Basic Trope: You return to areas you have already visited.
- Straight: Beating the game requires visiting several areas multiple times.
- Exaggerated: You have to go through the entire game at least five times in order to beat it.
- Downplayed: Only few areas are required to visit twice and it doesn't really get annoying.
- Justified: There are no shortcuts that take you back to plot-relevant towns once you complete an objective at the end of a path, meaning you'll have to return through that same path in order to progress in the game.
- Inverted: You are not even able to return anywhere.
- Subverted:
- After some adventuring, you get a tool that you can use to get into earlier towns as much as you want.
- Turns out the entire old area is now different, after an event that turns every inhabitant in the said area into zombies.
- Double Subverted:
- And then you lose that tool.
- But then you have to revisit the same area over and over again, with nothing changed.
- Parodied: The tool you find has transformed every single area in the game into a duplicate of one of the areas you've already visited, creating a loop.
- Zig Zagged: There are only some points in the game where you must revisit old areas. Other times, it's straightforward.
- Averted: You get said tool in the very start.
- Enforced:
- The developers want to add content, but there's limited space in the game world.
- Metroid Vania.
- Lampshaded: "Are you sure you're not just lost?"
- Invoked: The Big Bad destroys the built-in teleporters and seals off shortcuts, forcing you to go on back on foot using the same path.
- Exploited: The Mooks set up traps at places that they know you have to go through.
- Defied: The main character obtains a personal teleportation device, allowing him to skip already-visited areas.
- Discussed: "Why is there no shortcut?"
- Conversed: ???
- Played For Drama: The tool you find launches a World-Wrecking Wave, fundamentally changing the entire game world. Every area you revisit (that hasn't been destroyed) is forever altered by the wave.
Back to Backtracking.