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AO and AE simply do not lend themselves to backtracking, not without some serious structural changes.
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I made a point of saying that the Rayman method wouldn't work for Oddworld, but there is nothing too involved or structurally imbalanced about allowing you to backtrack to certain paths. I'm not at all suggesting you should be able to revisit all previous paths/worlds whenever you want, and that the challenges/NPC's would reset, just that you should be able to go back a path or two to double check things or take in the scenery without having a door slammed in your face.
Naturally, certain paths have to be completely linear to accommodate the story and general forward flow, and those could remain.
But in the end, its kind of a moot point anyway, because I can only think of a select few paths offhand that I would have liked to be able to revisit. The game architects did a good job otherwise. Why fix it if it ain't broken? As for my response to Wil's comment, I was more arguing his personal reasoning for not agreeing with the "obsession" with backtracking than it's in-game applications.
