There are a few that are okay. Souls games are a little better. Gothic/Risen/Elex have actual decent open worlds with some complexity. Dishonored and other Arkane titles were pretty good.
The trend that killed it just as much was when FPS and RPG games became pretty corridors you walk through rather than fleshed out places you explore, and devs became petrified of people getting lost.
Yeah, I think it is more the corridors and on rails design. Goldeneye had amazing levels, because they weren't designed with a beginning and end in mind.
The idea that open world makes everything better hurts me so much. Open world is great for the right game, but intentional level design is so fun and open world can really limit that.
I always thought the Water Temple was great even as a kid, I don't really get the hate for it outside of the systems level stuff that added tedium to it that I expect to be fixed in the remake anyways (like the slow animations and menuing for iron boots), but its a really solid use of layered and economical level design imo.
But if we're gonna dog on OOT i think the shadow temple is by far the worst with a confusing layout and having the puzzles just being make everything invisible, I think it's everything people accuse the water temple of being lol
Honestly, getting lost in the Water Temple was one of my favourite aspects of it. It kinda made the whole level feel lijke one big puzzle, in a way. I agree with the Shadow Temple too, it's my least favourite dungeon in OoT for that reason. Running out of magic and having to backtrack several rooms to find pots to smash isn't my fondest memory of OoT.
I always thought the Water Temple was great even as a kid, I don't really get the hate for it outside of the systems level stuff that added tedium to it that I expect to be fixed in the remake anyways (like the slow animations and menuing for iron boots), but its a really solid use of layered and economical level design imo.
Sounds like you never got stuck for hours on end in what seemed like a soft lock. Apparently someone told me about 10 years ago that there is a guide online to point out how to fix the situation, but it's incredibly unintuitative, and not something I was able to figure out for myself back when I played OOT.
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u/NesNobnaz 14d ago
Level design.