>>38250277The problem with Hoenn as a region is that too much of it is dedicated to one environment, standard ocean. Having water as an environment isn't an inherently bad thing, hell other parts of Hoenn like the Island hopping around Route 105 and Route 106 or the River of Route 119 utilize water in interesting ways.
I think Hoenn would've benefited had they more evenly divided the routes of Water and land in a sort of tit-for-tat situation, now this would likely mean many areas would require bridges but if you play it smart you can use Bridges like on Route 110 to meld water and land together. It would also help if Dive was used more and there was more variety in the environments on the oceanside, stuff like Mangrove Forests, Coral Reefs, Deep Sea Trenches (proper ones), Great Kelp Fields, High Speed Rapids, Giant Whirlpools and colossal waves would help make the oceanic Routes more interesting if no more than two or three focused on the same theme.
That being said, 34 Routes is still a pretty fucking impressive feat and it's disappointing that ever since Gen 4 we haven't gotten a region with an even remotely comparable Route count and size.
