Hi all. I’m currently 300hrs+ into Shield, training up my competitive shiny teams to battle with friends. I needed to grab Acrobatics from the loser in Ballonlea because it’s one of the few things I’d missed during the story. Returning to Ballonlea just reminded me (and angered me) how absolutely terrible Gen 8’s town designs are. I’d go as far as to say they are the worst designed and planned cities in any of the Pokémon regions.

Ballonlea has TWO houses and ONE semi-circle road. You travel STRAIGHT through to the gym, which you can immediately challenge and then leave. The whole town takes 10minutes to 100%.

Spikemuth they literally couldn’t be bothered to create a city for. There are NO buildings, and ONE SIDE-SCROLLING walkway. You challenge a handful of shitty yell members and beat the gym. Again, likely under 10minutes.

Stow-on-side at least has some twists and turns in it’s straightforward layout. Again, TWO houses, a useless outcrop to put an item on, and a straight path to the gym (which you only need to detour 10ft to the left and win one fight before challenging)

Circhester is one of the better designs in the game, however it’s all faux bloat. The only buildings worth going in are the stores and hotels. Only one of the many houses actually includes any meaningful dialogue or an item.

Hulbury is like circhester, there’s a decent amount of houses, and a whole 3 different paths to follow. However, none of the houses are useful at all, and most of the businesses are useless too, sans the one story point linked to them.

Hammerlocke and Motostoke are big and empty, Hammerlocke even more so than Motostoke, with the only attractions being one or two shop buildings.