>>46773417Well, first of all, we obviously have to consider each game for its own time. Otherwise, regardless of the game, over time everyone of them would be bad.
Although USUM offers new areas, both offer horrible exploration. There are no big dungeons or routes besides Vast Poni Canyon to explore, there are very few and all tiny optional areas to go, roadblocks in general are poor; in general it's a game with poor
agency.To not be unfair, it's worth noting that, although it's a bad thing either way, it's a trending main games have been following. XY had already been a downgrade in exploration in comparison to gen 5, just as was gen 5 in comparison to gen 4 due to the former's linearity, just as were all games from gen 3 onwards in relation to the first two gens, when they all started to become more story driven and gradually more linear. However, as said, it's bad anyway, and SM and USUM have taken it to a whole new level. Alola is also very small.
Another trending that continued until gen 5 was the factthe games have more and more post-game content each game (of course with each one still following its own category of vanilla game/enchacement), which culminated in a vanilla game (BW) having a relatively large post-game for once. So XY came and had a horrible post-game and SM didn't improve much on that. USUM was better, but still offers very little for an supposed enchanced version. I still remember its pre-release season, when trailer after trailer people were expecting them to "finally" drop the big news, which never happened.
The online systemalso managed to be worse than that of its predecessors. Presented less new Pokémon (as did XY). Cut Triple and Rotations. Cut National Dex. Double down on handhold. About USUM, Rainbow Rocket was just poor and forced fanservice. And they managed to make the main story worse than SMs. Legendaries also use generic rooms and generic backgrounds just like ORAS. RotomDex was also bad.
