>>41187792That route is really sad too, because you can't even visit the top half until later. It might as well be two separate routes. Not only that, but the paths lead straight to the story destinations. That line going from, uh, "Pueblo Ohana" to "Colina Saltagua" is the story route. And on the top half, that small line going from Route 8 to "Jungla Umbria" is the story route.
Yes, there are optional things to the side, but they don't even begin to compare to what we got before.
>>41188501The stuff off to the right is vaguely interesting, but it's once again a short linear path from the entrance to the route to the story destination.
Short linear routes exist in every game, that's a given, but normally there are a lot of routes with some that are pretty great (ie. Johto Route 45 and Kanto Route 27 are both in HGSS). Sinnoh did great routes pretty often, and there are some really good Hoenn ones too.
Overworld and dungeon design are some of the most important features to me in a Pokémon game. It saddens me that people don't bring it up much for Sword and Shield and it's usually treated as a footnote among the complaints while everyone focuses on Dexit. Like I would be fine with a Pokémon game with 400 Pokémon if everything else was great.
