Quoted By:
>WHY ISN'T EVERY ROUTE PERFECTLY OPTIMISED FOR TRANSPORT, IF I EVER HAVE TO TOUCH A SINGLE TILE OF GRASS MY IMMERSION COMPLETELY DISAPPEARS
>WHY SHOULDN'T EVERY ROUTE BE A LABYRINTH, HUH? AESTHETICS SHOULD NEVER BE CONSIDERED WHEN ASSESSING DESIGN, THEY ONLY HOLD THE GAME WHICH RELIES A LOT ON AESTHETICS BACK
when will you faggots realise that it's not a black/white issue (inb4 "we're literally discussing pokemon black/white"), and for an optimal route a good balance has to be struck, holy shit
a route designed solely for realism will be completely uninteresting in the context of the game, a la whatever SM route is in op's image
a route designed solely for gameplay will destroy immersion, making the game world feel less special, a la route 12/13
the ideal route has a slight bias towards gameplay, but generally keeps the two aspects in mind rather than throwing one out for the other
however, unova route 6 is fucking kino, in a world where everybody has a pokemon and there are very efficient ways to get from city to city that don't demand ground transport, not every route needs to be believably navigatable for some dude with no way to defend himself (and it shouldn't ever be that way anyway, having wilder areas like this adds variety to the game world and makes it feel like an real place where man and nature live side by side)