>every island has a small area surrounded by rocks >This

k

>>26646153
>There's no way gamefreak would actually let us surf across the ocean

Yeah, but we could at least have had a water route between each island, like you'd expect from an archipelagi region

But unfortunately, IGN went full retard and spouted /vp/'s worst meme in the open...

Hoenn
>FUCKING SO MUCH WATER WHAT ARE THEY THINKING THIS IS BAD MAP DESIGN

Alola
>FUCKING SMALL ASS OCEANS AND LINEAR ROUTES LAZY DEVS FUCK YOU

Make up your fucking mind.

>>26646252
There is literally nothing wrong with Hoenn's water routes.

>>26646265
*random encounter*
>oh more water
gr8 design wow

>>26646279
>what are repels
>being poor that fucking late in the game

>>26646153
>Implying you don't get surf until the last island

>>26646279
ORAS lower encounters were the ocean done right, and they needed more normal encounter patches too to fish in.

>>26646153
>implying we won't be using a boat similar to soar
to discover dive spots with underwater ruins

I don't have a problem with linearity in and of itself, but linearity needs to serve a purpose. You have to have some story that you want to tell that requires a linear progression, and Pokemon only really had anywhere close to enough to justify that in Platinum and B/W. Or there needs to be some gameplay progression that keeps the player needing to strategize instead of just cheaply level grind, like stopping the player with a team led by a level 25 whatever-Popplio-turns-into and a Level 24 something caught with a Rod from stomping the level 30-something Ground-type Gym, buying an Ice-type TM only available at the department store, and then coming back to a 20-something Grass Gym when his leads' type disadvantages have ceased to mean anything. But that kind of challenge hasn't been there in a very long time, and they sure as fuck aren't going to do it now that they've spent every game since Hoenn handing us more powerful teammates and giving us faster options to level up at every opportunity.

Then again, open-endedness is so much better when there's a lot of exploration and freedom. And Game Freak is too lazy and too Japanese to do that.

File: 1454701093552.jpg (44KB, 500x566px) Image search: [Google]

44KB, 500x566px

>>26646315

I bet there will be more routeblocks like the stupid shit in B/W and B/W2

>>26646153
>tunnels connecting the islands

>no small boats like hoenn to travel between islands

most likely the tunnels might be their own areas but boat rides are cool