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We've all played them. Backtracking, not knowing where to go. Going back and forth. Name some of these games from your memory. I'll start: Final Fantasy XIII-2, RE1
I remember there being a few points like that in Megaman Legends 1 and 2.
The original Bard's Tale
Me and my best friend literally spent a month of near nightly playing trying to get through the first in-town dungeon
Daggerfall also fits the bill
A couple times in Linda Cubed Again. The game's next objectives are told to you by characters, or through the in-game voicemail system.
However, there is no "current quest" screen so if you take a break from the game, you can easily forget where you left off.
Also, it doesn't help that the game was only released in Japan (and fan translated only recently) so there's not a lot of walkthroughs you can follow.
So many times in GTA V I had no idea how to trigger the next mission. I would probably go back to it and play through if it had some sort of indicator for how to trigger the next campaign mission.
Half Life 2 for me
Jedi Fallen Order has no fast travel and the map sucks, do you often end up lost or backtracking.
Divinity Original Sin is also one that doesn't guide the player particularly well.
Jedi survivor is the exact same way
Myst, sometimes Max Payne, Doom 3, Tomb Raider
Just started playing a simple isometric game called Tunic. It's cute, and you play as a little button mashing fox creature with a sword in a language that's gibberish as you find hidden paths in the isometric style. It's frustrating for being so simplistic, because the hidden paths are hidden. I kinda like it so far tho. Just simple, relaxing, chill music, and cute AF artwork.
Fantastic game. If you haven't been already, you can tilt the camera slightly to get a peek at some of the hidden paths.
Absolutely adored that game! It's one of those that I wish I could replay without having remembers how I uncovered all the various secrets.
This is an extremely specific situation in a game, but...
In World of Warcraft, back in the day, there was a dungeon in Outland, I believe it was Helfire Citadel. It wasn't particularly hard, but if you died, you were screwed. The way dungeon deaths worked was your spirit would spawn in a graveyard out in the regular world, and you would have to run your spirit ass back to the dungeon entrance to respawn. But finding the entrance to Helfire Citadel was so difficult I told the group if they don't rez me, they'd have to just kick me, because I'd never make it back in. It was awful.
There is a reason that as long as Hellfire Citadel has existed, the first Google auto complete suggestion is "Hellfire Citadel entrance."
Control had me wandering around.
That's one of the best games I've played with one of the worst map designs I've ever seen.
I actually gave up because I was lost in an office most of the time. It was just dull.
Try Platoon on the NES, you get bombarded by ennemies while you have to find your way through this abomination of a maze!
Metroid and Legend of Zelda I and II for NES.
Metroid for sure.
Metroid 2 was really bad for this too. If I hadn't been on a very long and boring vacation all those years ago, I probably would have never finished it.
Everyone should feel free to start their Metroid journey with Super Metroid.
The old text adventures where being able to solve a puzzle required hitting the right words. "Oh, twist, not pull."
Dear God those text parser adventures. I remember playing Hugo's House of Horrors and trying for the longest time to remove some screws from a grate.
Okay screws np.
UNSCREW SCREWS
I don't know how to do that.
REMOVE SCREWS
I don't know how to do that.
Reeeee... Turns out it only responded specifically to UNDO SCREWS
It is like a game designed by a bitter English teacher.
I would say many games with procedural generated worlds, like Minecraft, No Man's Sky, etc. Where the main task is deciding where do I go next, where do I settle down, maybe there is some better place over the next hill, next planet, etc.
There are other games, where it is also sometimes not quite clear what to do next. Like games have a lot of progression and rebuilding of stuff that was done before because of it. Like Satisfactory, Factorio, etc.
And on a more literal sense, where you actually redo the game over and over to progress, like The Stanley Parable or Outer Wilds.
Some games have a very labyrinthine level design, where it also isn't really clear what to do next, like Dark Souls, Subnautica, etc.
Or environment puzzles, where you have to figure out how to progress, like the Myst series, Riven, etc.
Open ended games, like Minecraft and NMS , can be really hard for people who only play 'on rails' type games to wrap their minds around. 'Whats the point?', the same one as in living your life.
Also, personal opinion, Stanley Parable is NOT a game. It is a walking simulator with a bunch of bad philosophy thrown in.
Wherever Stanley Parable is a game or not, isn't really important. Someone could make the argument that open ended games, without a clear winning or completion state aren't games, but instead simulations.
Someone could argue that the winning or completion state of Stanley Parable is seeing all endings.
Other people say that to be a game, you need some kind of adversary or challenge to overcome, but that would depend on the definition of challenge. Is figuring out what to do in order to see a ending you haven't seen before a challenge? If not, that would exclude many other genres.
So I just do not want to down the road of making useless distinctions, and be liberal in my understanding of words, and just ask if something is not clear.
I just call Stanley Parable a game, because the creators call it a game, you can buy it and games similar to it for game consoles and on Steam under the game category. Wherever you can or cannot find enjoyment in experiencing it, does not depend on wherever it is a game or not.
Morrowind.
Can you find this person whom wandered off into the ashlands? They went east-ish.
I've spent more time than I'd like to admit in the Construction Kit to find out where in Vivec's name I had to go this time. Usually it turned out I just barely missed the person or location I had to go before starting an hourlong search.
But despite that still a game I deeply love.
Jesus, the finding people thing was tough, but finding the quest item that I had already looted from a grave and either dropped or sold to a random merchant? Game ending, man.
That's what I like about the game. The NPCs tell you where to go to the best of their ability, and you follow to the best of yours. I like it a hell of a lot more than quest markers.
There is at least one occasion where NPCs just straight up lie to you in quest directions though. I can't think of it off the top of my head but I remember it existing because I complained about it on a forum.
On one hand - great worldbuilding! "Local dumbass gives you bad directions" is a funny and memorable point on top of what might otherwise be a forgettable side quest. On the other hand, I spent the better part of four hours looking for whatever egg mine or ancestral tomb or whatever it was he asked me to find before getting fed up and having UESP tell me "lol no actually it's off in this complete other direction", and I'm pretty sure I assassinated that NPC after I turned in his quest.
That's my experience with 99% of old school point and click games. At some point in every one it devolved into me running in circles and trying every item on every object.