Don't you find it weird sometimes

[C i d]

that at some dungeons in FF games, after some plot device, you are returned to the entrance/town. Yet there are also times when you have to tediously backtrack for no reason.

If you don't get what I mean, here are examples (obvious SPOILERS)


-FFI - in most dungeons, you have to backtrack everytime. In dungeons like the respective fiend's dungeon, there's a teleporter at the end.
-FFII - when you throw the sunfire into the engine thingy, you don't have to manually escape the dreadnought. The game shows a scene when you walk out automatically (yet in the later titles, escaping parts are timed, like in FFVII's reactor bombing)
-FFX - When you re-enter most visited cloister of trials, after doing the trials, you enter a room. Exiting this room transports you back to the entrance. Yet there is one cloister of trial (the icy one) where you have to do the cloister of trials only when you exit the room.
-FFXII - If I am not wrong, you don't have to backtrack in henne mines after defeating tiamat. Yet in the leviathan, you have to backtrack after rescuing ashe

etc etc

I know this automatic backtracking is good. But I sometimes wonder why these games decide to 'help' us at only certain places.

 

[Ayumi Hamasaki]

Weird? Not really.

Annoying sometimes though. I absolutely hate backtracking. It's boring and pointless drivel. I'd much rather you just get to teleport out of ALL the dungeons.

Or at least give us an Escape Rope type item.

 

[Clerkin]

Usually when you have to backtrack there is some point as to why you have too like a cutscene will be shown, your way is blocked and you have to find some other way out of the place or your trying to escape something

The automatic transport to the entrance is great and it's best after a really hard boss battle as your party members could be about to die and you have no potions left to heal so you wouldn't be able to fight the normal monsters. The automatic transporting was probably so people didn't have to backtrack when there was nothing to get

Both are good in a way as some easier boss battles you get to go backtrack and receive exp from the monsters of the area without having to worry about your characters health and how many potions you have left and transporting back to entrances were mainly to progress the story faster as you found out something new, a cutscene was shown or you traveled to a new area

 

[Sora-kun]

Weird? Not really.

Annoying sometimes though. I absolutely hate backtracking. It's boring and pointless drivel. I'd much rather you just get to teleport out of ALL the dungeons.

Or at least give us an Escape Rope type item.

I'd pretty much have to agree with that. Backtracking, though annoying, is pretty good for building up your characters strength. It's like an excuse to do so rather than going out and trying to grind.

 

[Martel]

Ah, the magic of quick-jumping. I quite like it, because I only usually advance the story in RPGs after I've done sufficient grinding to ensure that nothing poses much of a threat to me. It's also quite a handy feature, really - after all, if you've slogged through a hard dungeon and killed a boss, the last thing you want to do is try and slog back, only to die rooms from the exit.

 

[Valvalis]

I hate backtracking with a passion, because I always grind heavily on the way in and collect all the treasures right then And there is usually no reason for it plotwise in the FFs I've played. Probably the worst one I can think of off the top of my head is the Magnetic Cave in FFIV, you spend about fifteen years in there before the boss because your items are restricted, so the last thing you want to do on the way out after epic cutscene is slog your way back through all the Nagas, Ogres, and Vampire Bat women who know you by name at this point. But no, you have to go back and visit with them for almost as long in order to leave It's like seriously, do I live here or something?

 

[JigoKuu]

Yes, I also realised this! I wouldn't say I find it strange, but you should be prepared to backtrack. And then just be happy when you don't have to!
(Sometimes it's really hard to backtrack and fight with strong monsters but it's such a great feeling when you come out from a dungeon! I always try to set back my characters HP and MP because of later random battles. )

 

[Dionysos]

Automatic backtracking or exiting of dungeons is often a narrative device, or at times it is to be kinder to the player.

Few players are going to want to fight their way through a dungeon, then fight a powerful boss and potentially witness an emotionally taxing scene, only to then be told that they have to go back through the dungeon again to reach the exit. People will be very frustrated with Final Fantasy if they forced players to do this on more than a handful of occasions in each game.

Sometimes the might 'mix it up' a bit by having the boss battle or cutscene at the beginning of the dungeon (maybe even transporting the party to the middle of the dungeon first) but then make the party manually exit the dungeon and fight through it. This can work sometimes too. And if they want to be particularly mean to emphasise that a place is dangerous, then they might make a meal out of it by forcing the player to complete both journeys.

I think that FF1 and FF2 are exceptions because they are earlier titles. Later FF games a bit kinder, but when they do this I guess it is to make a particular moment more challenging.

But generally speaking to have to enter and then exit again would be too tedious. Not only that, but it would unnecessary from a narrative perspective. We get the essence of the characters being on a journey by seeing one leg of it, just like we get an essence of the inhabitants of the planet needing to sleep and eat by the occasional glimpse of tents and inns and dinner scenes. As gamers we aren't forced to take our party to the toilet, to eat several meals a day, or change their clothes. We also don't need to see their "Well, we should probably head back then" journeys.

I guess it's a bit like Frodo and Sam using the eagles for the return journey from Mordor. Who would want three additional books of them walking home, exhausted, and making small talk?