How do you feel about "lost woods" type areas in games?

[Ando85]

I'm referring to maze like areas that repeat if you go certain ways and you must figure out a path to take to advance. The earliest area like this that comes to mind is in The Legend of Zelda on NES. I'm not too fond of them and they can get rather frustrating.

 

[hazabaza1]

Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em hard. It's what made me stop playing Legend of Grimrock. Shame, I was enjoying it.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

Annoying as hell. There's no reason they're there, it just pisses me off

 

[Bertylicious]

I hate them. I think they're only there for degenerates.

 

[pure.Wasted]

They're horrible.

What game developers don't realize is that failure is a much more interesting way to develop characters than success. With all this focus on (minor) branching storylines in RPGs these days, I think it's pretty inevitable.

PLAYER! Meet LABYRINTH! Did you manage to get out of it as you were asked to? Great, here's an awesome reward! Don't get out of it as you were asked to? Character begins to panic, then panic even more... some bad stuff happens, maybe a tough boss fight, which culminates with you getting out. Less reward, or maybe same reward but had to beat a tough boss that doesn't give any of his own loot, and you get some nice dramatic scenes that you wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

As long as your character failing is part of the experience, it won't be frustrating. It'll feel like as essential a part of his journey as anything else he's done. If you're MEANT to succeed and the game pauses completely while you figure out how to do that, then yeah, that's last millennium game design. And that doesn't just apply to lost forests, it applies to just about all puzzles.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I never have any problem with them. They don't bother me at all.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I like 'em. My sister and I used to overthink the shit out of those things, though - we had elaborate graph paper maps when the answer was something like "go right, then left. Repeat." They're mostly fun when you're a kid and you actually have time to figure stuff like that out, so clearly don't work in every game.

 

[Dr. Mongo]

I like 'em. My sister and I used to overthink the shit out of those things, though - we had elaborate graph paper maps when the answer was something like "go right, then left. Repeat." They're mostly fun when you're a kid and you actually have time to figure stuff like that out, so clearly don't work in every game.

This.
It really depends on the game. In one case it can be annoying as hell and in the next it can be pretty neat.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Kind of annoying unless the puzzle is unnecessarily long or, complicated. The Super Mario castles that do those puzzles aren't bad but could have easily been a lot worse. I generally don't mind them personally.

 

[scar_47]

Depends on their difficulty, some involve rather complex patters that are merely trail and error which I think is just poor design because it adds nothing but frustration, I seen others where you had hints or were only sent back to the previous screen if you choose the wrong path those I find far more acceptable if not a decent way to break up more normal sections of gameplay.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Depends.

In FF IX you have the Black Mage forest, but assuming you did your homework you know to always go 'where there are no owls.' You've been outright told this, and there are signs in the forest which say 'where there are owls' and 'where there are no owls.' If you get stuck there you have no one but yourself to blame.

Then there are the Max Payne blood-jumpy puzzles, the second of which has no indication which is the right way and which leads to frustrating back tracking. Not quite the same, but close enough to give me conniptions whenever I do it.

 

[Mr Pantomime]

I liked the concept in Persona 3. Its was interesting to explore the tower trying to find a way out or the stairs to the next floor. It was especially exhilarating when your party was on low health, and you had to hope you were going the right way.

But Persona made the tower as an integral game mechanic, whereas many Lost Woods scenarios occur in games where it goes from being straightforward, to making you solve a random movement puzzle to progress. I don't think there's anything wrong with the Lost Woods scenario, but if its just being used to mess with the player for no reason, it does annoy me.

 

[DustyDrB]

Love them. I just love puzzles in games period. Even if it's another Tower of Hanoi that I've already done 1,000,000 times.

True story: I missed something that the owl said when I was a kid playing Ocarina for the first time. I was stuck in the Lost Woods for a month. Also, I was a very stupid kid. I don't know why I never thought of at least writing down the "safe" ways as I went.

But while I was "stuck" on that part, I decided to just wander around and see what else I could do. I ended up doing a lot of side quests and collected a bunch of things I wouldn't have otherwise.

 

[Smooth Operator]

If used they haveto be done extremely well, i.e. lots of very notable features so you can always tell where you are going/have been, but still it is extremely cheap.
If you are a dev and your game has more then one then you have some deleting to do.

 

[scorptatious]

I don't mind them. With OOT all you need to do is follow the sound of the ocarina. And even if I do get stuck for a while I just look up a guide.

And while I've never actually played Super Mario RPG, I still feel this is appropriate for this thread:

 

[Limecake]

And while I've never actually played Super Mario RPG, I still feel this is appropriate for this thread:

Holy Crap that's unfortunate, if you happen to know anyone with a copy you should really consider picking it up. Honestly I've been that game more times than I can count and eat's better than any other mario RPG I've played. It even is pretty funny.

OT:

I don't mind lost woods area's especially cause I have an internet connection. as long as they are semi-short or able to be figured out without just trial and error.