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Most annoying regional layouts in any game?

Trillion

Well-Known Member
Not really annoying in the traditional sense but trying to get to the one wall to Rock Climb in Mt Coronet to get to Spear Pillar in BDSP is rather annoying. I kept jumping off the ledge at least 30 times even though I stopped moving forward and it took me five minutes of going back and running away from wild Pokémon before I got to the wall
i know the exact spot you're talking about. i hated it lol

it's like you have to turn a certain way at just the right spot while moving forward
 

janejane6178

Kaleido Star FOREVER in my heart <3
Alola and Galar because there was nothing worth traversing.
THIS. Especially Galar. And it didn't help they added 2 separated open areas after a year. They felt disconnected from the main region and they also felt empty for not having trainers
 

corruptZ

Well-Known Member
Gen 6: I have no experience with this either.
In the Kanto region, Pikachu is always a priority, that's annoying regional
 

Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
THIS. Especially Galar. And it didn't help they added 2 separated open areas after a year. They felt disconnected from the main region and they also felt empty for not having trainers

That's pretty typical for DLC. Usually DLC is relatively disconnected from the main game content. It can be pretty difficult to add onto an existing design and that would also raise concerns about the DLC being cut content sold for extra money. It makes perfect sense that SwSh's and any future DLC is more along the lines of the Sevii Islands or Battle Zone.
 

Sαpphire

Johto Champion
Honestly, reading through a lot of this thread makes me realize just how much Kalos, Alola, and Galar suffer due to linearity. I think that’s probably a huge reason that I feel like the franchise drops in quality for XY, USUM, and SwSh (SM I can forgive because the story is good enough that it made me want to progress).

Having grown up on Johto, one of my favorite things in the whole series is how you can go three different directions (two literally, but three figuratively) once you clear Ecruteak. You can take off toward Lake of Rage and deal with Price and the Team Rocket infestation in Mahogany; you can go toward Olivine and Cianwood and prioritize beating Chuck before healing Amphy; or you can mix it up and do the latter without beating Chuck, instead challenging Jasmine immediately.

That simple array of a few options has always felt very freeing. The fact that you can do something similar in Hoenn and Sinnoh, along with all the loops that allow you to easily backtrack on old areas with the benefit of new field moves to find hidden things, made the earlier regions feel so much more open. (Forgive me, though, for I honestly don’t recall if there are places in Unova where you can easily diverge from the “standard” path)

To follow that with regions where you’re largely pushed forward in one direct path, and without many (…any?) secrets and side dungeons to discover, is so very frustrating.
 

Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
Forgive me, though, for I honestly don’t recall if there are places in Unova where you can easily diverge from the “standard” path)

Not really, no. Unova is what started all of that linearity because of complaints over Sinnoh being "too confusing". Unova has more optional dungeons than Kalos, Alola, and Galar, but you're completely locked in to completing the game in a particular order.

Really that was an overreaction, most of the complaints over Sinnoh have to do with poor signaling over which areas are mandatory to progress, not anything in the region design being confusing. I myself even got stuck in DP after I beat Byron because I didn't have the Strength HM and I didn't want to explore Lost Tower because it looked too dull and tedious. Unfortunately, I was unaware that you had to explore it to get Strength and there was little pointing you in that direction (there was an NPC in Hearthome, but he's easily missable/ignorable and you can progress so much further than that before you really need Strength that once you get to that point, finding him again becomes a needle in a haystack). I've seen other complaints about missing the Galactic grunt in Pastoria which you need to encounter to get the Secretpotion from Cynthia to clear the Psyducks on Rt. 210, and there's probably been a fair amount of people missing the HMs for Defog and Rock Climb because they're both in areas you wouldn't think/want to explore (Defog being from some random NPC near the start of the Safari Zone and Rock Climb in the middle of the big mess on Rt. 217). They were right to have a few more cutscenes to point you in the right direction, but they overcorrected and made the exploration mind-numbingly easy (really they had this issue a lot in some of the middle generations. Region too confusing to explore? Fine we'll make it braindead easy. Too many cross gen evolutions? We'll remove all of them then. Too many new Pokemon? We'll only give you a handful next gen).
 

janejane6178

Kaleido Star FOREVER in my heart <3
I dont think u can compare Kalos to base Galar. Kalos had alot more places to explore and a none narrow routes, unlike Galar. It didnt even have ONEEEEe puzzle area. The closet thing to a cave it had is a mine which was super linear and u there was one straight path and thats it.
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
Not really, no. Unova is what started all of that linearity because of complaints over Sinnoh being "too confusing". Unova has more optional dungeons than Kalos, Alola, and Galar, but you're completely locked in to completing the game in a particular order.

Really that was an overreaction, most of the complaints over Sinnoh have to do with poor signaling over which areas are mandatory to progress, not anything in the region design being confusing. I myself even got stuck in DP after I beat Byron because I didn't have the Strength HM and I didn't want to explore Lost Tower because it looked too dull and tedious. Unfortunately, I was unaware that you had to explore it to get Strength and there was little pointing you in that direction (there was an NPC in Hearthome, but he's easily missable/ignorable and you can progress so much further than that before you really need Strength that once you get to that point, finding him again becomes a needle in a haystack). I've seen other complaints about missing the Galactic grunt in Pastoria which you need to encounter to get the Secretpotion from Cynthia to clear the Psyducks on Rt. 210, and there's probably been a fair amount of people missing the HMs for Defog and Rock Climb because they're both in areas you wouldn't think/want to explore (Defog being from some random NPC near the start of the Safari Zone and Rock Climb in the middle of the big mess on Rt. 217). They were right to have a few more cutscenes to point you in the right direction, but they overcorrected and made the exploration mind-numbingly easy (really they had this issue a lot in some of the middle generations. Region too confusing to explore? Fine we'll make it braindead easy. Too many cross gen evolutions? We'll remove all of them then. Too many new Pokemon? We'll only give you a handful next gen).
Well Mt Coronet could get confusing in Gen IV on the inside and remembering which Rock Climb walls led where. Unova was a bit linear but the Seasons mechanic made revisiting each area worth it.
 

Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
Well Mt Coronet could get confusing in Gen IV on the inside and remembering which Rock Climb walls led where.

Yeah, I don't get this. Rock Climb walls are a straight line so all you have to do is trace to the top and bottom of the walls to figure out where they lead. It's not rocket science.

Unova was a bit linear but the Seasons mechanic made revisiting each area worth it.

Seasons were way too long to be worthwhile IMO. You run out of things to do long before the seasons change. They really should've been a week, not a month.
 

PCN24454

Well-Known Member
I'm not really "rushing" as much as naturally running out of things I want to do after about a month or two. Sitting around waiting for another 2 months to cycle through every seasons is just too drawn out.
Even when I was a kid, I could never rush through a game cause I would always be interrupted by something.
 

Taodragon

Training Anaylst
Seasons being a month long is definitely a fair complaint. I love the mechanic and I appreciate how it changed up certain areas to a point where revisiting them was worthwhile, but having to wait a month to experience those changes is a bit much since even a long playthrough can miss those. Being a week long would've been better, and I hope a remake will do that so more people can have that varying experience.
 

UltimateNinja

Praying for the holy relics
Seasons in gen V...was wasted potential. Other than unlocking a blocked path to an item and very slightly altered ost there wasn't much going on. The different look was nice at first but way to undynamic. Also they are the reason why Unovas landscape felt like it was one big forest so they could show of the differences in look better.

I like the idea though and a new approach to that in gen 9.
 

Pokefan_1987

Avid Pokemon TCG Card collector.
You are wonderful
So accurate
About Galar yes. Kinda like sightseeing.

Alola actually has a nice ammount of things if you dig through it. If you rush everything like a speedrunner then it's easy to miss out on items and it will feel empty to average player. But the layout is confusing to put it mildly.
 
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Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
About Galar yes. Kinda like sightseeing.

Alola actually has a nice ammount of things if you dig through it. If you rush everything like a speedrunner then it's easy to miss out on items and it will feel empty to average player. But the layout is confusing to put it mildly.

Alola has no more hidden secrets than any other region, every region does that to some degree. Some of the older regions had a bit more complex designs and puzzles that made it more involved, but Alola just mainly has a few dead ends. The only thing Alola really has going for it is that SM and USUM are 3D games without a controllable camera, so it can be hard to see certain paths behind objects, but other than that there's really not much that's "easy to miss".
 

Ryker101

Well-Known Member
Sinnoh is a slog to get through imo, especially cause of how slow DP/Pt were. Wayy too many HMs and you’d need to backtrack a lot
 
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