I find the whole yellow paint argument to be stupid. Back in the day, level design was so spartan, that if you saw a ladder, you could resonably infer that you could climb the ladder. Nowadays level design has become so rich in detail that you need a way to differentiate between objects you can interact with and objects that are just placed for fluff.

Others have given probably similar examples, but Arin’s Mega Man X video both agrees with you and the post. It points out how some games used limited options in games (and showing examples before you died) to train you on ways the game works without the yellow paint. Your point is that games today don’t have the same limitations such as only travel right at the start, whereas the video points out there should be environmental designs that lead you to the answer.

With fully free 3d environments it’s harder to do that without yellow paint though.

Sequelitis - Mega Man Classic vs. Mega Man X

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