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[FStop7]

Arkham Asylum made backtracking exciting, that's how well Rocksteady did.

 

[BLUElightCory]

I think that if a game offers a compelling environment backtracking rarely ever feels like a chore to me. Give me a setting that's cool to spend time in (Arkham Asylum for instance) or take me back to earlier environments but put a twist on them (Ocarina of Time, early Silent Hill games, RE4) and I'll almost always be fine with it.

It's when games take it too far and it starts to feel like a chore (Dead Space 1 springs to mind) that it starts to hurt the experience.

 

[The Red Wizard]

When its done well its not called backtracking, its called exploration and adventure.

Metroid prime has examples of both.

You go all over the same areas to get to new areas and new powers during the course of the game. Nobody called it backtracking, it was exploring and adventuring.

It didnt start getting called backtracking until you had to get the chozo artifacts, which lead you to no new areas, and gave you nothing new in return, and were literally nothing more than keys.

Destroyed the pacing of the game too.

Its a testament to the rest of the game that it was still as fantastic as it was, even with the grocery list of keys you had go back and pick up at the end.

You could eliminate a lot, maybe all but one, of the artifacts by exploring and adventuring during your quest i.e. going back to old areas and using new upgrades.

 

[Toxi]

Super Metroid is really great about backtracking in most cases; the game tends to only force you into an old area when you have a bunch of new power-ups to radically change the experience, but you can still backtrack whenever you want to find new things. There's never a moment like Prime 2's unfortunate Seeker Missile backtrack. Probably the best-designed Metroid from a backtracking perspective.

 

[ScOULaris]

REmake and some Metroidvania games are the best examples, IMO. I'm okay with backtracking to areas with newly acquired items or abilities to access places that you couldn't before. I think it's good design and helps make the setting of the game more memorable.

 

[Tuck]

Skyward Sword

they did a great job of utilizing 3 areas 9 different ways

Mixed. The desert area had the most amount of new content even late in the game. I enjoyed the stuff they did in the volcano. The stuff in the forest was pretty meh overall. Didn't hate tadtones, but I recognize it was filler. And also that time they make you go back to a dungeon to get some water. Fuck that.

 

[TheKeyPit]

This was the first game that came to my mind. Going back to an area felt fresh with all the new gadgets if I remember correctly.

 

[Maggots]

mmmm... well, yeah, I guess you're right.

but I can't avoid thinking that it was creativity "forced by" laziness/short dev time.

more like hardware limitations I'm guessing...
And I'm not saying the areas were mind blowingly different... But you return to the forest and you're swimming in it... You go back to the volcano and all of a sudden you can go in a new hole that opens up to a new world...

A lot of people give Skyward sword flak for re using areas... but I think it was done rather well for what it was... and quite frankly I find it more engaging than a GIANT field of nothing... which is what ocarina and twilight had.

Spoiler

Although loftwing flying was kind of barren as well

 

[Jb]

Re4, the Village.
Left 4 Dead 2, Hard Rain.

I guess if you make it dark and rainy the 2nd time I'm sold.

Excellent examples.

I love it when games make you revisit an area at a different time or under different weather conditions. It can be interesting from both a gameplay standpoint (play with the user's expectations) and narratively (contrast).

Kokiri forest also qualifies. It's even more emotional because you've become physically taller, making it feel like going back to your childhood neighbourhood as and adult and finding everything small.

 

[Situacao]

Shadow Complex.

 

[STILLethal]

DMC1, MGS, Batman AA

 

[SmashN'Grab]

Super Metroid is the pinnacle of this for me. I love the way Arkham Asylum did it too, but it's not quite as good.

 

[Barry Burton]

Resident Evil/REmake
Metroid Prime

These were the first to come to mind. It was almost always enjoyable and worthwhile revisiting already-explored areas. Other classic RE and Metroid games apply here as well, but these are the ones where I felt it was done the best.

 

[zephervack]

Perfect Dark and its extraction levels, pretty much the same levels you played before but you play them in reverse with a lot of barriers and different enemy encounters that feel fresh regardless.

They even make perfect sense in the story.

 

[sankt-Antonio]

Exhumed.

 

[helium121]

Ninja Gaiden on Xbox

 

[Brydo0]

Ori and the Blind Forest did this quite well. Going to new areas leads you back through old ones, but with upgraded abilities you have more access to the landscape. One of the best modern adaptations I've played of Metroidvania progression.

 

[Nyoro SF]

Dark Souls.

Retreading areas usually opens up more options for you based on your strength level. Like fighting the dragon on the bridge towards the Undead Parish, or revisiting the

Spoiler

Insane Asylum

for an extra boss fight and interesting NPC fight. Trying to think of other examples, but there aren't too many times in the game where you backtrack.

 

[misho8723]

Vampire Bloodlines

 

[Woffls]

Alien Isolation
Metroid Prime 2
Shadow Complex
Metal Gear Solid 2
Dark Souls

 

[Pikma]

Alien Isolation.

 

[Mr-Joker]

Luigi's Mansion, you pretty explore the entire mansion hunting for the ghost and Boos

Mixed. The desert area had the most amount of new content even late in the game. I enjoyed the stuff they did in the volcano. The stuff in the forest was pretty meh overall. Didn't hate tadtones, but I recognize it was filler. And also that time they make you go back to a dungeon to get some water. Fuck that.

Indeed I hated that section, had I know that was coming up I would have picked up the water during my first trip.

 

[gelf]

Resident Evil 1 and 2
Dark Souls
Exhumed
Batman:AA
Exhumed
Ninja Gaiden Black
Metroid Prime

Backtracking is a big part of many of my favourite games of all time.

 

[jotun?]

Definitely NOT Bayonetta