>>31385678The Hoenn Map is fucked, and requiring 8 goddamn HMs to get around is obnoxious. The reason soaring seems so fucking wonderful is partially that it lets you bypass the bullshit of ledges, breakable rocks, and one-way water currents.
Another huge component to how much you enjoy Hoenn is tied to how often you play through the story. If you just complete it once, then stay in the post game, it's pretty enjoyable. Every subsequent playthrough will get more and more tedious.
While the number of mons you can obtain after the climate shift and in the post game is decent, the mid and late game, even with the safari zone, is ungodly stale.
It makes it such that ingame teams get really samey if you don't trade or use bank to transfer in some variety. The lack of variety is especially noticeable since ORAS comes off the heels of XY, which, though flawed in many ways, did have surprising variety all the way through the E4. SM also has comparatively superior variety.
The question then becomes "what did ORAS do right?" Soaring, DexNav, and micro level maps. That is to say, that the individual screens, outside of goddamn water, are interesting enough to distract you from the terribleness of the rest of the game's design.
