect-athon is well complained about, but I've never minded it as the first time I played the game, I enjoyed running around to old rooms that gave me trouble and effortlessly navigating them with all the end game gear. I also did my first playthrough as a 100% run, so I needed to go to those same areas anyway to get all the powerups. On further play throughs, you already know where to go so you're unlikely to need to backtrack much.
About Dread, its a mechanically great game but I hate how the game is constantly cutting off old areas that I might want to explore again for new powerups. I'd much rather have Prime's more open setup and get lost every now and then feel like my hand is being held.
Interesting to hear, I love that different types of exploration and backtracking appeal to different people, personally I loved Prime as I said in the video but if I hadn’t collected any of the collectibles at the end-game, I think it would have been a complaint to collect all 12, especially for more impatient players. Thanks so much for your insight!!
A tip to anybody playing prime for the first time is don't play with the hint system on. Most of the artifacts and the place you learn about them are accessible really early on but the hint system just leads you right past them until the very end of the game. If you're looking around for where to go on your own, you're MUCH more likely to find that stuff naturally along the way.
My first time playing Metroid Prime remastered and finally beaten the game, yeah it's a fantastic game. Absolute joy to play. Dread is amazing & is currently my favorite Metroid game to play with Fusion in second and prime in third. 👍
Great to hear! Dread is my favourite in the series too, I loved it so much! Hoping we get another new 2D Metroid eventually haha
Shit taste
Really sorry for the long essay coming up :P
I've actually always found Prime's backtracking not really the best in the genre, or in the Metroid franchise itself. As you said, it tried to copy Super's world design but couldn't execute it to perfection. This may not be as bothersome on a first playthrough, but I'm someone who likes to revisit games every few months or so, and the way Prime's backtracking is designed, there's not really a good way to get around it. Sure there are some elevators that cut out some parts of the backtracking but it doesn't give you proper shortcuts. And sometimes they're rather misleading than actually helping you out. The biggest offender of that is the Spider Ball -> Ice Beam -> Gravity Suit backtrack. After beating Thardus and getting the Spider Ball, you're hinted to go to Chozo Ruins and get the Ice Beam. But after getting the Ice Beam, there are two elevators nearby, both of which lead to different parts of the Tallon Overworld. One of them is useless because the progression is blocked until you open up a grate from the other side which is possible much later, and the other one leads you to the entry of Crashed Frigate. You'd assume the elevator taking you there means it's time to explore the Frigate, but turns out you actually have to cross the entire map back and go to the end of Phendrana Drifts and collect the Gravity Suit instead, which is really unintuitive and has never made sense to me.
This is something the sequel, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, does much better. I'm not going to spoil too much assuming you haven't played it, but the way progression is designed is that you'll be left to wander in one area, and there are only 2 instances in the game where you'll have to leave the area for getting a different item and then come back. But they're designed very smartly. The first item that you need to backtrack for is located only 3 rooms away from the entrance of the area you're in, so it takes 5 minutes to complete it and then return to what you were doing. The second one is long, asking you to cross the map and return to a previous area to get an upgrade, but when you do get the upgrade, you can use it to unlock an elevator which leads you right back to where you were before backtracking. This might seem that the game is very linear that it doesn't ask you to backtrack enough, but the way you progress in one single area does not feel linear because of a certain mechanic of the game which I won't get into detail.
And yeah, I do agree about Metroid Dread being very smartly designed. On a first playthrough you won't really notice how much the game is railroading you since you'll feel very smart about how you're progressing, but if you are going to play it again, you can try developer intended sequence breaks which massively open up the world.
Hollow Knight is essentially the Metroidvania genre at its perfection along with Super Metroid. Both of these games have very carefully designed progression that strike a perfect balance of freedom while also pushing the player forward.
Apologies for the incredibly long comment lol. This is not a rant on any game, I love all the games I mentioned and are some of my favorite games to play, it's just some aspects are better done in one than the other. Really enjoyed your video, your content seems like it'd be very interesting to watch, subbed!
A very interesting insight, I totally agree with you that each game’s take on backtracking isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but each game will appeal to different people - some people enjoyed Metroid Prime’s style a lot more than Dread, for example. I think this just shows the diversity of the metroidvania genre and how such a similar concept can be executed so differently and appeal to different types of players!
As for Metroid Prime, I did exactly what you described - I got the ice beam, remembered am ice door I couldn’t access, went to the crashed frigate and explored that underwater area (very slowly without the gravity suit) and then hit a stop because I didn’t have the suit yet, and had to go back all the way across the map for the gravity suit. Probably around a 30-60 minute detour in total, and it really hindered the pacing of the game. As a fan of the genre though, there rest of the game didn’t bother me at all, I can just see how the backtracking might be off putting for many players, especially if they’re not used to this genre.
Prime 2 sounds very different to 1 from what you’ve said, I’m excited to try it now! Hopefully there will be another beautiful remaster but if not, I’ll give the Wii version another go at some point.
Thanks for your insight, very interesting read!
You see, i actually feel the opposite, i think Prime 1 backtracking is the best in the genre and Prime 2 did it bad:
Prime 1 entire design was made around you backtracking to 100% the game while wasting as little time as possible. It forces you to backtrack, and backtracking is treated like a skill just like combat. The skill cap is huge, there is a drammatic difference between the player that aimessly and randomly chooses an area to backtrack whenever or goes straight to progression, and the experienced player who knows when to wait, for another power or for when you have to be near there anyway, where it's better to go, what area can he complete without wasting time, or how much can he grab before feeling bored... It may seem like it just limits your freedom but that's exactly what they want, they purposely put you in a situation where you have to develop memory skills, orientation skills, pathfinding skills, and the punishement for not doing it is boredom, just like dying to a fight and trying again. By forcing you to traverse the world in a smart way, they make you feel satisfaction when you are able to do it flawlessly. Each time you grab an item and you know you did it more efficiently than in your previous playthrough or than if you just went for it as soon as you could, you feel good, much better than just teleporting and traversing the map in 5 minutes like in dread (which is still amazing). The reward for the skilled player is higher because the punishement for the inexperienced one is bigger.
When you get spider ball, don't just rush to ice beam and then run back using the same exact route backwards twice, you instead can take the opportunity to detour a bit and either when going to ice beam or going back for gravity, backtrack another area in the meantime so it's not just boring point A to point B traversal. Pass to phendrana shorelines this time instead of going to deep magmoor again. Use your new position in tallon overworld frigate crash site to get early chozo items if you didn't before ice beam, or use the mid magmoor elevator. Instead of stepping on your fresh footsteps, you can make an 8 shape and not get bored as much while getting closer to 100% completion potentially faster than if you did progression and backtracking separately. This is just an example and there are much better sections in the game. For example instead of going straight to x-ray after mines, and back to frigate crash, this time you can instead grab plasma and 100% phendrana and still exit close to wherever you want, like chozo, and get to x ray from there. It's not about fighting the backtracking, it's about surfing on it's waves, accepting it and using it to go fast and feel good.
Prime 2 is not as rewarding because it
Spoilers
just locks agon wastes until late game, doesn't add anything new to do between having to go to torvus 100 times, making it really boring, and the portal animations being so slow and portals being required so much kill the pacing, not to mention the combat is more of a waste of time rather than being a little fun thing to do in the meantime, and also locks a lot of sky temple keys with light suit instead of just the single one in prime 1 with phazon suit that just sits 5 minutes from where you get it (still the worst artifact to get)
@@WaveOfDestiny To your reply all I'm gonna say is not everyone has to go collect all items. Lot of people just want to finish the game casually without bothering to collect most items. For someone who wants to collect more and more expansions they will like Prime's backtracking. But someone who just wants to play the game end to finish without bothering for too many items is gonna hate Prime's backtracking. And there is no wrong way of playing a game, anyone can play a game how they want.
@@ExtremeAce but Prime was designed around 100% completion. The artifact hunt is there to tell you this. Just like dread was clearly designed around speedrunning. If you want to experience the game at its best, you should follow the hints. If you don't do it and you don't enjoy it, it's more on you than on the game itself. Sure you can play doom using only a pistol but that doesn't mean you can have the same fun as using the whole arsenal. If you feel like playing a fighting game without blocking, you can, but you know you'll have an horrible time. You can play dark souls without dodge rolling, but the game was designed around it. Anyone can play the game how they want but there are wrong ways to play a game. It's not wrong to skip 100% in prime, but just not going for items ever is definetly not the best experience you can have in this game.
@@WaveOfDestiny You are using the wrong analogies here. You're comparing progression style to other game mechanics. 100% is an option, not a game mechanic. And a game should not be designed around a certain type of progression. Super Metroid is universal, you can speedrun it, 100% it, play it casually, etc. Dread is also not just around speedrunning, it also is designed for playing very casually of you want to. Designing a game around one category of completion just makes it less accessible for people who don't want to play it like that. That's like saying Link to the Past is designed around 100% so that's the only good way to experience it. Progression style is an option, not a game mechanic. Just because you play it 100%, doesn't mean everyone should. A player should not be restricted by how they want to complete a game.
I think the biggest problem for me is just the disconnected map. I think the main reason I struggle with the map in Dread and Prime is because of the disconnect between areas that are linked by elevators. In hollow knight I can look at the map all at once and plan a route between areas. But I found myself wanting to get somewhere in dread or prime and having to zoom in to an area, find an elevator on the map, see where it goes, zoom out of that area, remember where the elevator was pointing, zoom into that area, find the matching elevator... Like you said, it adds up after a while
Yeahh I totally agree with you, I found this way less of an issue in Dread (maybe because the 2D map is easier to comprehend) but I completely get your point, I did this in Prime a lot
That's why I liked Super and Zero Mission more. They usually had central columns and more connectivity and you could plan your route. Prime suffers from one way routes and not enough elevators that are discovered. Takes too long, breaks the pace. I stand by my opinion, there are ways to have a player backtrack without making it boring.
Or perhaps the game is asking the player to actually pin point where each elevator takes them? If you backtrack enough times, you should definitely know where each elevator's destination is. I think navigating Prime is far more rewarding than in Hollow Knight because you actually have to memorize the layout. It really tests your navigation skills more than HK, that's for sure. There is way more convenience in HK as it is a 2d side scroller after all
@@samy29987 Remembering bad game design may have been satisfying to you, but that doesn't necessarily make it "more rewarding."
@@normietwiceremoved Ikr, I just argued with a guy in a different thread about the same thing. Mastering bad design doesn't make the design better like cmon haha
The backtracking was what really made everything feel underwhelming like I thought meta Ridley would have two parts but instead it was Metroid prime who got 5 phases which was pretty random for a random boss
I used to casually speedrun Prime on the Gamecube years ago so I bought the Remaster to check out what changed. The lack of sequence breaking and unskippable backtracking killed the game for me. There some user-friendly tricks in the original game to get some items early to eliminate or streamline backtracking in certain areas but they patched all of them between the PAL/Wii/Remastered releases. I made it a bit more than halfway through the game (stopped at the Gravity Suit) and put it down since the backtracking just got so tedious and I couldn't trick my way around it.
You brought up a great point about other MVs giving players a feeling of being rewarded when finding a new area or item which I feel that Prime has but with serious diminishing returns. Early upgrades are exciting since they help you open up new areas that are relatively nearby but by the time you start getting end-game items I felt an inherent dread* knowing I would need to then go to a room that as far away as possible on the other side of the map to use it. (*no pun intended!) With better elevator placements/pathing and shuffling the locations of a few late game upgrades I think Prime Remastered would have been incredible. As is, I'm glad the remaster is bringing new players to the series but I personally prefer the original since it just feels more fun to me.
Thank you for a great and thought-provoking video! There's a lovely amount of depth here.
Thank you so much!! That’s good to know - the fact that they patched them means that the backtracking was certainly intended then. I definitely prefer the control scheme of remastered to the original but I’ll likely go through the gamecube version eventually!
@@PastelPlanetoid if you do go back to the GCN release I recommend checking out some videos about early Space Jump Boots. You can get them as soon as you hit Tallon IV and it blows some things open!
I feel like it's also about the actual rewarded item.
While I love 100%ing Metroid games, I do so merely for the sake of 100%ing them. It's not like I need 250 missiles or 20 powerbombs. So yeah huge amounts of backtracking or solving hard puzzles just doesn't feel worth it a lot of the time. Maybe they should add more optional cool stuff similar to the beam combos in the prime games (which currently only amount for 3%).
In contrast, Hollow Knight's collectibles are way more charming as they're all so unique.
The other thing that I dislike is how some of the upgrades felt kind of useless. Like the times where the game allowed me to use on where places that I could travel through with ease even without the hook
The one thing prime one needs is telleporters from the 2d games. They make backtracking much more enjoyable. In prime one you have a much slower movement speed compared to 2d metroid games so going from one corner of the map to another is a slog to do.
Telleporters fix that by giving the player the ability to significantly cut down the time spent walking to the next map zone.
It makes collecting collectables a lot less tedious like for example you missed an item in phason mines just telleport to the local telleporter and check it out you want to check if you can open a door in choso ruins just quickly telleport the areas telleporter and go check it out. You still need to walk so amount but it isn't the vast distances you needed to cover if you had to walk from one corner of the map to another. Telleporters feature is found in many other metroidvania style games like hollow knight were it is something you are happy to find in the world.
Most of the backtracking in prime doesn’t bother me EXCEPT for after you get the boost ball and have to go all the way back to your ship to get the double jump.
You forgot to mention that the game gives you clues of the location of the emblem thingies, but it doesn't give them all to you right away and instead gives you 4 right away and then 2 after every sequence you complete. That itself is not bad, but the problem is that most of the time the game gives you the clues AFTER you've finished the area where they're located. To make it worse, the emblems are usually very far away from the elevators of their areas or are near the elevator that takes significantly more time to get to.
One very frustrating example is the one at the beginning of magmoor cavern. The game only gives you the clue at like the 3rd or 4th quarter of the game and, while it's really close to the first elevator, that's the farthest elevator from the main area and the areas you're going around at that point, like the phazon mines and the ice areas. Adding to that, the clue talks about a big magma lake, so you're probably not going to travel there but asume that the emblem it's near the center of magmoor cavern, where the biggest pool of lava is. Not at the small pool of lava that's in a place you probably have never revisited in the whole game
Yeah but let's be real. There's TOO MUCH backtracking and long hauls in Metroid Prime 1. Why tf should I walk all the way back from phendrana drifts to my ship to get the space jump boots?
Yeah this was my point for the video, some people love the backtracking in prime while others, especially first time players, may absolutely think it’s too much, and that’s the issue. I think other games in the genre are designed better for first time players although people have been telling me that prime is very rewarding for mutliple playthroughs
I think the most important aspect of backtracking is that each time you backtrack, you should have a new experience due to the new abilities. Metroid Prime has some of this, but a lot of the backtracking is just the same or almost the same experience, particularly for the many times you have to traverse Magmoor Caverns. Still a 10/10 game, imo, but I agree that the backtracking could have been done a bit better.
Agree about Magmoor Caverns... if it at least was an actual major area with it's own boss, it wouldn't feel so repetitive.
This is way more noticeable on subsequent playthroughs. I know where to go and how to get to the next item, but that doesn't help me, I still HAVE to walk through Magmoor like 5 times because there's no way around. Sure you figure out conveninent elevators but there are very few of them. Compare that to a different Metroid game like Super or Prime 2, where if you do know where to go next, you can cut half of the wandering around and actually have fun with the game.
Hollow Knight was a near perfect implementation of the back tracking element
Agreed, one of my favourite games ever created! Super excited for Silksong!!
My least favorite part of Hollow Knight was actually the backtracking following death. There’s nothing more obnoxious now in game design than this Souls-lite system that is, honestly, plaguing pretty good games. It punishes really hard early on.
But what makes backtracking good in these games, for me, is room layout, art design and the individuality of each world. Of course, I wish for Dread to have the same quality with interconnected worlds… but I guess it is a problem with the loading of the Switch… I don’t know. But Dread, much like Hollow Knight, Super Metroid and Zero Mission, has enough trust in the player that sequence break is possible. Sure, there’s an invisible hand guiding you early on… but being able to leave the path and go to specific areas before you think you should reach them is amazing. The Spin Boost, improved Speed Booster and the Slide just add so much to the possibility of exploration that I think there’s a new level of potential that is barely scratched. It also has what I consider now the BEST map in the franchise due to how each room is properly shown and each little thing can now be seen. Super Metroid’s map has aged so poorly and Dread no longer being forced on a grid allows each room to split into even more exits… and it is needed so we could see the EMMI.
Prime 2 does backtracking a little better, but I won’t spoil why. All Prime games have sound effects that hint on item placement which mean that anybody can write a note and remember which room possesses an item expansion. Of course, Prime being 3D and slow can contribute to this feeling of weight and how backtrack can be slow… but we’re now used to fast travel, vehicles… and we don’t get to appreciate level design that much anymore. Oddly enough, I’ve more problem with backtracking in Prime 3 because corridors are even more stretched out and there’s something, from Hollow Knight, that is however poorly implemented and it is mission-style progression, some sort of fetching.
And I say all of that as someone who loves Metroid above all gaming franchises (Prime 1 being my favorite of all time even if I ask myself if Dread is actually better) and I respect the heck out of Hollow Knight (with Shovel Knight, Hades, Pizza Tower, Cuphead, Brothers and Dead Cells among my favorite indies).
When I was a kid I was a nintendo fanboy, I've never played a FPS game and I never played metroid but just the cover made me want to play it.
I got it as a birthday present and since there I fell in love with metroid, the big problem I had is that my first language is Spanish, I understand a few words in English and even though I loved this game, I felt lost so many times I couldn't finish it.
That's why I rushed to buy the remastered version so I could have some closure on the game I loved when I was a kid 🥳
Great video loved your comparison between prime and dread 😊
Thank you!!! 🌸
Finding the 12 artifacts was the number one reason why I didn't touch Metroid Prime on the gamecube after running around all the different areas for hours.
I've finished it now though.
Super metroid however, is a different case.
Then Hollow Knight: Having to backtrack because I lost my hard earned geo was annoying at best. Other than these, these games were great to play.
Also, another example of a metroidvania with a lot of emphasis on progress but still offers a lot of backtracking will be Iconoclasts.
That game was mostly guided by the story other than the overall gameplay. But the tweaking items discovered as well as the extra lore and secret bosses made the experience my best metroidvania till date, other than Metroid Fusion.
I love your voice in these, i always like spotting the way you're not meant to go. but i loathe not having the needed powers jedi survivor does this too
thanks tum 😊
There is an "advanced" setting in the Wii version of Metroid Prime that makes the controls absolutely flawless. Think of it as a spring stuck to the center of the screen and your pointer. No more dragging the camera by the corners of the screen. Unfortunately, their doesn't seem to be a way to do this on Metroid Prime Remastered as the gyro aiming option only seems to offer the corner dragging, which I agree, sucks.
It still feels like prime hints slightly even after the game opens up. Once you get boost ball, there’s only a handful of half pipes which locks progression, the one you’re looking for being tallon canyon for space jump. When you get wave beam, you can head towards the wave door you saw possibly on the way to boost ball and that takes you to labs for supers and thermal, which then unlocks the way to thardus for spider. Once there, there are many spider spots, so it can be tricky, fair enough, I believe you’re looking for furnace track (which is one I believe you’ll usually see) reach main furnace and eventually hall of elders and get towards ice beam, which then leads back to thardus chamber since the elevator there also had a spider magnet to an ice door, which gets you the far phendrana, and this list goes on. Exploring freely though will lead to getting lost easily though
Full item order here btw:
Missiles is your only choice first
Missile door leads to morph
Morph ball through small space, grab charge beam
Go further, get bombs
Unlocks the full climb in the big tree room, beat a boss and get varia
Elevator nearby to magmoor. 2 elevators, one to tallon, one to phendrana
Tallon you’re used too, not much new. Go to phendrana
Explore a bit and find boost ball
Backtrack to tallon canyon and scale the half pipe. Go on until landing site and grab space jump
Head back to phendrana and use the extra jump high to get to temple and get wave beam
Remember the wave door towards boost, head back there to labs
Grab thermal and backtrack out of labs, the locked door needs supers and thermal/wave to open
Thardus awaits for you to get spider ball
(Arguably annoying) backtrack to chozo, furnace spider magnet rail is accessible
Take it to hall of elders, get to reflecting pool for ice beam
Back to that elevator by thardus, spider magent up and open the ice door to far phendrana
Explore for a bit, and find gravity suit
(2nd annoying) backtrack to tallon, crash frigate was another sunken area you can now access
Go through it and get to mines. Head down for power bombs (don’t die)
Grab grapple while you exit mines
get to magmoor, geothermal core spider puzzle now accessible, bring a power bomb and grab plasma beam
Back to mines, beat up omega pirate for phazon suit
(Worst backtrack), head to impact crater and realize there were 12 artifacts to collect throughout the play through
Collect artifacts and return to crater and beat the game
Tip btw, after gravity suit, head to chozo towards where morph ball was collected. The wave door is reachable. Head through to tower of light and scale it for wave buster, as well as the water underneath for an artifact. Save a backtrack later and wavebuster beats the shit out of cloaked drone in mines for power bombs
I totally noticed a few of the hints, and it was really satisfying to follow them. I imagine it would be way more obvious on future playthroughs!
honestly managing Prime 1's world is infinitely more easy than the massive open worlds we have been assulted with over the last decade, during my Prime 1 remastered runs I was honestly taken aback at just how small the game felt compared to modern titles and was just so refreshed to have a world that made sense designwise. compared to something like Dark Souls or Bloodbourne those worlds being massive metroidvania labrynths Prime 1 is an absolute breeze.
I've always been a huge fan of Metroid, Super in particular.
However, what I don't like anymore is how secrets are almost always missile or energy tanks. It rarely makes you feel like you're getting more powerful.
In Hollow Knight and Ori 2 secrets often lead to things that make you feel like you get more powerful or more customizable. Getting to equip new emblems or more room for emblems makes end game backtracking super fun. Metroid could adapt that and still feel like Metroid.
It depends on the game design itself. The Metroid games seem to always pull off this dynamic perfectly. Especially Prime and Super Metroid.
Since you asked for our favourite metroidvanias, I'll give a likely left-field answer in Wario Land 3. Only just now realized the way the game handles level design basically means when you walk around the overworld map from level to level it's like a fast travel system without actually being such. As for backtracking I'd say the game does it quite well since whenever a new area opens up, either in a new level or a previously played one, the game highlights the level. Sometimes you gain an ability which amounts to the same thing. Wrote an essay on why Wario Land 3 is the most unique metroidvania ever made, then recorded a video of me reading it. It's on my channel if you want to check it out.
I personally think Hollow Knight and Prime 1 feel similar with regard to backtracking. In Prime the "worst" backtrack for artifacts is to get a few in Phendrana, but there's an elevator that gets you close quickly. The other big one is not necessary but very common since you'll naturally end up there after Ice Beam. Going to the crashed frigate before getting gravity only to realize you need to leave and come back.
HK doesn't have the artifact backtracking, but it is easier to get a "crashed frigate" situation since you have more freedom in HK. I know I had a lot of moments turning back due to acid or shadow walls to go search another area. Also if you want the true ending, mushroom ending, or nightmare court content there are more tasks/backtracks but those are optional so idk how much they should count.
I understand people have complained about both games for these reasons, but I personally love getting lost and retreading the map as I feel it helps me get more familiar and I remember both MP and HK maps far better than many other games for that reason.
Yeah that’s totally fair, there is a fair amount of backtracking in hollow knight but I feel like somehow it’s a bit less overwhelming? Maybe because I loved the world design and art direction so much it didn’t feel like a chore to get lost and explore, but I can see this being annoying for some players! Thanks for your comments :)
@@PastelPlanetoid I agree on HK world design/art direction and that's also one of the reasons I fondly remember going to the frigate in Prime before I was supposed to. The atmosphere and music are so great and the restricted movement without the gravity suit made it feel even more immersive. I enjoyed being there even though I had to backtrack. I also had more appreciation for the free movement with the gravity suit when I came back.
@@bdhdr4226 exactly the same for me, I feel like most people go there early and it makes the gravity suit more impactful, although I can absolutely be seen as a negative by some
Metroid dreads world had a major problem for me. It was still a great game but the same issue kept comeing up repeatedly in my playthrough.
I would get a new item and remember somwthing from a previous room that wasn't too far away. Then I would backtrack to it and find out that the room was further away than I realized. But them right before I would get back to the room I wanted , I would realize that there was some sort of one way obstical that didn't show up on the map that prevented me from going backwards.
It was always super frustrating. It's like I knew exactly where I was and what I was trying to do. And the game would say no you can't get this item That's just one room away untill you get allllll the items and do your victory lap at the end.
Dread was still phenomenal, but I really didn't like how thst happened to me like 3 times on my first playtheough. They could have just put a little x on the map that showed you couldn't go back through a certain room and it would have solved this.
Also I reallllly wish the entire room would light up on the map. I don't want to admit how much time I spent trying to "completely" the map before I finally gave up on it.
Anyways dread was good. But I thought it was a little too linear. I kept running into all the little tricks the developers pulled trying to keep the player moving in the right direction, however those tricks were designed to subtle, so I didn't alway notice when I had gone past a point of no return.
Hi, i have seen your video and have some thoughts. Due to having the world record in the wii version for glitchless, i have used quite a few thoughts on ingamerouting for this game to get all item as quickly as possible to finish with a quick ingametime.
Having played this game a bazillion times i can say that there are very subtile hints for almost every single main power-up, the problem is just that most of them are really stupid and you won´t recognize them on your 1st playthrough and also will not look for them when you continue to find dead-ends because at this point you will just think that the game wants you to go to every single room again and ignore everything till the hint pops up.
I have seen several streamers that have struggled so deeply with it, because they forgot how bad the backtracking can be most of the game.
There are points like everything between the spider ball and the gravity suit where the game telegraphs it very well by offering you take the 1st elevator you can see and locking so many paths that you will find the ice beam very quickly. The issue just comes in remembering that you have to go back to the spider ball. some just haven´t seen the ice beam door.
But then there are parts like inbetween the main powerbomb and the phazon suit where the game just waits for you to look at hints. Giving you 2-3 hints at the same time is theory very cool, but is very overwhelming because you thought you would be in the endgame deep in the mines now to just get thrown out again with no relevant shortcut that woulcn´t make you miss an artifact, to then get the phazon suit to then travel the world again for the 80th time to finish the game.
The issue in the traversal is pretty easy to pin point down in magmoor caverns. The more you look at it the more it is clear that they didn´t know what to do with this area, it is just there to pad out the runtime, it has barely any items, most rooms don´t offer anything and otherwise it is just a glorified "we forgot to make freezing damage so you need the varia suit for burn damage", it takes so long to travel cause of it, you can see it on the bosses as well that they really wanted to strech the casual running time..
As for sequence breaking, retro hates it.
There are about 14 different versions of prime 1 where most boil down to "they moved a rock away" or they "put something in front of the plasma beam door"
Metroid Prime 1 is one of the oldest speedgames of all time, in a series that encourages you very much to go fast, but not in this game. Or more it feels like that some things that were in the original 0-00 release of the game were put in intentionally by a different development team.
The later you go on releases, the more atroucious routing becomes, but they still miss something every single time even though they attempted about 15 times by now to look through the entire internet to change every single piece of inbounds collision so that no naughty gamer will ever do something terrible inbounds or out of bounds, they go completely against the design philosophy that is even present in metroid zero mission 3 years later and still heck it up.
The glitchless wii route i currently work on cuts out nearly all the backtracking, gets the space jump first, gets the ice beam after the wave beam, gets the powerbomb in phendrana, then the plasma beam, then does all of the artefact backtracing including piratebase and kills thardus in like 3 powerbombs, ends up on xray, does phazon mines to the end, gets back to get the artifact at the entrance that requires main powerbombs and then finishes the game.
This route was very difficult to come up with, there are so many roadblocks.
Interesting comments, I find it intriguing that even though you’ve played this game so many times, you still have complaints about the backtracking just like first time players. Thanks for your detailed analysis and for watching the video 😊
@@PastelPlanetoid I'm kind of the same. I never minded the backtracking on my first playthrough since I was just immersed in the game so much but on repeat playthroughs it really started to bother me just how much the game throws you out of your pace. I still absolutely love the game but have to come to realize the flaws with its progression style as time went on.
I beat Metroid Prime recently, sometimes it's so freaking boring. A few I had to go back to a very far place, since the game doesn't have telepor, you have to walk and walk and walk, and that's kinda stupid. Metroid Dread tho, amazing game, I love it.
I'm playing hollow knight, but I'm still on the beginning of the game tho.
This game seems good but I’m dying with this back tracking and running around to figure out where to go. It kills the experience
Yeah this was totally my thoughts making this video, I feel like some people love this game because of the backtracking and exploration but it can absolutely be boring or overwhelming for a lot of players too. If you’re not enjoying it, there’s no pressure to enjoy it just because other people like it! Play what you enjoy playing :)
I do not get what you call "linear". I am especially confused since you are calling Metroid Dread linear.
Yeah since its superbly open if you sequence break
I would consider Dread a more linear experience than many games in the genre because of the way it pushes you towards the correct path without you even knowing (this is on a first playthrough). This is absolutely not a negative, I consider Metroid Dread to be a masterpiece of the genre
@@PastelPlanetoid I know you never said it is a bad thing. I did not get it as such. I was just confused since it pushes you towards certain goals pretty much the same way Super Metroid does. I find their structures to be very similar.
Should I buy and play Prime Remastered, replay Metroid Dread, replay BOTW, or play Elden Ring? I probably won’t get a response but I’m stuck on what to do
I would say elden ring, one of my favourite games of last year, I adored that game! hope you have fun with it :)
Honestly, your comparing metroid, the pioneer, to a game like hollow knight, that's had decades of shoulders to stand upon. And a remaster can't be compared to a modern game that's also 2d. I get the point of this video, which I enjoyed, and I got one am glad you love it but metroid prime was the first real first person exploration platformer of its kind. I remember the news article talking about whether or not they would even be able to make first person platforming successful. It has many doubters but they proved everyone wrong on that alone. And the collecting of the 12 items at the end was supposed to be the key to a whole new area that was to be huge! that led to the last boss that you then had to escape from in classic style but al that was cut out for the most part.
Another HK fanboy. Dude, that game is more a souls-like than a metroidvania. It's open world nature doesn't go along with the metroidvania philosophy.
Cry about it
You're not ready for Metroid Prime 2 then lmao
I really loved dread but unlike other metroid games, I have had no desired to replay it because of how linear it was, it offered no freedom and I know all playthroughs will be the same.
Try developer intended sequence breaks, they aren't hard to do. They massively open up the game :)
@@ExtremeAce so they were intended 😮?
@@chalybee8689 Yes! The world is designed in such a way that if you get an item early you can take advantage of it. Kraid even has a special cutscene if you decide to sequence break and get bombs before fighting him and then kill him with bombs! There is a shinespark puzzle near a Burenia teleporter that allows you to get early Gravity Suit. Dread is just full of many intentional sequence breaks, but MercurySteam also did not patch any glitches because they said they didn't want to take away the fun of exploiting them and sequence breaking 🙂
@@ExtremeAce neat!
Wow, you're bringing this UP.... Wait till you play Echoes lmao...
Echoes has so much better world structure, all areas being interconnected feels so good
Metroid prime has the best backtracking i've ever seen, you have to be good at the game to see it.
Different types of backtracking appeal to differ people and that’s what I love so much about this genre! So many people have different favourite games, and I’m glad you enjoyed Prime’s backtracking (I really loved Prime, as I said in the video, and I didn’t think it was difficult on the standard difficulty, I just think it would be a little overwhelming for some people and may get a bit boring). I do think the backtracking would be less of an issue on subsequent play through a though since you’ll know roughly where to go next!
@@PastelPlanetoid yes as i said in another comment, Prime's backtracking is designed to be satysfying to a skilled and/or expert player, meaning it has to be unfortunately punishing for a new player, altough i'd argue this is better because it pushes willing people to become better at the game and eventually reach an experience that no other game i know can give. In order to become a legendary game, they couldn't make it too simple. It also increases replayability, as each time you have more knowledge and it can drammatically change your pathfinding so you are much more efficient. Instead of wasting time and going to a specific place just for an item, you can wait until you can do something else in the same area and catch 2 birds with one stone. Prime's entire design revolves around catching 2 birds with one stone. You can do it in your first playthrough by seeing game design hints and figuring out the best time you should go back based on the item locks and closed paths, but it becomes easier in the second one.
I'm currently in my first playthrough of Hollow Knight, just got double jump at like around 30 hours, and i also think that the game is basically PERFECT, including the backtracking, but Prime just goes beyond that as it's unique and more challenging in this aspect
@@WaveOfDestinythis makes sense, I generally only replay games years later so I tend to prefer games that are more inviting on first play through, but I am excited to go back through Prime and see how it differs this time around!
Enjoy Hollow Knight, literally a masterpiece, that’s one game I have played multiple times and it honestly gets better on subsequent playthroughs, there’s so many options so each playthrough can be different. A lot of the bosses are even optional, my first playthrough I skipped my favourite boss fight without realising! Hope you enjoy it, I LOVE that game
@@PastelPlanetoid yeah sure don't rush it, you can replay it whenever you want even years later.
I wanna add that the difference between the two games is that hollow knight has fast travel and it's perfect, but doesn't punish you for over backtracking too much or for going linerarly too much (which is not a bad thing at all, it is actually really good because it gives you complete freedom to do what you want) and is more similar to metroid dread, cause the map is pretty fast to traverse. While it's a good thing to have, Prime goes a step further and decides to make it harder to traverse and punishes you for your mistakes in backtracking with boredom. It makes it more boring for new players but it is the key to let experts and skilled players have even more fun than in the other two games. Grabbing an extra item in prime feels more rewarding to me than doing it in dread or HN, because behind that there is a lot more work and thought and skill than just looking at the map and teleporting near there. I think like the worst mistake you can do in Prime is randomly choosing an area to backtrack whenever you feel like it, or even worse trying to get items as soon as they become available, because the game was designed around the player actually waiting till it's the right moment to backtrack to waste as little time as possible while progressing at the same time, and managing the resulting lack of health or firepower in the meantime to be just right for them. It's easy to fall into this trap, backtrack too much and feel bored. The artifact hunt was put there as a test and an opportunity for the player to learn how the game actually works. Painful the first time when you are stuck in endgame, a fun challenge the next time when you know you have to look for them, not even noticed by the experienced player who can almost grab them all before endgame like they don't even exist (you can still do it early tho if you pay attention to the hints). It might not have been balanced and was probably too tough for a lot of players, but that's what it was trying to do, make you aware of how to backtrack more efficiently and not get bored.
We can draw a thin line that connects Prime and Doom Eternal: in doom they purposely designed combat to be played in a certain way, and sure it may seem that it takes away freedom from the player at first, but if you look into it you'll understand they did it to challenge the player exactly like they wanted, putting them in the "fun zone" and make them realize that the mastery of new mechanics can spawn more freedom and satysfaction than if they just let the player cheese the game how they wanted, just like Prime's backtracking compared to other metroidvanias
You need to make the distinction between "backtracking" and "folded level design," because they're superficially similar but function differently on the whole. What Metroid does is not "backtracking," it's an example, the _definitive_ example, of folded level design.
Hollow Knight while it's good game, but it's very overrated. Hollow Knight just have some garbage mechanics and bland exploration. Bosses are also not really fun, because if you loose you will respawn too far from the boss. It's becomes tedious. I would love some checkpoints. While Prime 1 have some structure problems with mid gamedesign that really distracting from perfect 2d Metroid gamedesign. It's still fine game that really more like awesome experience, than awesome game.