>>14319621>in the end, content is contentNot when the game asks you to progress in a linear fashion.
Look, there are two separate ethos you could take here.
If you take the Fallout ethos, where there's this big fucking world and it exists and you go have fun now, y'hear?, but if you'd like there's this shit you can do that is a good story, then fine. That open world ethos is a big part of RPG design and it's totally cool to present the world in that fashion, and if you do so then to say "content is content" is exactly correct. There's nothing to be gained from arbitrarily walling off a section of this content and saying "STORY FIRST OR NO ENTER"
But Pokemon takes a different ethos; it railroads you. It railroads you to death. It demands you walk in a straight goddamn line; it cleverly masks this by making you backtrack, but ultimately that's just taking the straight line and tying it in knots; the fact that paths cross doesn't matter if you can't get from A to C unless you first go to B to talk to the right person or get the right HM or activate the right event. It's linear gameplay arranged on a nonlinear surface.
In that context, order of presentation is EVERYTHING. Because the game trains you to progress; it teases you with glimpses of other paths, promising you that if you keep truckin' along, your reward will be to unveil the grand picture, to connect the disparate passages and entities, and to have systematically uncovered a world to play in. That world is your reward; the reason you play the linear game is to earn it. The post-game, then, is the whole point; it's the shit you're finally free to do with this new place you've uncovered, at long last unburdened by the confines of progression.
For the game to progress in this fashion and then have no post-game is like for your reward for beating a boss to be a kickass new weapon, only for the world to be devoid of enemies to kill with it.
