Example; the Legend of Zelda: BotW and TotK weapon degradation system. At first I was annoyed at it, but once I stopped caring about my “favorite weapon” I really started to enjoy the system. I think it lends really well to the sandbox nature of the game and it itches that resourcefulness nature inside me.
The Original Mafia game is generally criticized for being a linear game in an open-world, but I think its linear nature is one of its strengths, because it gives the narrative a tight, driving focus that open world games tend to lack.
Shadow of the Colossus was linear, but I don’t recall anyone complaining.
I think Mafia received that criticism because of its surface level similarity to GTA, which is known for packing a ton of random side content in its open world.
In Mafia there is genuinely nothing to do out in the world when driving around outside of the main story missions, except for occasionally a mechanic at a garage will offer you some small mission to steal a newer and faster car. Because of that, people complained that the open-world part was pointless and a waste.
Is this the one where I kept trying to go visit my mom (as part of my belligerent insistence on looking for stuff to do in the open world after every mission), but the game wouldn’t let me go into any building that wasn’t the next story mission, and then later the main character got chewed out by his mom for never visiting her? I did find that annoying.
That might’ve happened in the sequel, but I don’t think you ever see the main character’s parents in the first game, but I do recall visiting them when you come back from WWII in the second game.
I wasn’t a big fan of the sequel, since I found the main characters to be unsympathetic assholes.
I think you’re right, it must have been the sequel!
Red dead redemption 2 was pretty linear and I think it’s one of the best games
In the case of rdr2, it has a linear story, but a plethora of side content the player can engage with outside of the main missions. In Mafia, there was a single person that would sometimes offer you little missions to steal faster and better cars, but otherwise had no side activities whatsoever in between driving to and from the story missions. The lack of side content was the main complaint.