>>15328331I'm not sure I completely agree with you about Johto, but if you rated it so high because of the lore, eh, alright. I can see why you'd do it then.
However Hoenn was probably the most creative design-wise, and as you mentioned the exploration was fucking fantastic. So I think putting it in a lower tier than Unova is a little, especially since its biggest problem, the water routes, were only bad because the encounters were not balanced well, and not because they were rushed, or boring. The problem isn't inherently the fault of the map, unlike Unova's linearity and short routes.
Just my opinion, though.
