>>34533750There are so many ways they could have improved HMs it isn't even funny.
>CutIt used to be able to remove grass, allowing players to avoid battles or just tool around. That was actually pretty cool but it gets no mention in-game. Bring that back and have it reveal items that you'd need to use the itemfinder you locate otherwise. Put trees on a timer instead so they don't grow back so quickly.
>StrengthBetter puzzles. That's the main issue. Make more objects movable instead of just the same old boulders. Add some flavor.
>Rock SmashMake it a more useful move in battle and it becomes decent and almost desirable early game fighting coverage. Make more rocks one time only. IIRC I've seen just one rock that doesn't reappear after being broken.
>Rock ClimbMake it like strength so you don't have to activate it every time you want to climb rocks. Maybe even have it let you scale small cliffs like the acro bike.
>SurfIts problem isn't in puzzles or whatever, but in route design and encounter variety. How they managed to make water mons one of the largest groups of all the types but water routes the most homogenous routes encounter-wise is beyond me.
>DiveJust add more stuff to do underwater. Christ.
>WaterfallMake the rewards blocked by waterfalls cooler. Half the time you only need the move to access an extra room or two in a cave. That gets boring very quickly.
The biggest complaint about the water HMs is that you usually need all of them at once for certain areas, and that really does bother a lot of people. But with better-designed routes that wouldn't be as big of an issue. An alternate solution would just be to merge certain HMs together so players feel less overwhelmed. Rock Smash could be handled by Strength and Waterfall and Dive by Surf, or something like that. Ride is a nice idea but it really just screams "we give up lol goodbye cuttable trees", you know?
