Worlds are so small in KH1, backtracking isn't an issue for me at all. Strange that it is for some people.
First time playing, got my Warp Drive just now.
It's really just Wonderland and Deep Jungle where it's sort of an issue. They both signpost where you're supposed to go next, but occasionally that happens in a missable line in a cutscene *or* in a conversation with an NPC *or* with the camera lingering on where you're supposed to go next at the end of a cutscene. Atlantica and Agrabah are equally bad about that, but they're also structured in a more linear fashion so that there are areas that are effectively further into the story than others and it's simpler to guess correctly at where you should go next.
KH1 Agrabah remains probably the best-designed world in the series, I think (I really love Hollow Bastion in that game too, but it's trickier to navigate on revisits and it's clearly in a different class from the rest - still, I'd love a final 'dungeon' as complex as that one again in KH3). Lots of verticality, platforming is challenging but not about pixel-perfect jumps like the Deep Jungle hippo room, plenty of puzzles to unlock new approaches to existing areas, High Jump and Glide open up new paths and reveal new chests on revisits, et cetera. So good.
ps I miss the progression-gating of the Trinity abilities, by the way, and that one dude who *liked* that flowmotion basically removes any kind of progression or platforming and just straight up gives you every chest and lets you overpower any encounter on normal difficulty and was like "just don't use it if you don't like it" can s my d
