To me, it's a part of the games design which adds to the gameplay. Gameplay can be amazing, but if the level or world design is poor, then that'll take away from what could be an even better game.

I'll use Persona 4 and SMT Nocturne or Digital Devil Saga and why I think Persona 4, although a great game, is far worse than SMT Nocturne and DDS as an example.

If you are to look at the exploration of Persona 4. What is there? When you're not in the tv, you can walk through a a maximum of maybe 10-15 incredibly small areas, and talk to different characters. While inside the tv and doing dungeons, it's a dungeon crawler with randomly generated dungeons, but it's every dungeon is really small. The items you can acquire in these dungeons is randomized though preset to the location you're at, so you'll frequently get the same items throughout the game. Just about any dungeon crawler puts the design of Persona 4's dungeons to shame.

In SMT Nocturne, or rather in most RPGs, exploration is a heavy component to enjoyment. Whenever I play an RPG, I always search the entire area to find helpful items, fight a boss and get a hidden boss to get a new Magatama, or in other RPGs, get weapons, armor, or items, that are better than what you could acquire from the previous areas you've been to.

I've been playing Skyrim, and the world really seems thrown together. I always made the comment that Oblivion's world was pretty poorly designed, but Skyrim's world is really poorly designed. The game's combat is better in every way compared to Oblivion and the dungeon design is better, but the world design, the games awful balance, and the dialogue being good, just overall much worse, makes Skyrim a disappointment compared to its predecessor.

Has anyone played Shadow Warrior recently? It's an FPS (PC currently, PS4,X1 in the near future) and remake of it's 1997 synonym.

So, it's made of vast, complex stages, filled with secrets, easter eggs and collectibles. It reminded me why I liked FPSs in the past and hate them today. Yes, it's because of exploration.

On the same note of Kabamarutr, I think exploration takes the gameplay further. Level designers who realize you want to explore, tend to design the levels to teach you how to play. Level designers who don't enjoy exploration as a key to learning, tend to make tutorials which annoy the crap out of me.

I have played many a GTA game where I just wanted to drive around, and explore the levels, and not worry about how bad a dude I am.

I agree with this, the combination of exploration with the right mechanic is a fantastic mix. One of my favourite things to do in Gravity Rush on PSV was to fly (fall?) around each new area, enjoying both the really charming world and atmosphere whilst playing around with Kat's abilities, seeing what you could do and where you could go

It's a big part of why I love that game so much, it captivated me for hours as I wandered around collecting all the purple crystals :)

I did some game studies a while back, and a lot of the big time games that we remember taught by exploration. It was pretty amazing to realize that every single villain in Super Mario Bros was a variation of the Goomba.