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MTZehvor on 24 October 2015
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Alkibiádēs said:
MTZehvor said:
Alkibiádēs said:
MTZehvor said:

Prime's areas are way more open. There are so many huge rooms simply based around letting the player platform around to various heights. The entrance to the Chozo Ruins and Phendrana Drifts, the two giant tall shafts at the edge of Phendrana, the giant tree chamber in the Ruins, the huge room in the opening to the Phazon Mines, the landing site in Tallon IV, the big underwater shaft in the sunken frigate, etc. The only rooms from Echoes that I can say compare are a couple in Agon Wastes and the huge room with the beam expansion in sanctuary. Prime tends to vary its areas up, there'll be a few small corridors and then a larger room of some sort, whereas with Echoes you're liable to be walking for quite some time before anything opens up (particularly in Torvus).

Phazon mines are very cramped, claustrophobic and filled with tedious platforming. The same goes for the lava/fire area.

(insert lots of pictures here)

Sorry for the small pictures, I can never get the pictures from Metroid wikia on full size for some reason.

You basically listed every single room I mentioned.

No, I listed many you didn't mention and only after a 5 minute search. That big field in Phendrana drifts is super annoying because if you miss the jump to a certain room on a higher ledge once you need to backtrack and redo everything. If that's your example of good level design then I don't want any of it.

(really big pictures)

I fail to see how the first Prime has more open and less cramped level design.

Please just use links if your pictures are going to be that big.

Anyway, it would helpful to read my entire post instead of just quoting one line and not going on. The actual paragraph continued...

"As for the others [read: the other rooms that I did not address] (particularly the Sanctuary bridge), the problem is that while they're "open" in the sense that they look open, there isn't much manueverability in them. You're still stuck with very much one way to go. The bridge that opens into Sanctuary is a fantastic example of this; what should be a very open room is instead simply a linear, straightforward bridge with a single spider ball track that can be accessed later on. Prime tends to leave platforms around and encourage the player to jump all over the rooms, whereas the few "open" rooms in Echoes lack this sense of freedom."

My last point is basically nothing but this argument, but to summarize simply having a room that is "big" does not mean that the level design is not restrictive and/or cramped. The vast majority of the "big" rooms in Echoes are filled with basically nothing to explore at all (see Agon/Torvus/Sanctuary Temple, i.e. the three biggest rooms in the game) or force the player down a single pathway that they cannot stray from (see Sanctuary Bridge). There is very little to actually explore.

That big field in Phendrana drifts is super annoying because if you miss the jump to a certain room on a higher ledge once you need to backtrack and redo everything. If that's your example of good level design then I don't want any of it.

...I think I know what jump you're talking about, and honestly, if you miss that jump, then I really don't know what to say to you. There may not be an easier jump in the game to make. Regardless, if you want to talk about annoying level design, Phendrana's pales in comparison to something like the underwater segments of Torvus Bog, where you're frequently forced into deep pools of water multiple times in the subterranian section with poor visibility and movement that make navigation an absolute chore. Honestly, you could fall off the ledge twice and probably get through that segment quicker than you'd get through the pre Gravity Boost section.