Jim Sterling (The Jimquisition)

'Tis true - and it's a sign of just how well-made aspects of that game's world was that it's still regarded so well. The world was good enough to compensate for its less-good parts.

Ah, understood, and agreed. I misinterpreted your post.

Beyond Good and Evil was a good example. Small world, but stuff to do in it, and it wasn't made bigger unless there was something meaningful to complete the campaign with. It's a very small world, but it was enough.

I've been watching some analytical videos on the difficulties and common pitfalls of big sandbox games. Mark Brown (Game Maker's Toolkit) has some nice videos where he talks about them.

Hm, just thinking about it, for you guys, which sandbox games do you think fit the criteria for good sandboxes? I heard Yakuza, Ocarina of Time and Skyrim. Does GTA: San Andreas count?

Witcher 3.

I would genuinely not consider any of the Zelda games to be "open world", unless we're talking about Breath of the Wild.

But I have a pretty specific definition of what open world is, I guess. I don't consider Dark Souls open world either, even though some people call it one.

Dark Souls is "3D Castlevania without the platforming".

Dark Souls is not an "open world" game, no. Playing the first game it's very much a succession of distinct levels connected together.

Which also just goes to show how beneficial a degree of linearity can be for a game. The idea of an actual sandbox Dark Souls game makes me shudder, because it would be such a betrayal of the original design principle.

The level design in Dark Souls is amazing. It feels sprawling, eerie, hostile, confusing yet logical. And you can't do that in an open-world game. You just can't.

Well, here's the thing: I'd say Dark Souls is arguably a sandbox, just not in the typical open-world sense. But due to its focus on freeform character building and emergent gameplay elements such as the drop-in-drop-out PvP it very much qualifies. You play through a Souls game once or twice for the experience, and after that it becomes a pure sandbox. And while you could argue that the same holds true for every game where after finishing it you start experimenting and try to pick apart the mechanics, Dark Souls is explicity built with that approach in mind.

edited 21st Jan '17 3:01:38 PM by TAPETRVE

Well, for me, a sandbox game is about how the world is built, not how its mechanics are structured. It's certainly a very freeform-style game in terms of how you can play it, but it's not a "go anywhere, anytime" world.

For me when I think an "open world" game I think you got a big map of an area, a big world map, you get dropped in it, and the game says to you "go nuts." Sometimes it'll have a thing where more of it gradually opens up (such as with Infamous, which essentially Beef Gates you until you turn the power on in whatever area), but fundamentally the principle is you can do more or less whatever you like in the area.

Dark Souls isn't like that. Dark Souls you beat the tutorial level and go to the main hub world, and from there you sort of have three options on where to go, except not really 'cause you'll just die if you try to go to Catacombs or New Londo Ruins. After you clear the Undead Parish then it starts to open up a bit more, but it's still definitely a "progress from level to level" thing, rather than having a big city you can careen through at will.

An evolutionary dead end.

GTA: San Andreas is a big open sandbox done almost perfectly. There's always something new to discover - the only thing it drops a major bollock on is gating off everything outside Los Santos until you've done most of the story relevant bits of the game. The modern-era games in the series only started being nearly as good as San Andreas when GTA: V rolled up, and that not-coincidentally is set in Los Santos.

Even then, I find GTA V too much of a "Random Task" simulator. Like it's more interested in making this deep city with a thousand things to do, than making any of them particularly interesting.

I'm a sucker for open world games, but I'm freely admit that not all games should be open world, and not all open world/sandbox games give you enough to do. Games that came to mind for me that do make really good use of it though are Saints Row 3 and 4 and Sleeping Dogs.

I'd have to agree about Majora's Mask. My fondness for that game and its game structure grew with time. I'm one of the vocal minority that considers it their favorite Zelda game. I would absolutely adore a proper sequel to it, or at least a new Zelda in that style.

Majora's Mask is also my favorite Zelda. I think it is legitimately a very interesting game and am glad to see it's become Vindicated by History.

@Pannic: I pretty much agree with you 100%, and you explained it probably better than I could.

I see sandboxes as fundamentally "messing around games".

Like TAPE said, Dark Souls does eventually become that but it's fundamentally a combat-centric Castlevania game in 3D, not really a game where you're dropped in a world and encouraged to do a bunch of random things.

There probably should be a distinction made between "open world" and "sandbox". A game can easily both have a linear narrative and open worlds fairly if it's a kind of game that has clear plot progression but with a lot of sidequests, like Xenoblade or many of the Final Fantasy games. To me, "open world" has more to do with technical aspects such as seamless transitioning between zones rather than being broken down into different "rooms" like older Zelda games. A small step below that would be a Hub connected to various "worlds" which are each their own seamless level, like Banjo Kazooie except Gruntilda's Lair is continuous and the only loading occurs when you enter each of the ~8 puzzle worlds.

A sandbox game on the other hand might be something like Terraria, Elder Scrolls or Breath of the Wild where yes, there may be some sort of overarching plot, but in general the focus is about exploring the world nonlinearly. It might be a very small sandbox, and therefore hard to call an open world, but the breadth of activity you can do in that small space is boundless.

Did Jim ever review the first Final Fantasy Tactics game on the PS One? I'd love to hear his opinion on that one.

He never did I believe.

Jim pens a review of Life of Black Tiger

Truly one of the gems of 2017. I think Sony may have found itself a new flagship series.

I have to confess I more or less considered "open world" and "sandbox" to be synonimous in my mind, but that distinction makes sense.

Also, I really don't mind having a smaller sandbox. You don't need some super huge amount of square miles to make something that is immersive and impressive. A sandbox should only be big enough to the point where it can be mostly filled with interesting things to do.

See the difference between the original Mercenaries and its boated mess of a sequel.

I will never get tired of the the Corn Flakes Homunculus.