Why is this game linear?

[Gnidex]

This is not as much critique as... comentary about design choices.

The design of the game seems odd to me because the game feels like it was designed to be completely non-linear. The story of the game seems to be designed around possibility that every dungeon being beaten in any order and any half-genie to be rescued at any order (with exception of Fillin Ima the Blank Goodgirl). And yet, the game introduces roadblocks that need to be completed in order to progress, everyone does dungeons in the same order unless they glitch out of bounds.

This is still my favorite Shantae game (and my favorite game of 2020 at the moment), but I think it would be better if it didn't require so much guesswork where to go next (the problem shared between all Shantae games) because multiple choices would be valid, leading to the ultimate goal of rescuing half-genies while the arsenal of moves grows with each dungeon and quest for Fusion Stone. Not many changes would be required.

[Sanctherion]

It's rare for metroidvanias to open up before all abilities are collected. After playing Breath of the Wild last fall, I started to wonder why it's structure, of giving the player all the abilities from the start and letting to use them to complete tasks in any order, hasn't really been applied to modern 2D metroidvanias.

One exception I know, is Toki Tori 2, which I learned about from a Game Maker's Toolkit video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=084BUNlI7Gk Even Mark Brown highlights that most metroidvanias are kinda linear (before the final hours of course). I haven't played Toki Tori 2, but I'm interested to see how it handles the unlinear design.

Ori ATWOTW has a part, in which you can complete four areas in any order, so the game is a mix of both linear and unlinear design.

Seven Sirens has lots of improvements over it's predecessors, but it's still built on the retro-like foundations of the first game. It feel a lot "older" than some more modern style games like Ori and Guacamelee. So I think WayForward didn't want to stray too far from the series roots. But I hope they do that in the future, adding features like more modern physics and making the game more open from the beginning.

Since I'm on the topic, one dated thing that bothers me is the hair whip. It's collision area is so narrow, that it's common to miss hits on certain enemies. Also the attack should have a few different animations depending on how many times you hit consecutively, it would look a lot cooler.

[Gnidex]

I know 2 exceptions that rely on hidden abilities, but have typical item progression: Rabi-Ribi and Super Metroid. Both have a hidden walljump ability which is not obvious and opens the game much more than railloaded path. Rabi-Ribi it's open to such extreme that the game allows 0% runs. Both games are a bit collectathon in their nature - Rabi-Ribi is about recruiting town members and Super Metroid about defeating 4 bosses which somehow make a blocking statue break. When playing Sat7S, I kept thinking about those 2 games.

I don't like the idea of giving all abilities from the start (with exception of NG+) because a big appeal of metroidvanias is growth of power and abilities. If you remove that, the game will become a lot more monotone and reduces replay value (routing doesn't matter anymore).

[Sanctherion]

Might play both of them, when my backlog has space.

Metroid would be good for common knowledge since both that and Castlevania basically created the genre. Though I'm more interested in Symphony of the Night than Super Metroid.

I know about Rabi Ribi, but forgot about it at one point. I'm a bit unsure about it because of the bullet hell features. Still interested to see how it handles non linearity.