>>37826497i mean sorta
agency and variability is what people are looking for when they talk about linearity being bad
being able to replay the game and do shit completely differently than you did the first time is an very cool thing, or even just comparing your experience to other peoples
pokemon has a lot of that built into the formula already with how you select pokemon for your team and how many choices there usually are, but the exploration and game outside of the battle format has always been EXTREMELY lackluster, unironically peaking in gen 1 due to how expansive dungeons are and how choices open up around the 4th gym, and this is a big part of why people remember those games so fondly
take this
>>37827828 as an example
the pokemon way to do this would be to put arbitrary roadblocks on two of the roads so youre forced to go to city b through the forest first, then put another roadblock on either the mountain or plain path so the trip back to a forces you through one of the other towns
this is what people mean by "linear", not that theres only one road, its thats theres only one ROUTE that you can take to progress through the game and it is static and forced regardless of how you play
simply because there are 3 roads that will open up as you play the game does not make it less linear, and only having one "hallway" route you can go can still be incredibly nonlinear if events that happen on that path can vary based on choices you make as a player
