Backtracking Woes

[D4C]

Imagine this; you just traveled to 600 AD to talk to Frog, which would then prompt you to go back to the time portal and travel to 1000 to get the Madsume, only to travel again to 600 AD to get to the Magus fight. Every time you backtrack to the 600 AD portal you have to go through that same first area with the same low level enemies. And even though the enemies are on the overworld so you can avoid battles, there are some battles that you'll just have to do anyway, serving no purpose other than to waste your time.
I get that the game was made in 1995 and backtracking wasn't considered yet but we had Earthbound the year before and it handles backtracking perfectly, with low level enemies running away from you and instant KOs giving you EXP and $ while saving you precious time. Would it have been too much to ask for the Steam version to have something like that? Or maybe even a run option? Like seriously what other turn based RPG doesn't have a run option? Even Pokemon, which doesn't have overworld enemies, has the repel item so it doesn't even need the run option.
That's all, just needed to rant about a small nitpick

[Tequila Lemon]

Iirc, you could escape encounters on SNES by pressing a button combination during a battle, cant remember if it was L+R or all the face buttons (XABY), i'm not sure if it's possible on this version tho

[SpaciousJimmy]

Originally posted by Tequila Lemon:

Iirc, you could escape encounters on SNES by pressing a button combination during a battle, cant remember if it was L+R or all the face buttons (XABY), i'm not sure if it's possible on this version tho

It was L+R to run away. Funny I came across this discussion since I was just finishing max leveling everyone on the SNES version. The grinding is very tedious unless you have a mini-fridge with drinks next to you.

[Serafie1999AD]

It's L+R with a controller, but has anybody found their keyboard equivalents if you aren't playing with a controller? I tried the keys that I had mapped for the L and R functions, but they were just moving the battle menu around.

EDIT: Looks like pressing the keyboard equivalents of L+R makes you flee even with a keyboard. You just have to press them both at the same time and hold them.

[Plaxus]

Originally posted by LittleDeez:

Imagine this; you just traveled to 600 AD to talk to Frog, which would then prompt you to go back to the time portal and travel to 1000 to get the Madsume, only to travel again to 600 AD to get to the Magus fight. Every time you backtrack to the 600 AD portal you have to go through that same first area with the same low level enemies. And even though the enemies are on the overworld so you can avoid battles, there are some battles that you'll just have to do anyway, serving no purpose other than to waste your time.
I get that the game was made in 1995 and backtracking wasn't considered yet but we had Earthbound the year before and it handles backtracking perfectly, with low level enemies running away from you and instant KOs giving you EXP and $ while saving you precious time. Would it have been too much to ask for the Steam version to have something like that? Or maybe even a run option? Like seriously what other turn based RPG doesn't have a run option? Even Pokemon, which doesn't have overworld enemies, has the repel item so it doesn't even need the run option.
That's all, just needed to rant about a small nitpick

lol, travelling between those points right before getting masumune literally takes 5 minutes you baby.. Come on, why are people so picky about any level of back tracking at all? Anytime you revisit anything, even just to breeze past it, people still complain. I don't get it. its like people have never driver the same road to work before or something. It's part of a narrative story to wander back and forth once in a while. Sorry the game isn't made in a tunnel and expects you to revisit things.

[D4C]

Originally posted by Plaxus:

Originally posted by LittleDeez:

Imagine this; you just traveled to 600 AD to talk to Frog, which would then prompt you to go back to the time portal and travel to 1000 to get the Madsume, only to travel again to 600 AD to get to the Magus fight. Every time you backtrack to the 600 AD portal you have to go through that same first area with the same low level enemies. And even though the enemies are on the overworld so you can avoid battles, there are some battles that you'll just have to do anyway, serving no purpose other than to waste your time.
I get that the game was made in 1995 and backtracking wasn't considered yet but we had Earthbound the year before and it handles backtracking perfectly, with low level enemies running away from you and instant KOs giving you EXP and $ while saving you precious time. Would it have been too much to ask for the Steam version to have something like that? Or maybe even a run option? Like seriously what other turn based RPG doesn't have a run option? Even Pokemon, which doesn't have overworld enemies, has the repel item so it doesn't even need the run option.
That's all, just needed to rant about a small nitpick

lol, travelling between those points right before getting masumune literally takes 5 minutes you baby.. Come on, why are people so picky about any level of back tracking at all? Anytime you revisit anything, even just to breeze past it, people still complain. I don't get it. its like people have never driver the same road to work before or something. It's part of a narrative story to wander back and forth once in a while. Sorry the game isn't made in a tunnel and expects you to revisit things.

I can't speak for you, but it's because of backtracking why Metroid Prime lost all its immersion for me, or Kirby's Triple Deluxe where you have to go through the same areas all over again in one long compilation

[theclaw135]

The game does have pacing issues here and there.

But for better or worse repeating things is more than a gaming tradition, it's iconic. Pac-Man has a pattern to clear the same maze again and again until the game bugs out.