35 replies to this topic

[CastChaos]

Yestarday I was watching a Super Metroid speedrun and realized how different it is from another Super Metroid speedruns. Apparently, all that I watched was completely different. I already heard that Metroid games are very non-linear, so there are a lot of ways playing them, but still... I thought about which games can be such non-linear, too?

So, Metroid (NES) and Super Metroid (SNES) are definitely non-linear.
The second part of Final Fantasy VI is also totally non-linear: you can go to the last "dungeon" (You will get owned, though!) or go to any other town/cave/dungeon. You land near a town which gets you to Cyan, but it's a hard cruise, I often go for Relm first and then to Strago. Locke is important character (because the stealing) but Phoenix Cave is hard, so I leave it alone for a while.

Which other games are such non-linear? In what order do you play their areas through?

[Mitchfork]

Baldur's Gate was fairly nonlinear. You HAD to do certain things to progress the storyline (flushing the monsters out of the Naskell Mines, for example) but in many cases, it was more fun to do the random questage. Plus, you could usually decide how you were going to approach these missions... in Baldur's Gate II, it expanded upon this greatly. In the city of Athkalta, you learn over time of the vampire/bandit turf war. You have to choose a side, but are totally free on which side to take, resulting in totally different mission sets.

[Bonegolem]

Old ASCII adventure games such as Rogue and ADOM give you a totally different game experience each time you start a new character. I particularly like ADOM; generally because of the limitless possibilities in gameplay.

[jimbob]

There used to be a game called Indiana Jones: Desktop Adventures. I'll have to look it up again; I only had the demo and this was about 7 years ago. All the items and obstacles were in different places each time. It's a bit retro, and I'd love to play it again!

Maniac Mansion, the original LucasArts point-and-click game, had 7 different ways to do the last bit.

And also, the AI in PES5+ is very clever - no match is ever the same.

[Bonegolem]

Speaking of AI, the enemy (or bot) AI in Aliens VS Predator for PC was very random and non-linear. The aliens don't just run up and start swiping at you 100% of the time. You never know when they're going to suddenly start crawling on the ceiling, pounce from 50 feet away, break through a glass window, or just run off and wait to pounce on you. Some of the praetorian-class enemies will even destroy health and weapons on the ground that you could otherwise use.

[Dawnlight]

The Original NES Zelda and somewhat Isle of the Winds

[DarkFlameWolf]

YES, I got a mention!
Morrowind and Oblivion.

[NoeL]

Super Mario Bros!

...oh wait, NON-linear.

Well, I think even games like Metroid are linear to a degree. In most cases you need a specific item to move onto the next part of the game.

The Leisure Suit Larry series were pretty non-linear. Great fun too.

[Mitchfork]

Adventure of Link was EXTREMELY non-linear. I watched an entire speedrun (about 42 mins ) and the guy did level 1 either 3rd or 4th, and didn't get the candle or most other items at all. Even more amazing, he took NO DAMAGE the entire run, and didn't use the cheap trick to beat Dark Link.

[NoeL]

Well he would've needed the hammer, glove, whistle, raft, jump magic, reflect magic, spell magic, fairy magic (I think)...

... what's the cheap trick?

[Mitchfork]

He didn't get spell (I know) or the glove (I think). Still, that's about half of the items and spells that you could get.

The cheap trick is waiting on the left side of the screen, crouching, and just continuing to stab. He can't get ya.

[Moonbread]

He didn't get spell (I know) or the glove (I think). Still, that's about half of the items and spells that you could get.

The cheap trick is waiting on the left side of the screen, crouching, and just continuing to stab. He can't get ya.

I tried that! It's doesn't work.

[Mitchfork]

From my description, or tried it before? I've never been able to do it myself... I've SEEN it done, and I know HOW to do it, I just can't.

[CastChaos]

Are the second Metroid game and the newer Metroids (Echo, Prime, Fusion) non-linear?
Also, is there any new (1997+) game that is non-linear, or nowadays developers are getting lazy? Of course, it's easier to make a pre-1990 game non-linear than a 1997+ one.

[Mitchfork]

Games have gotten away from free-roaming, haven't they? Ah, I miss the good ole days when you could face the final boss in LA without beating level 1... but I digress.

I'm trying to think, here... Metroid Prime (the first one) did have some elements of free-roaming, but it was pretty linear for the most part. If you don't count MMORPG's, there are virtually no (well known) non-linear games in the past couple years. Sad, but true.