>>15592988>you only had to surf through like two routes in those games....What are you going on about? The second halves of the Hoenn games were pretty much nothing but water routes and caves, and caves that were water routes and water routes that were caves. Not including the optional routes:
>The path(s) from Dewford/Slateport to the Abandoned Ship for the Scanner and Dive HM(?)>The path from Lilycove to Mossdeep>The path from Mossdeep to Sootopolis>The path from Sootopolis to Evergrande>(Emerald only, I think) The Magellanic voyage from Sootopolis to Sky PillarAgain, those are only the water routes that the game FORCES you to take. That doesn't factor in optional routes, like the multiple choice agony of Pacifidlog to Slateport, or the half sea/half land routes like Mauville to Fortree, or all of the other locations/caves that you needed Surf to fully explore.
Christ, looking back, the worst thing about Hoenn was the sheer number of HM moves you needed. The big routes were cool and all, and the exploration bits were nice, but DAMN did things get tiring fast when you've dedicated three moveslots to being able to fully traverse water, with only one of those moves actually being worth using, plus another three totally outclassed moves to get through caves, plus an even worse move because Hoenn spammed Cut trees more than any other region ever, plus Fly.
Shit, at least Shitnoh made Waterfall worth using, as well as making Fly much better for in-game purposes.
At least Shitnoh had the mercy to let you shift gears on the bike, instead of forcing you to spend the next third of the game backtracking to the same, miserable city to switch bikes so you can get the item on that other set of cliffs.
Though Hoenn does have the Trick House, which is the fucking shit. We need Trick Master to make a glorious return at some point, Hoenn sequels or not.
