I dunno, I think all the areas in AE are necessary, they all add something to the game; the length of the areas is something else however. The multiple grinder areas in...is it Bonewerkz? Those areas are a drag, the bits where you yell KILLEMKILLEMKILLEMKILLEM as a Glukkon in the industrial areas are pointless and repetitive, the area with the slam doors and the sprout gassed mudokons was absolutely pointless, if you cut those bits out I think the game would be more fun.

I liked FeeCo, it was cool to see Glukkon industry on a grand scale, the inflated self importance of sticking their faces on the trains. I suppose it was a freight hub though since there were no passengers anywhere? I never really understood but maybe in AEHD (if they make it) they could have passengers walking around on distant gangways, it would be nice to see chronikklers, luskans, maybe even grubbs or wolvarks running off to catch their trains, but I suppose at the same time it would be odd to have them all around in the midst of what is effectively a terrorist attack.

The slig barracks was another pretty great area, I think it actually would have been interesting to explore the place in more detail and uncover a little about Skillya, slig society and that sort of stuff, the way MO went with putting sligs on steroids to create big-bros, that's definitely something they could put into a potential remake, perhaps the forcible injection of these steroids. Abe could have had a real impact in the slig barracks and created some real morally questionable situations, i.e. we know there is a birthing complex in the barracks, shutting that down and killing thousands of unborn sligs would make life easier in creating a shortage of new guards but at the cost of the death of so many as of yet innocents.

That makes no sense.

1. You need to do all puzzles so you'd get stuck sooner or later.
2. The door closes behind you once you enter a puzzle, so you're instantly stuck anyway.

Yeah, it's definitely not that.

It's just lazy and boring level design.

I don’t get the criticism of the hub system. It divides the levels up into discrete sections, and it provides the player with an easy reference of how close they are to completing each section. For the large amount of levels in the Brewery it gives the player a much better indication of progress than just putting each level end-to-end in a single path.

It reminds me of parts of NES Megaman games where you have to beat all the bosses again from a hub.

I like hubs a lot. I mean, a LOT. In just about any game, it's a fun decorative place where you can view each level.

So it does. I guess I was thinking of other platformers with the hub system. But what I was getting at was that players could take a break from a puzzle - try some others - and come back to it later. But I guess it doesn't apply.

Also, Abe games have never had mind-blowing, complicated puzzles

It’s in the temples in AO – the entrance doors wouldn’t close until you activated the Flintlocks.

Oh yeah. Cheers, Manco.

Right off the bat after RF, you're expected to climb mountains and try shut down another company which involves screwing with a few others beforehand. It wasn't about survival anymore, the grim and dark universe is pulled back a little bit to show a more expansive and colourful one with a longer duration to complet, thus more to explore.

Yeah it felt like a slog, and played like AO v1.5, but wasn't that the point? I thought they did a great job of it.